Yazd is a city in the middle of the desert. To be precise, in the middle of two deserts... the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut. Those are the two biggest deserts in Iran, northeast and southeast in the country, respectively. Nowadays, Yazd is famous for being a very conservative city, where religion plays an important role in people's lives. This is nothing new in the area and not necessarily linked with Islam, since Yazd has been the center of Zoroastrianism for many centuries, way before Mohammad and Christ developed their religious systems.Mosques in Yazd are really impressive and much less crowded than their counterparts in Isfahan, since the city receives only a fraction of the tourists that do the main Isfahan-Persepolis route. The nicest and biggest is the Jameh (Friday) Mosque, standing just 100m away from the hostel where I stayed. Its minarets are the tallest in Iran and the patterns of the tiles and engravings are simply superb.

I used to spend a good half an hour every evening lying down on one of the marble stones by the main door, which were still warm from the day's heat, relaxing and contemplating the ceiling patterns. A couple of weeks later, my friend Ghazal in Semnan told me that the purpose of those marble stones is exactly that one... to provide a resting place for travelers who do not have a place to sleep. I almost fell asleep a couple of times but always ended up in my dorm bed.

During the second day, I visited the Zoroastrian fire temple in town, which was not really memorable, and the Towers of Silence in the outskirts. Those are a really great sight, standing over the city and surrounded by desert land and bare mountains. They are cult places for Zoroastrians and were used until recently as burial sites... more or less. When people died, they would place their corpses on top of the towers, which have no roof, and wait for vultures to eat the carrion. No clue what they did with the bone leftovers...

I did not know much about Zoroastrianism before my trip to Iran but I was catching up quickly... next day I went with Mayumi, a Japanese traveler, to the desert area north of Yazd where Chak-Chak, the most important pilgrimage site for Zoroastrians, was supposed to be located. In contrast to the Towers of Silence, Chak-Chak was still maintained and being actively used by believers. That was a big surprise in Iran: Islamic rules and laws have to be obeyed in public life but there is a certain freedom of faith with Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, etc. being rather tolerated in society. Compared to some European countries, I would even say Iran is more tolerant.

Chak-Chak was not a very photogenic site, just concrete buildings and a very simple but pleasant temple centered around a fireplace, a water-dripping rock wall and a huge tree. However, the whole area surrounding it was visually great. The crumbling mud city of Kharanagh was a lot of fun to explore on foot and we could even steal a couple of ripe pomegranates and figs from its orchards.

We drove to Chak-Chak on paved roads, following directions we had got at the hostel, but we decided to try smaller gravel tracks on the way back. I knew which direction we should take and had enough gasoline for 300km so... why not. There were no signs near junctions and we ended up a couple of times at dead ends, one of the times near a mining site. There was a guy who was taking care of the mine and he invited us first to tea and food, which we accepted. He later wanted to smoke opium together but we politely declined the offer... when we left him, he was just about to take a very long and pleasant nap...

This picture was taken by Mayumi and summarizes the sense of adventure around that area... we spent a couple of hours driving in those conditions until we reached the main road that goes back to Yazd. That was one of the best rides of this journey.

After so much excitement and nice experiences, something bad had to happen and it all came at the same time... a virus deleting my pictures, somebody stealing 100 euros from my stuff at the hostel, my laptop keys becoming sticky due to the beer spill... I heard later that this hostel, the Silk Road, does not have a good reputation. According to some local sources, hostel managers have even informed the police about guests having CouchSurfing (forbidden in Iran) profiles... really weird stuff.

After all that happened, I decided to cut my stay in Yazd one day shorter... I had actually done all I planned to do over there and wanted to leave all those issues behind. I was heading to Tehran to get my Uzbek visa stamped on my passport and apply for the Turkmen transit visa... then drive to Semnan to visit my friend Ghazal.

As Zoroaster said...
Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds