Day 38 Shiraz

8:55 am. Went with Simon to drop the truck off at the welders - they are going to weld the new seats in place. Waiting for Nescafe - without sugar (this seemingly simple request is generally ignored) - in street cafe in downtown Shiraz. (Nescafe instant coffee (which I normally regard as disgusting) is seen by the Iranians as the height of luxury - I guess because it's Western.) We have been told to be back at the hostel for some sort of conflab with Hot Rock leadership. 10:20 am - we had the meeting - trouble getting Indian visas for T and others - fortunately I ignored Hot Rock's advice and got mine back in London before setting off on the trip. (We were told there was no need to get Indian visas - we could pick them up en route. But in my experience from other fields it's best to do whatever you can as soon as you can - things always go wrong - some sort of entropy thing.) The main problem is that T doesn't even have her passport - it's with Henry up in Tehran - he's meant to be getting the visa sorted out up there. Presumably T cannot leave Iran until she's got her passport back! We also discussed the transit through Pakistan to Islamabad, from the Iranian border. Have lost my mobile - simply cannot find the thing - had it this morning - suspect stolen. 4:15 pm just had lunch - chicken kebab and rice. Have bought another mobile, about $35, plus SIM card and top-up etc. A basic model (complete with Farsi lettering) - but seems to work. Really annoying - buying mobile phones is one of the most tedius things one can get involved in - in any country, let alone Iran!

7:20 pm. Sat on the truck - for a prompt 6 pm departure(!) Have Silk Road map and Dostoyevsky to read - we are planning to drive through the night to Bam - and I probably won't get much sleep in the back of the truck.

11:59 pm - we have just bought 400 litres of diesel - for a grand total of $7 - that's about 1 pence per litre. Not sure how the Iranian economy functions.

Day 37 Persepolis and Shiraz

8:10 am. Hostel in Shiraz. Proper bed, but pillow lacks any softness - like a bag of cement. Need coffee. Will spend today doing internet, post office etc and try and find a phone. Did some washing (clothes) last night in my bucket. Good thing is that the washing dries really quickly here.

Yesterday afternnon we visited Persepolis, about 70 km from Shiraz. In my ignorence I hadn't realised that Persepolis is uninhabited and is essentially ruins - I assumed that there was a modern Persepolis also; although I did know that it was the capital of the Persian Empire. [Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest remains of Persepolis date from about 515 BCE]. Smaller than I imagined, given its historical importance. One thing which caught my attention was the graffiti from western visitors, carved into various parts of the monuments, some of it clearly dating from before the first scientific excavations at Persepolis in the early 1930s. I assume that the name Stanley pictured here is that of the American journalist and adventurer, (Henry Morgan Stanley) who took New York Herald's mission 'to go and find Livingstone', which he duly did on November 10th, 1871 at Lake Tanganyika - so the inscription here predates his discovery of Dr Livingstone by a year.

12:30 pm. (8th July) visiting Karim Khan's Citadel (also know as Arg of Karim Khan) in the north east part of Shiraz. Dates from 1766. Basically a fort-like structure enclosing beautiful walled gardens, citrus fruits, water in rectangular pools. Like many of the Iranian sites of interest, inexpensive (2000 rial, or about 11 pence) entrance fee. Once again spent some time talking with a group of Iranian students (aeronautical engineers), they are generally interested in what we think of their country, and how Iran is perceived by the west. Often they are keen to say that they are not the same as the government. There was a small, but interesting exhibition of old pictures of Shiraz, including this strong-armed man and his friends.

5:30 pm and sat on carpets in the Nasir-al-Molk mosque. Relatively cool inside the mosque. Peaceful too. Beautiful coloured glass windows; vaulted ceiling supported by ten pillars - tiled; lots of Persian carpets; quiet. Tiling turquoise, dark blues, creams, Naple's yellow. Have the place virtually to myself: a space for contemplation at the very least and time for a quick sketch in my diary.

