IRANIAN HOSPITALITY EXPRESSED MATHEMATICALLY: GO WITH THE (TEA) FLOW!

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After visiting a ruined caravanserai in the village we stretched our thumbs towards Esfahan, where Alba waited, and where we were transported in a dash by an immense white Volvo truck. Even if we avoid acting the role of the traveler for whom Iran is a collection of blue mosques to be serially photographed, it is impossible not to be enchanted by the complexity of the Persian architecture featured by Esfahan. Here, in the ancient Persian seat of power, it is mandatory to let the eye be puzzled by each variation of the complicated patterns that find harmony in the mosques and bridges as the words in a prose by Borges. The Roman architects themselves couldn't find as rational solutions to the old problem of to transit from a square basement to a domed roof. You find yourself diminished in Imam Khomeini Square, surrounded by arched galleries, mosques and minarets…

Esfahan is also famous for its bridges, of which the most strolled is the Si-o-She, meaning literally 33, accounting for the number of arches keeping it standing. All bridges are stone metaphors: they connect, they gather, they are a lecture beyond their function. But Steven (reminding us he is an engineer) seems offended by how little people revere a new, odd, concrete bridge which allows heavy traffic nearby. "Only three arches are needed now instead of 33 -he states proudly- Science progresses!" It seems I was the only one that thought that bridges could only be nice or ugly.

One of those bridges was our meeting point with Alba. Before setting foot on road we had arranged the basics. We would try to hitch truck rides so as not to split. Alba, to avoid being harassed or unregarded, would say she was married to any of us. The first vehicle was a 405 of two guys who enjoyed the road as they watched videos on a portable DVD player hanging from the roof. In such airplane we reached Chahar Ra village, where a side road that seemed to disappear among mountains tempted us. We were aware that we were most probably missing the nomads by taking that turn. But we were in the move.

It was the beginning of a marvelous series of rides, either on the back of trucks, 4000 meters high mountains shaping the infinite blue, or in the cabins of small Saipa pick ups, were we hardly fitted better than the bricks in the Tetris, vibrating with the entire mechanic, bebrothering each cylinder and each bolt. The drivers would smile and ask our names and professions, and Alba would check in whose knees she was sitting on before saying who she was married to. What if we tell them that the three of us are married together? We never did. After each ride, the driver would invite us in for tea, or if it is dark, to stay overnight. A truck carrying an entire family for picnic slowed down as the women in the back started handing us oranges and apples. As they sped up, the women started to wave us good bye, blessing us with a motherly smile…

Persian hospitality can be expressed mathematically: if we draw a line from A to B (where A is the start and B the destination) and we accept that a line is formed by infinite dots, and the we accept that each dots invites us in for tea and to know his cousins and uncles, then we will never arrive to B. In New Year's holidays, when all Iranians go picnicking and lie down in their carpets aside scenic roads, we found ourselves walking fast in an attempt to get to B, hurrying the pace as if we were in the Bronx, but we were only trying to dribble teatime, that here is not 5 o' clock but has settled in the whole circumference of the time device. Such is the average dweller of the Axis of Evil…

Said this, by nighttime we become more receptive. In Khafr, a mountain village at 2100 m, we arrive with no friends. It was already dark so we entered what seemed to be a video rental shop, a bit frightened by a bonny woman who had raised her arms in the middle of the street and caused a lightning. One of the guys at the video shop spoke English, and said to have a solution for us. We declared we were happy to put up our tent (that hardly accommodates 2 of us). As the Iranians associate the tents with refuges and miserable conditions, they never allow us to use it. We were driven to some premises that were midway between a tourist office and an ecology awareness center.

In the morning we understood it was a UN sponsored initiative. When the door closed Alba enveloped us in one of her experiments. She pressed record in the camera and demanded us to create a perfect country from scratch, with its geography and political system. So was born a confederation of self sufficient communities inhabited by individuals of a race product of the mingling of all races (so nobody could claim pureness), where there wouldn't be any army and most political decisions would be approved after a mix of democracy and computerized approval carried on by a highly develop system that Steven considers viable.

