Day 5 October 22nd - On the way from Kashan to Esfahan

We arrive in Esfahan! We rent a taxi to get us from Kashan to Esfahan and stop along the lower slopes of Mount Karkas at the 1500 year old village of Abyaneh, a labyrinth of picturesque crumbling and (a few) restored red-mud brick houses, and at Natanz, famous for its 14^th century Jameh Mosque and the 11^th century tomb of a Sufi mystic (and – not on our itinerary! – the nuclear power station of Natanz). Our driver is a lady called Massouma, she drives like a maniac, she tells the men drivers along the way where to go to (...) when required and we learn how to say yes (bale), thank you (mote shakaram) and excuse me (bebakshid) in Farsi. Not a shy cookie!

In Abyaneh I get carried away taking photos of the somehow beautiful faces of the old toothless street vendors and trying to capture the sombre atmosphere at the Zeyaratgah Shrine, where preparations for ‘Ashura/Moharram’ (more to follow...) have already started.

Arrived in Esfahan we manage (with the help of our ‘hotelier’ in Kashan, Farshad) to find (a rare thing these days) a hotel room in Esfahan. I’m not too happy about the ‘hole in the ground and crouch’ toilet, but the room is big and I am glad to have a roof over my head.

We walk towards the Naqsh-e Jahan Square (the second largest square in the world after Tiananmen Square in Beijing) and can already start appreciating its splendour in spite of the darkness.
Dinner is in a traditional restaurant like several others we have now been to. Shoes off and dine sitting on a ‘takht’, a small carpeted day bed, trying not to make a mess whilst digging into our special salad, aubergine/pomegranate/almond dip and Kubide (mutton) kebab.