Day 109 - rest day Gonbad-e Qavus:

As I referenced in an earlier post, the Iranian currency unit is the Riel, the official rate is 31,500 Riel to 1USD.   Well it is not that simple…  All the shopkeepers refer to the Tooman, e.g. the ice cream is 1,000 Tooman, I finally figured out that 1 Tooman = 10 Reil.  There isn’t another set of bills, but just to make it easier to talk, they drop one zero from the number and call it Tooman.  So my ice cream was 10,000 Reil or about $0.30

Iran is home to the hottest point on earth, the Dasht-e loot or Lut Desert.  In 2005 the temperature was recorded as 70.7C or 159.3F.  A runner-up in the hottest contest is the Turpan Basin near the Flaming Mountain on the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert in China - where I cycled two years ago.  How come I end up in these very hot places and I don’t really like the heat!

Speaking of heat, the humidity here (Gonbad-e Qabus) is very high, our temp yesterday hit a modest 36C, but with the humidity it definitely didn’t encourage one to do anything.  Today it hit 42C, didn’t really do a lot - appropriate since it was a rest day.

Visited this tower - see sign for details.  Interesting in that it is 10 sided, everything in this world is 8 sided...  Nothing inside, but if you stand at the special point you get a good echo of whatever you say:

Also weighed myself, considering I was sick for essentially three weeks, I was pleased I wasn’t down as much as I thought I was:

A snack on the way back to the hotel: