When we got started I noticed that it is not going well today - don't know why, I just felt a bit tired which made cycling harder than usual. At the first 20 km not much happened. Then we were stopped by the police. There is some kind of nuclear facility close to the road, therefore the police is very careful here. The 2 guys were doing their job (checking passport, checking camera and GPS, asking questions, then checking all [ALL!] our luggage) - but they were incredibly friendly allthrough this process. After about an hour everything was packed again and they told us the rules for the road to come: cycling ok, but no pictures, no stopping. Off we went and soon noticed that we had an escort - they drove behind us for several hours. The landscape was very scenic, but: no pictures. When we had just passed by the nuclear facility (not much to see there, just a heavily guarded factory area beside the road) we were happy to be stopped by another police car - finally a chance to eat, drink (for me) and smoke (for Yannik). The guys of the second car had just begun to ask questions (also very friendly) when our escort came and told them that we are ok. Soon later we were alone again and could stop wherever we wanted. Shortly before arriving in Natanz the hardest part of the day came: 400m steep uphill. I noticed that I am a bit out of steep-uphill-training. Since entering Iran the landscape has been very smooth - no steep hills anywhere until now. It was really hard for me - it is incredible that I did more than double than that in Armenia without problems. Maybe it was also just due to todays tiredness. When we finally arrived it was very cold and we just wanted a warm place and nothing more. I had thought of Natanz as just a normal small town which would make a good stop as it had some hotels. But what started as just a short walk to the main mosque showed that it is a very beautiful place. The town is surrounded by mountains with the nearly 4000m high, very rugged Karkas-mountains (mountains of vultures) to the west. One smaller hill near the city is topped by what looks to me like an old zoroastrian fire temple. The main mosque and the nearby imamzhade (tomb of a Sufi mystic) are marvellous - the light shortly after sunset added to the atmosphere. Near the mosque many people were entering a circus-tent-like structure. We decided to first walk some more through town before checking that out. Soon we came along another circus-tent. Beside the entrance a long pavillon gave shelter to many puppets depicting some of the events of Ashurah. Obviously we could not understand everything - I noticed the Ka'aba in Mekka and the depiction of the battle during which Imam Hussein and his people were killed. It reminded me a lot of similar sceneries at German christmas market. While we were trying to figure out more an older man approached us and despite no english explained us some more: there was a castle and an orthodox church, but I cannot tell which part they play in the story. He immediately took care of us and led us into the tent, arranged seating, served us tea, made sure we could see well - incredible! This is really really great about Iran - you just have to stand around somewhere for a minute and you can be sure that someone will appear and help you. The circus tent is a special place only used during Ashurah to stage ta'ziyeh - a passion play of the assassination of Imam Hussein. We did not know anything about that before, so it came as a very pleasant surprise. It was played pretty professionally, complete with special effects like fake blood, flying pigeons, horses and camels and music played on drums, trumpet and flute. Though with a different topic it reminded me of the plays at christmas in German churches - a very interesting connection if you add the fact that ta'ziyeh predates the introduction of Islam to Iran! I believe that there is a far bigger connection between Persian and German culture than meets the eye.
We had just entered at the right time - some minutes after we had sat down the play started. It was very very interesting - we did not understand everything but we could distinguish Hussein and a member of his family (dressed in white and green) and the bad guys: Yezid, the boss of the bad guys and Shemr, the bad guy who actually did the killing (mainly dressed in black and red). Shemrs face was hidden - after some additional reading I believe this could have been a safety measure because it is quite the opposite of a popular role: it has happened before that the crowd beat up or even killed the poor guy playing Shemr! Nevertheless to us everything seemed very peaceful and everyone was very inviting. After the play we were approached by Mohammed, who had been living in Germany for 38 years and spoke nearly native German. He explained us a bit more about the play and translated our thanks to our host (who turned out to be a retired history teacher). They invited us to come back later for food, but we excused ourself because we felt in urgent need of a shower - after all we had just planned to walk around town for some minutes - but in Iran you never know which nice surprise is waiting at the next corner!
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Marek Mahn
marekmahn@gmail.com
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