Day 36 en route to Shiraz

Late getting going as usual: it's 7 am - we were all told to be ready at 7 am sharp - but it's clear we're not going anywhere soon - so sat on the bus - looking towards the crags. It's a 450 km drive to our next destination: Shiraz. I need some coffee - we've not had breakfast yet. Hopefully Simon - who is driving - will find a good place to stop for breakfast / services. Overall a bit fed up with Hot Rock: I do not agree that paying customers should have to get involved with so much 'fire fighting' on the truck maintenance front: the truck is in an appaling state (especially mechanically) because it has not been maintained, there seems to be no out of service maintenance - also why oh why decide to do all this fixing the truck up at an awesome climbing location? Basically the truck is not at all roadworthy and needs a lot of sorting out. Hot Rock lacks organisation and foresight - I mean why not take a few days out at a more appropriate location e.g. a commercial vehicle garage or something? Also, I do not like having the responsibility of doing the bins: Hot Rock is doing a lot of environmental dumping - I checked with the local police as to where to put the trash: they said to just leave it behind by the roadside - but just because the locals are okay with leaving bags of trash about the place doesn't mean we should do it. Very uncomfortable about this; I think we should take the trash out with us to a major city etc. I think my real dissapointment is that the Hot Rock concept is a brilliant idea and could really work, but - like any enterprise - needs the right people in charge; for example it is advertised as a climbing trip - yet there is not enough climbing. It needs a leader who is passionate about climbing...

1:45 pm - eventually we got going - several hours later we are at Naqsh-e Rustam, a smallish archaeological site about 12 km northwest of Persepolis. Very hot indeed. According to the signage, we have (amongst other things) four tombs belonging to Achaemenid kings are carved out of the rock face, dating from something like 500 BC. The relief pictured here shows the investiture relief of Ardashir I; apparently the carved inscription (I am not clear where exactly this inscription is though) bears the oldest known use of the word 'Iran' etymology of 'Iran' .

Day 35 Near Esfahan

Beginning to not like this trip...good parts are the climbing; meeting local people in different places (e.g. yesterday, Simon, T and I wandered across a few hundred yards to some sort of ambulance station - by the main road. The place was a sort of single story semi-temporary building - we just tapped on the window to see if there was anyone in. (T had been across earlier in the day I think - but their shift had changed and so the current people there had no idea who we were or anything - very welcoming though) - we spent thirty minutes talking in very broken English). Weather is very good obviously, and above all I love the climbing. But then there are the bad things: in particular the Hot Rock organisation, or lack of it! Lack of food - it's not realistic to survive on a dollar a day - and I pay Hot Rock about $40 a day to be here! Lots of petty annoyances too - no bin bags for rubbish; as in most groups, some people do all the work...blah blah blah.

Did a fantastic climb - up the centre of the crag: 5 pitches, the final pitch laybacking up an overhanging arete (moving left); then steep / overhanging climbing all the way to the top. Lots of bolts on the overhanging bits (old aid?). Given 5.10b. Called Kongereh Route. Climbed with Tia. This really is a fantastic crag - but I suspect not that special in terms of the rock available in Iran. Chatted to local Iranian climbers on into the evening - got one guy to write the route names down in my diary:

Day 34 Near Esfahan

Cook duty: have to prepare breakfast for fifteen; revoluted eggs and bread. Lots of truck activity (fixing things up etc) - but I don't want to get involved. I've made a curry for this evening: it can cook slowly on the remains of the fire during the day - a sneaky plan to allow me to get some climbing in. All I need do is cook some rice this evening. Certain people will whinge if they get supper late - but I am here to climb first and foremost. At 1 pm Lianna will allow Simon and I to climb - until then we are on truck security - a bit daft since there are six or seven others just messing about all day on the truck anyhow. So few people have people skills, despite being people? She also had the audacity to complain that the supper was a 'bit late last night' - well, perhaps she could cook every now and then!

