One Night in the Desert

There are two types of desert in Iran: Sahra is a desert that has some life in it. Kavir is the desert that looks like a sea, where life is very scarce. There are two massive 'kavir' located in central Iran. Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut.

About 5 hours drive southeast of Tehran, begins the Dasht-e Kavir, a.k.a. Kavir-e Namak (The Great Salt Desert)--800 km long and 320 km wide, the size of Serbia.

We had the good fortune to travel with a desert expert, and tour leader, Hamid, whom you can now find out about in the latest Iran Lonely Planet. You can see in the soft weathered skin on his face, his brisk tranquil walk and rugged hands, that Hamid is very close to nature. He has a thousand captivating stories from his travels, and he smiles almost all the time. In one of those stories he and two others run across the dangerous Kavir-e Lut, with temperatures up to 55 Celsius (after 3 months training, it takes them 80 hours to run across), setting a world record.

On the road down towards Kashan, we pulled into the famous road stop, a few kilometers before the holy hubbub of Qom: The ‘Aftab-Mahtab’ restaurants, part of a mega-complex of restaurants and shops, a place for pilgrims to stop on their way to Qom.

The sign looks like a cheap model of a 1950s Los Angeles diner sign. And as you approach you realize there’s a lot more LA fever adorning the place. Automated doors, air conditioners and bizarre shops flaunt American style and consumer charm. It becomes clear here, that America and Iran are actually closer than you might think. (My friend swears that they are just like estranged lovers who constantly bicker about each other, in an obsessed form of lovesickness.)

In the back corner a Paris aspirant café blasting Celine Dion serves milky cappuccinos. Next to our table is a dreadfully kitsch statue of the head of a horse, and on the wall customers have written ‘I Love You’ in all their various languages—I even found “Volim Te” :) Nearby you can take a 10 minute chair massage for 2 dollars, after coating your insides with greasy, ‘yami’ (yummy) chicken, Iranian style pizza, hotdog or hamburger in Mahtab (Moon) restaurant/food court. Sit down meals are also available in Aftab (Sun) restaurant, and upstairs is a traditional tea house, with curious shops and stands in-between.

Loading back into the green minibus, we made way for the next stop, Sialk Hill- the ruins of an Elamite ziggurat from 7000 years ago located in the outskirts of Kashan. It is claimed to be the world’s oldest ziggurat, which is a temple in the shape of a terraced pyramid. All that’s left of the ancient civilization of Sialk however is a big hill (most of its best kept treasures can be found in Louvre), surrounded by small farms. We said hello, and goodbye.

From Kashan we entered the western edge of the Dasht-e Kavir, called Maranjab, through what used be a segment of the famous Silk Road, and advanced further and further away from any signs of civilization. One last sign was an old caravanserai, a hotel for the caravans of the Silk Road.

About an hour’s drive into the desert, we nestled our camp between the Darya-e Namak (Salt Sea) and some fantastic sand dunes. In the heart of the desert is the ‘Rig-e Jenn’, a rarely explored area where the sole inhabitants are ‘Jenn’ or spirits. In the silence the only sounds are their voices in the wind. On Google Earth, Rig-e Jenn shows up as a dark spot. The sand dunes we made a temporary home of however are known as a ‘fake’ Rig-e Jenn, where only fake sprits dwell.

After a barefooted walk and some rolls in the early, dusk-coated dunes, we settled down by the fire.

The full moon was huge, and as it shrunk, climbing further into the sky, cast a lonely luminous glow on the desert around us. Maybe it’s around this time the Jenn start waking up. The night chill (reaching -12 C) was unbearable, toe and nose-biting cold, and I didn’t rest until the morning sun toasted my tent. A leisurely breakfast under the passionate sunlight however, and we soon forgot the icy nightmare.

Later, we walked across a part of the great Salt Sea, from our edge to the foot hills of one of its “islands” –hills which actually only look like they are floating. Millions of years ago, the north of Iran was actually beneath the sea, and this is one of the remaining indications of that age-old existence. It was a beautiful and monumental feeling to walk across the bottom of a primeval sea, and to see history in stains on the land. The salt engraves a sheet of infinite crystalline patterns in geometrical shapes. Each step into it crunches and sparkles—some places more muddy, and others solid. Beneath the salt mud lies a thick layer of rock salt (I wonder how thick).

The landscape there is so completely stark and vast, and empty, that your imagination fills it with inhabitations and dreams. At the same time it is peaceful, surrounded by nothing, and nothing, as far as your eye can see. And everything you do see, you question its true form.

When I looked up I thought I even saw salt in the sky. Every half hour or so, we would come across some sign of someone or something who passed by sometime, like a forgotten memory: a crystallized grasshopper, a metal can pillaged by salt, a smiling crusty footprint, a bright red ladybug, a lizard.

After about an hour and half walking, we reached the foot of those hills, and there someone had conveniently set up a toilet. It was perhaps the best toilet I ever used in Iran, and the clean, tender breeze in the air made my task so much more pleasurable.

Those guys are obsessed with jeeps

Back at the settlement, thirsty and hungry, we were greeted with various culinary delights in action. Our tour leader had prepared a mean ‘Ab Gusht’ stew which was brewing on a fire. Meanwhile some locals from the nearby town, who traipsed in on a big jeep and motorbike, had brought some ‘Halim’ (a wheat stew), and were preparing a specialist ‘Kabab Koobideh’ (ground-meat kabob) with marinated camel meat.

Among other things, I learned that a live male camel cost $1,500, while the female (not sure why!?) costs $1000. And, if you kill a man, in Islamic law, the blood money you must pay his family is about $40,000, or one theoretical camel, while a woman’s murder would cost you $20,000 or half a camel. You could also say 2 women for one camel, it sounds better. I thought what an excellent cooking show this would be, true masters at work in the rawness of nature, with loads of fun trivia tidbits. We feasted like desert kings and queens, and it was all incredibly delicious.

On the way back we stopped again at Mahtab Restaurant, and took turns trying out the massage chairs. It was a comedic site, as our dusty bodies were rubbed and prodded by strange Kenny G. playing alien chairs.

My massage finished before the others and, in a brief moment alone, the young woman who worked there spoke to me with a strange gleam in her eyes:

“Did you also go to the desert?”

“Yes”

“You were both men and women?”

“Um yes”

“How many men and how many women? Was it half and half?”

“Um, well, no. I don’t know, there were 3 of us women”

“How is it like traveling with men? Is it interesting?”

“Well, hmm. I don’t know. It’s interesting, but not for that reason...”

I was caught off guard, and really didn’t know what to say, but I couldn’t get her out of my head for a while. We were quickly cut off. She seemed innocent, and I think she was just asking out of real curiosity.

Although the Mahtab-Aftab complex is famous for its bathrooms--they have some of the only public western toilets in Iran, which are considered sort of un-Islamic-- I was quite disappointed by them. Women in hunched up chadors, squeezing their noses and flapping about, pushed their way in front of me. The western toilets (farangi) were either closed or someone was living inside them.

The journey backwards was long dark and lonely, but filled with a satisfied air. They say once you go to kavir, you keep going. I think it’s true.

click below for more photos:

Desert