Our map to Iran was not the greatest, and by a subtle twist of fate, we were to meet a Canadian in Esfahan who worked for the company which printed it out of Vancouver and help him make some corrections.

Be that as it may, having an inexact map gave us the opportunity of getting hopelessly lost on Iran’s dirt roads. Marked villages didn’t exist and real roads weren’t marked and nobody’s got any idea why you want to get off the beaten track anyway so when you ask directions from the handful of villagers crowding around your car they’ll give you instructions back to the main road.

The roads in Iran are good. Really good. If you’re looking for the third world, this isn’t it yet. The drivers are dangerous, or creative, depending on your point of view. Our greatest pleasure was getting off the roads and taking deserted valleys and mountain passes the dirt-road way, finding a little butcher shop and vegetable stand and camping out in the middle of nowhere. We would snuggle the car between two hills, set up the tent, build a fire, cook dinner and dream about a nice bottle of wine.

One night Marie-Do even made jam on the camp fire using apricots she bought in the market. This jam was to delight our mornings well into Pakistan. The nights were always warm and the stars were always bloated by the heat, and the people from the surrounding villages were always discreet.

One morning was a nightmare. The mountain stove wouldn’t fire, again, and we had no hot water for coffee. We drove to the next village, a tiny hamlet of mud huts, to find a place where we could make coffee. The village girls stood around us as we took our breakfast in the shade of a mud wall.

Then we noticed we had a flat tire and had to change it in the 40°C heat. The reward was an invitation to drink tea in a village hut and be able to examine up close the local carpet-making techniques; unfortunately they had no carpet ready to sell us. The head of the household then offered us a little ‘taryak’. He said the word about forty times before instructing his wife to the closet to bring out a fist sized chunk of opium. ‘Taryak’, he said handing it to us.

Taryak is big business in Iran and 80% of the men smoke it. Most truck drivers are totally stoned all the time, since they claim that taryak prevents sleep and improves concentration and it must be said that their driving is really inspired. Poetic, really.

Here are some pictures of the Persian country-side.