Day 18 November 4th - Kerman

I sleep in J and arrange to be picked up at 13.30 to drive out to the Kaluts in the desert.
It is the 10^th day of the month of Moharram , one of the key dates for the Ashura mourning of Imam Hossein and, after following TV footage of Shia gatherings in many cities around the Muslim world, I decide to look into the ‘live’ event in Kerman and head to the centre of town. I very quickly find myself right in the middle of it all. The streets are lined with thousands of onlookers following the parade of men dressed in black some beating their chests, some banging large drums, some lightly whipping themselves over the shoulder as a demonstration of sorrow for Hossein’s death. It is a highly emotional and captivating spectacle. I was relieved to see that the Iranians don’t mind foreigners being witnesses to such events, but rather are amused by the ‘farangis’ trying to (not so) discreetly take a peek at the happenings. I am glad to have witnessed this event at such close quarters. The photo quality isn't the best as I had to use my iphone, but good enough, I hope, to give you a feeling of what was going on.

I meet my guide Ahmad at the hotel and we head into the Kaluts. On the way we briefly stop at the ‘hottest’ site on earth. It’s probably 25 degrees Celsius on this day in November, but is known to reach 75 in the summer! After about 2 hours we get to destination. What are the Kaluts? This is an area of the Dasht-e Lut desert dominated by so-called ‘yardangs’ (sand castles), sand formations resulting from millennia of wind and water erosion. For those of you who have been to Chile it reminded me a little of the landscape in the Atacama desert.
Ahmad spent 2 years of military service in this desert hunting down Afghan drug smugglers (we are not too far from the border with Pakistan) and knows the area like the back of his hand. We walk across the Kaluts terrain for half an hour and climb to the top of a Kalut. Although a little cloudy, the sunset is nevertheless incredible. We sit and enjoy the silence as it slowly grows dark and the clouds disappear to reveal a sky full of stars. I could have stayed there the whole night, but we have to get backL... Climbing down a steep Kalut with the moon as the only source of illumination was an interesting feat and I was lucky to make it down in one piece...
Kaluts? Highly recommended!
At the hotel I overhear 3 Spanish guys talking about their planned trip to Mahan and Rayen the day after and invite myself along...