It's certainly an impressive cliff - a bit under 200 metres high - takes three abseils to get off (down the centre of the face). What's really nice is that there are a number of really obvious lines. The routes are typically four pitches. Camping about 200 metres from the cliff - in a desert - rocky type place. Have my eye on the route to the right. Not too hot here - it's dry with a reasonable breeze from time to time. [Yesterday's route is the left hand route shown above.] Climbed the route on the right hand side of the crag. It's called Hamedanian, graded at 5.10b/c. The top pitch was fantastic - straight up a fairly steep wall, even overhanging in parts - fingery but good holds. Four pitches in total, I'd say 5a 5b 5b 5c+. Good chimney on pitch two.

Day 33 Esfahan

3:15 pm and on the bus awaiting departure for some local climbing crag - unfortunately I have to do the supper tonight - this is typical of Hot Rock: there's precious little climbing on the trip as it is, but despite there being a number of non-climbers, I and Simon have been tasked with tonight's supper (and tomorrow's too) - when we are at a climbing venue. Really annoying. Anyway went to some local supermarket and bought some bits to cook up: the shop had a truly odd selection of food and non-food - rows and rows of giant cans of cucumbers for example. One problem is that all the prices are labelled in Farsi; they look like this:

Given I have a crazy small budget (1 dollar per day per person for one supper and one breakfast), I needed to try and not spend too much. A difficult task when I couldn't read any of the prices. After about an hour I had 3 kg of cheese in my trolley and nothing else. Fortunately, things improved and I bought enough stuff for macaroni cheese and tuna (for tonight) and some sort of black-eyed bean curry for the next night. Two big trays of eggs and some bread will do the breakfasts. I reasoned that the tuna was on offer - there was a big pile of tuna tins.

11:45 pm - in my tent, camped out below the climbing crag: it's only about 25 km from Esfahan; apparently the crag is known locally as Police Station Wall - probably due to its vicinity to the police station. Like much of the Iranian rock it is simply massive - in particular stretches a long way to the left and right of where we're camped. Did a great climb of great quality - the left hand corner, it's given 5.9+ and is bolted. Simon led all three pitches - a bit polished (limestone) on the first pitch, then fine. Felt much better to be climbing again. The route is called Sepehr 1 - see Day 35 for the Iranian spelling of the route names.

Day 32 Esfahan

Esfahan, about 340 km south of Tehran. Sight seeing with Simon: after messing about trying to find a post office (for me), we wandered down to the older part of the city from where we are staying, finding ourselves in Naghsh-e Jahan Square - reputedly one of the biggest squares in the world; just off the square are Shah mosque (pictured) and Sheikh Lotfollah mosque, both huge and both intricately tiled. The large scale use of blue decorative ceramics is memorable. We pretty much had these places to ourselves. The dome structures have (not surprisingly) interesting acoustics: you can stand right under the dome - I got about three echos per second - I guess that makes sense - the dome of the Shah mosque is an amazing 50 or so metres above the floor, and sound propagates at about 300 metres per second. Spent several hours getting lost (and having lunch: sort of haggis in flat bread with lots of fresh basil leaves) in the Grand Bazaar - by far the biggest bazaar I have visited - very convoluted and very easy to get lost in: one part looking very much like another. We seemed to keep arriving back at Jamé mosque [this is one of Iran's oldest mosques]. Eventually made it back to the square - wherein I did find a post office.

After going back to the hostel to meet up with the others a group of us went back to the old part of the city for supper. A subgroup (T, Simon and I) then went off to look at the city at night - a lot of it looks even more beautiful at night - the illumination being a lot less harsh than the high-up Iranian sun. Of particular note are the numerous illuminated bridges across the Zayandeh Rud river, particular the Khaju bridge which has two sets of arches, one above the other - we crossed over this, taking the upper tier [dates from 17th century]. We spent quite a bit of time chatting to locals - young Iranians students mostly: we seem to be instantly recognisable as English (actually English, Irish and Scottish). Students told me that dancing was not allowed (unless married) - dancing on the lower tier of the Khaju bridge was discrete - but stops if police arrive. Also amazing to see large numbers of people all sat along the embankments, both sides of the river, enjoying themselves: picnics. Young and old - way past midnight too.