Day 113 to Riverside Camp, Iran, 93km, 9,400 to date, 1753m up,  1741m end. 

And another serious climbing day, at least today the wind was neutral.   We’ve had 4 days in a row with each being the equivalent of the Vancouver/Whistler GranFondo!  We ride into Tehran tomorrow and two rest days - looking forward to the break.

Just started doing my homework on “to do in Tehran”, if any of you have suggestions (other than as listed in Lonely Planet), please mail me.  Thanks.

Whilst riding through a good sized town I stopped at a corner store for a drink (the one litre tetrapak’s of fruit juices are really good), the mosque was announcing the “call to prayer”.  What I noticed was that not a single person was stopping to pray, everyone continued about their business.  Talking to one of the riders, Robert, he worked for many years in Saudi Arabia, there it was law, at the call to prayer, everything stopped, shops closed up etc.,

Iran appears to be quite prosperous.  Every town/village we go through seems to be hustling.  Everybody seems to be working.  The only people that are sitting around are the shop keepers.   There is lots of construction, the highways are excellent with a lot of new highway construction - there seems to be a view of building for the future. The western countries embargo doesn’t seem to have really impacted anything - or at least I don’t see it, other than the lack of some western consumer goods.

A couple pics from the day:

We have a rather nice campsite today.  These sorts of camps seem to be fairly common in Iran.  It seems that when carpets start getting worn, they are then used as flooring and pillows in outdoor sitting/lounging areas.  This is my “camp” tonight: