Day 9 and 10 October 26th and 27th - Garmeh and Journey to Yazd

Day 9

Today is the start of Moharram, a month and a half of ‘mourning’ and, in a certain sense, celebrations in remembrance of the death as a martyr of Imam Hossein, the son of Ali and the 3^rd Shia Imam, and his followers in Karbala at the hands of the Umayyads (Sunnis) in the 7^th century. The events at Karbala crystallized the growing antagonism between Sunni and Shia that endures to our day.

Claude and our two Belgian co-travellers set off without me. I wake up with a nasty stomach bug (I’ll spare you the details) that makes me (sensibly) decide that the middle of the desert is probably not the best place for me to be on this particular day. I stay at the guest house alternating between dozing and running to the toilet... Luckily by late afternoon I start feeling a little better, but it’s unfortunately too late for me to join the others at the desert night camp. Looking at the positive side I had an unplanned day of R&R (at least from the late afternoon onwards!)

Day 10

I wake up feeling a lot better and spend a couple of hours updating my blog. The desert adventurers return late morning very sandy and frozen to the bone from a very cold night camping in the desert. After yet another relaxing lunch and tourist chit chat in the Ateshooni courtyard we pack our bags and set off towards Yazd. On the way we visit Kharanaq and Chak Chak. Unfortunately it’s getting dark by the time we reach Kharanaq, a small hamlet of mud brick houses built along a network of arched alleys and tunnels. The village is over 1000 years old, well-maintained in some areas, crumbling in most. It’s a real pity to see such a beautiful sight turning to dust under one’s very eyes. Not only is the village one of the most picturesque ancient towns I have ever seen, but it also offers breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains.
Chak Chak is one of the main Zoroastrian fire temple pilgrimage sites. Legend has it that a Sassanian princess fleeing the Arab invasion in the 7^th century took refuge below this cliff, where as she was running out of water, she threw her staff against the cliff and ‘chak chak’ (drip drip) water started dripping down. The temple itself, I felt, was less impressive than the location surrounded as it is by mountains and desert.

The Zoroastrian religion is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world dating back to ca. 1500 BC. Zoroastrians believe in one God, Ahura Mazda and in the principles of good and evil coexisting in all living things. Most Iranians were followers of Zoroaster until the Arabs introduced Islam in the 7^th century. There are 150,000 Zoriastrians left in the world today, the majority in Iran.  

We arrive at Yazd quite late and are invited to tea and dinner at the new guest house of Hossein, one of our co-travellers. We eat on a ‘takht’ (a daybed-like structure) in the courtyard and socialise, laugh, chat, sing with our fellow travellers and Iranian hosts. I even get a marriage proposal from Hossein! A little too old (and conservative) for my taste;-)