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Regardless all our chit chats, we woke up in our beloved real world, where races hate each and armies are self sufficient. We decided to attempt reaching Shiraz by the mountain road network, but by mid afternoon we discovered the road became blocked by snow a few villages ahead, forcing us to take the main road again. At some point we found a small pick up driving some 200 km towards Kazerun, on the way to the Persian Gulf, but with road connections to Shiraz. When we arrived we discovered that the driver expected some money in exchange, and the driver discovered in anger that we knew that was not the deal. The scene was worthy of Dante's books, the three of us running along the muddy streets of a village whose name we ignored, and the pick up following us with its headlights. A San Fermin without bulls. It could have run over me, but the driver got a bit confused when I hit the car with both hands, and drove back. Then somebody was out to see what the noise was about, and offered asylum to us. Next morning we had a great lunch with htese new friends. And then it was time to go back to the road.... on the way to Shiraz!!!

A FORBIDDEN BIRTHDAY IN TEHERAN AND THE EXCUSE OF THE NOMADS

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Let’s face it; we know that the nomads are just a perfect excuse to get lost. We know it as we unfold the Iranian roadmap on the night of my birthday "party" in Teheran. Since one of the Imams had no better idea but dying on the same date I was born, all Iranians are supposed to mourn him, so our gathering goes on illegally in the premises of a clinic. The music, low. The guests, tense, as some of them don’t know each other, and live in a society infiltrated by informers. The cake, a chocolate one. And the present, the chance to share the road with Alba and Steven for a while.

I guess that the nickname earned by Steven during his stay in Argentina should be meaningless in the Netherlands, his home. (We called him the Dutch guy) As a water management engineer, Steven attempts to combine his commitment to deliver solutions to water related problems across the world, with the passion for globetrotting. In this way he frequently found himself applying for a UN job in Chad, or accepting one in Argentina, where we met. Steven is gifted with an acute sense of logic, the readiness of an Ironman, and the sensibility required to appreciate the beauty of the open road, or a tent less night in the desert. While the last ingredient of the cocktail is common to the three of us, the logic and athletic spirit was a good balance to the go with the flow that governs Alba and me. Since my passing through Iran, a country that had long been in my friend's agenda, matches his holidays, we have decided to meet. But Steven didn't know we were going to be three on the road…

Alba makes me think of Isabella Bird, one of those fantastic Victorian ladies that traveled solo around Middle East on the 19th century. In one of those trips a Persian officer said to Miss Bird: "No wonders yours is a powerful nation, your women do what our men don't dare to attempt". Alba is a Catalan girl who barely succeeds in hiding her long blonde dreadlocks behind the compulsory hejab. So she looks rather like an octopus smuggler. Alba travels overland from Barcelona to Bombay, camera on shoulder, making a documentary on freedom through the life of five women in five different Islamic countries. "The sights I watch them on the postcards. I am only interested in contemporary history." – She expresses her travel style. It was clear the three of us will get along well. By the end of the meeting, we have some suspicion that the baktiaris or the qashqas will be grazing their sheep on the west side of the Zagros Mountains (we have talked to an anthropologist on the phone), and the absolute certainty that a party without alcohol is not the same.

NIGHT IN TEHERAN: BAKUNIN MEETS ETHANOL-COLA

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A friend of a friend, and so on. Finally somebody has confirmed that a sofa is available for me somewhere in Teheran. Another taxi, the address is, no wonders, in the North of the city. In Iran, discovering means closing doors, not opening them. The long haired and bearded man welcomes me in French:

”C’est votre maison”, and he smiles with endless joy.

Half a dozen people chit chat down in the carpet. All of them, in different ways, are part of what can be called the invisible intellectual resistance. While the CNN will always display the image of a completely radicalized society with no internal opposition (that only a foreign military intervention could save), a fair number of Iranians would sign up for a Qoran-free society. Nothing can contrast more with the absolute lethargy that I observed in the educated classes of Syria and Egypt.

It is my first night in Teheran and I have the feeling that an underground river roars under the capital. If the Ayatollahs don’t have their feet numb, it should already be causing them tickles. The amount of information and effort is such that I don’t know who to listen first. Hamid directs a university semi-legal magazine and a feminist website. Hasan, is a theatre director who insists in speaking French (as he smiles with infinite joy). Only by opening his mouth, he manages to give the whole meeting a “May 68” aura. Said and his girlfriend, who are involved in the banned left, give me their version of the last 30 years of history. The history of the left in Iran is quite funny and tragic. It was as responsible for the fall of the Shah as Khomeini Islamic crowds, but once the revolution happened it found itself elbowed out from the political map. Their leaders were executed by thousands in methodical and gradual purges in which competing left factions cooperated frequently with the Islamic regime.

Today, the issue is not left or right anymore. Today, the situation for anyone who may rise the flag of human rights, or women emancipation, or even the flag of the right to dance (yes, also considered un-Islamic) is desperate. “This is war for us”, says Said. I tell him that it reminds me Foucault’s perspective, according to which peace sometimes crystallizes inequality and allows a permanent aggression much worse than open war. When he hears the word Foucault, Hasan breaks his pause with a prolonged “Oui!” (And he smiles with infinite joy). His friends complain that he would reply with the same euphoria to the sound of any piece of francophony, regardless it is Foucault, Peugeot, or Gerard Depardieu.

The smiles end when Hamid explains how impossible it is to make focalized politics without ending behind bars. “If you get focused you get caught”. I ask them about their perspective of the Iranian nuclear agenda. While in Western media the issue is perceived solely as a threat to Israel and Western powers, Iranian dissidents think that they will have as much to fear as Israel if the Ayatollahs ever gain access to nuclear power.

“It is something psychological,” explains Said, “as the queen in chess, the government needs the bomb to control the new generations. It’s not as easy as 30 years ago. Today, the symbols of freedom are everywhere.”

The loneliness of those fighting for political freedom today in Iran seems to me absolute. Even South American socialist regimes as Chavez or Lula are unwise enough to show sympathy for the Iranian regime just because they both oppose American imperialism. Pressure is such that intellectuals have started to migrate to the cyberspace, affording Iran to have the second largest blogger’s community (nicked Weblogistan) in the world. Weblogistan has started to be a target of official censorship. “Actually, the whole net is filtered” –says Hamid, as he shows me how by typing “women”, or “BBC”, or even “fun” or “honey” directs you to the message “The requested page is forbidden”. The demonstration leaves my heart accelerated.

The bell rings. Two of the items forbidden by the Ayatollahs enter the room, throw away their scarves as if they had suddenly discovered they had a cat over their heads, and take two bottles off a black bag. One of the bottles is a cola beverage. The label of the other one reads: “Ethanol”. Welcome to the night in the Islamic Republic. No matter what proportions of ethanol and cola you essay, the result (called Rocket Fuel) has invariably the aroma of an emergency room. Over the table, a 1000 Rials banknote with Khomeini works as a bookmark in a volume of Bakunin. Ethanol Cola, Bakunin, Khomeini. Foucault was right, what happened in Iran after the Islamic Revolution was part of the postmodern movement...

A ROCK FOR THE AYATOLLAH...

Sticky notice: to read the full story, have a look at my book “Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil – By thumb in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan”. Visit my online bookshop. Order a copy and keep me on the road!

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My first impression of the capital, fostered by the homogeneity of its cars, is the resemblance of gone DDR or some other ex Soviet Republic. Occasionally, a Chevrolet Camaro stands out in the traffic: a sequel from the times when USA and Iran were good friends and the Shah was still in charge. As in Cuba, the cars of tackled down regimes are kept. At the center of Teheran is Imam Khomeini Square. There, in the roof of the Ministry of Communications stand satellite dishes of all diameter, matching well the esthetics of a police regime. (Two hundred meters away heroin dealers do their business around the Metro stairways). From a public phone I dial the number of my local contact in Teheran, a girl called Zohra, who is member of Hospitality Club. Even if I never use hotels in big cities, especially in complex Teheran it makes more sense to meet the real people in order to get a feeling of what is going on.

The taxi with which Zohra picks me up abducts me from the legality of Khomeini Square and drops me in a different world. We are in Café Photo, inside a mall, somewhere in Northern Teheran. While the old city, in the South, is conservative, reverent, crowded and poor, the North was an experiment of the last Shah to recreate the rules of the game in Europe. Consequently it enjoys broad boulevards; its inhabitants are more educated, richer, and notably less enthusiastic about living in an Islamic Republic than those in the South.

Zohra integrates the crew of that reservoir. Like the other girls in the café, she wears her hejab as far back as possible, letting clearly visible her short reddish hair with a blue stripe. Fair enough, had it been for her, the scarf would already be obstructing a sewer grid. Zohra plays a bit with one of her four earrings and says:

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”People is tired, artists are more tired.”

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If I take away the scarf in a movement of imagination, the girl I have in front is a punk. But it is scarcely relevant, for what alienates her is the simple wish to carry on a normal life. Since the Islamic Revolution on ’79 there is no difference between civil and religious rules. The Komiteh, or Moral Police, frequently sentences those who are caught red handed drinking alcohol or in a public display of affection (a kiss will do) to a wiping session. Sex before marriage –love in its more pristine stage- lands you in jail for a long time. In comparison, Romeo and Juliet’s Verona was Teletubbieland. If Shakespeare would take up the pen again, no doubt he would set his drama in Teheran. Here is where the devices of life are veiled while those of death are proudly exhibited, tanks and choppers outside headquarters, or in murals in front of schools.

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Zohra’s dream is to have a rock band. But she knows it’s out of the question. How to organize a concert if a party where beer is present can set you behind the bars? According to the Iranian Law, women can perform music only if the audience is solely composed by other women. Of course, life and common sense, as the rainforest, always find a way. They become furtive. Bands play in private parties, alcohol is smuggled from Russia (locals will proudly tell you it’s even possible to choose brands of Vodka) and opium parades tied to unmanned camels who march alone from Afghanistan (only then I understood why dealers in Spain were nicked camels). But nobody smuggles smiles and that’s obvious.

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- Something is missing –regrets Zohra while Che Guevera stare at us, as wiling to escape from the poster that pins him to one of the walls of the café.

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The anthems dedicated to things missing are always sung in low voice. Nowhere like here will you see so many people whispering to each other. In Iran, whispering is an art. The recent introduction of text messages has also provided young people with another tool of normality, in a country where dating a girl is an act of defiance.

GRAFITTIES IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN TEHERAN

In the post-Islamic Revolution folklore, the US has been nicked “Great Satan”. All the people I talked to, however, manifest to be happy to meet Americans travelling in the country. They don’t agree with American foreign policy, but see each individual as a representative of them.

You can still recognize the American eagle despite the institutional vandalism….



Imam Khomeini is depicted spreading flowers as he walks into scene.

IRANIAN CINEMA

New movies are advertised in the streets for a population each time more aware of local talents.

SOUTH PARK IN AN ADD OF AIR ARABIA

The Muslim World makes room for the icons of the West. Trade and commerce is an arena where famous characters like South Park leak through.

NIGHT IN THE SUBURB OF REY

Mixed groups walk the steep cobblestone streets of charming Rey, a suburb of Northern Teheran.

HARD TO LEAVE THE LION BEHIND…

It is hard to walk around Teheran without finding the dormant symbols of Persia.



In of the many parks, another lions waits...

MONUMENTS WITH IDENTITY CRISIS

Across the globe monuments built to symbolize an idea are renamed to fit a new regime or revolution. Azadi Tower is one of them. Erected by the Shah in 1971 to commemorate the 2500 anniversary of Persia, it was signified again after the Islamic Revolution as a monument to liberty.

FROM ARDABIL TO SOLTANIYEH

March 23rd, 2006 found me hitch-hiking between those cities in Iran. Four of the eight rides required consisted of Paykans.

In Qareh Chaman I got a ride in a Mercedes 608 truck. The driver and his son took me some 250 km, almost the way to Soltaniyeh.

From the truck I could see the Trans Asian Express, on its way from Ankara to Teheran.

Whatever it says, you get the message.

A man that sees me wandering the streets of Soltaniyeh at night offers me accommodation. In the picture you can see my host in his store of electric appliances.

Already on the way to Teheran, the following morning, this man offered me lunch and 20, 000 Iranian Rials (around 2 Euros)

CADILLACS & CHADORS

One of Iran’s Endemic contiguity. Good Muslims still use cars manufactured in the EE.UU. “Great Satan” is bad but he makes nice automobiles!

IMAGES OF ARDABIL

If Iran would be a molecule, the Paykan would be one of its forming atoms. The Paykan is Iran’s home built car. He Muslim “Beetle” was based on the Hillman, a British car from the seventies.



The other atom of Iran would definitely be its blue mosques.

NORUZ: CELEBRATING NEW YEAR 1385 IN IRANIAN MOUNTAINS

In a village called Huwai, mi staying overlaps with New Year’s eve. It is March, 21st in our calendar, and the first day of month Farvardin in the Persian calendar. Iraj is a young English teacher. His family and him are happy to host me for that special night.

A frame with Quranic verses takes preferential place over a carpet. In front of it there is a series of objects that seem to have been congregated by the random hallucination of a loony. There are apples, tea, and plates with candies. So far so good. Beneath comprehension, there is also a bowl full with water and two coins in its bottom. Not far there is a tray with living grass, which will be dropped the following morning. At midnight we are all jumping across a bonfire in the village’s streets. I start to understand that Shia Muslims in Iran still conserve several elements from Zoroastrian tradition.

My host’s house, the following morning.

IRANIAN TRACTOR ADVENTURE

A ride in a ITMCO MF 285. Travelling in a tractor was not new for me, since I am Argentinean and the rural areas of my country are full of them. But hitching a ride with a tractor in Iran was all together another issue! Also, my tractor rides had never taken place in a mountain road. Edging each bend, you had more adrenaline than you wished….

“Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company”

THE MOUNTAINS OF AZERBAIJAN PROVINCE AND THE PALM OF THE DANDY.

Sticky notice: to read the full story, have a look at my book “Vagabonding in the Axis of Evil – By thumb in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan”. Visit my online bookshop. Order a copy and keep me on the road!

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Speaking about Iran implies dismantling a stereotype. The images from Iran that have reached us through the media in the last 20 years are as truthful as limited. Mullahs (Shia religious leaders) feverly addressing masses, women covered top-to-toe by black chadors pressed among their teeth, enraged theology students setting fire to an American flag. All is nothing but a fraction of reality, repeated with enough frequency to convince the average audience that Iran is a country inhabited by hostile, soulless people.

Especially after 9-11, such emblems of Islam automatically trigger rejection and at the same time block any perspective of the whole picture. Who suffers in Iran? And why? Questions that seldom reach us. The government at its turn attempts to replace one cliché with another one, and circulates another slice of reality: Iran becomes a land of nightingales, rose gardens and kind men who take their hand to the chest and invites you a cup of cay (tea).

Maybe I carry myself a mix of the both clichés as I leave the truck stop at Doguzbayazit, Turkey, where I stayed overnight. Under a heavy snowfall I hitch a ride with a Ford Transit van to the very border. Hitching into Iran may sound an improbable scenario, but it is a well trotted path, first opened by the hippies in the 60s in their overland trail to India, and now kept tidy by a precarious trickle of dedicated hitch-hikers who refuse to swap the charm of distance for the shortcut of airlines.

In the north, the majestic Ararat is still covered by dense fog. The Iranian border official stamps my passport and, at the sight of my Afghan and Pakistani visas, asks me: “Until when are you going to travel?” It was Rumi, a Persian poet, who confronted with such question, replied: “Until you stop me”. But the fear of a misunderstanding keeps my lips sealed. Afterwards, I am accompanied to a Tourism (Monitoring) Office, where a man with glasses who speaks English with a girly cadence requires my opinion about Iran’s right to produce nuclear energy. Then, assuring his voice represent that of 70 million Iranians, says: “We like our president to be radical.” I exit the costumes complex and hit the road. At last, alone with Iran. A sign welcomes me into the country in the name of the University of Maku, the border town.

I reach Tabriz swiftly. Among the flock of Paykans (the equivalent of the Trabant in the communist countries) that storm me as they shout out “taxi? taxi?” the driver of a Peugeot 206 who understood my intentions stops. Amin is the chauffeur of Nokia’s manager at Tabriz. When a dog crosses the street, Amin says: “His name is dog”. I pay my miles with intensive English teaching until we get to “A dog is crossing the street”.



Sit down in a park in Tabriz (where I ended up camping), my attempts to spark local hospitality only stick me to university students eager to know my impression of their country. They ask with joy and pride, they know beforehand that the Iranian cities, with their perfumed and dressed citizenship strolling tree lined boulevards offer the sharpest possible contrast to the expectations of most of foreigners. Some travelers, gazing at the pastoral pace of life, commit the mistake of accepting first hand the packaged official version: Iran is a victim of international complot. It is also that, but a successful navigation of Iranian reality means piercing peace, and reconstructing the silenced screams. But night in Tabriz falls beyond any philosophy. I walk thee streets looking for someone to point me a pace to camp, until the man in the picture goes out of his way to take me to a park.

The most obvious step after Tabriz would be to advance towards Teheran, the 12 million soul’scapital. Instead, I feel the impulse to get out of the map and start my Iranian adventure in the tiny villages of Azerbaijan province, forgotten by cartographers and governments. As the name suggests, I am just miles away from the neighboring independent republic of the same name. The people here are called Azeri, and their language is an older version of modern Turkish. The snow capped mountains get amplified after each twist of the road that, after Hurond –the last mapped village- looses the asphalt and dribbles sleepy mud brick hamlets nestled in the slopes. When I ask someone in the streets of Hurond about the next villages the entire town forms an assembly. Nobody agrees in the exact amount of kilometers from one village to the next one, but for me is enough to have the order in which they will appear in front of my steps.

Three days vagabonding out of the pavement, hopping in motorcycles or tractors, giving substance for conversation in villages where men walk the streets as brotherhoods dedicated to discover the ultimate stylish pirouette with their praying collars. The presence of a wanderer ignites the joy of the locals in a culture where hospitality is such a priority. Yet, they can hardly understand my reasons to be away from home if I am not on a business quest. All through Muslim history, traveling has always been closely linked to commercial endeavors. “What is the joy of the traveler?” –they inquire. The non pragmatic side of movement, a total mystery to them.

Eventually the conversation switched to politics. With astonishment I discover that people in a weath producing village are concerned by Teheran’s struggle to enrich uranium. At the same time, a bit in a schizoid way, they complain that the government doesn’t pay any attention to their villages. Again, in order not to argue with 20 people who don`t speak my language, I prefer to say I can’t agree more with Iran enriching uranium, platinum or oregano….

No village lets me go without a lunch pack, which the next village will never let me open but supply their own. When pavement reappears in Qareh Agaj village, again in the map, I can hardly close my backpack due to an excess of apples. At this point, I can say that mountains give warmth to its inhabitants in the same way the palm of the dandy warms a cup of cognac. I stay overnight in Ardabil, northern city famed for its carpets. After exposing myself to the hospitality of a dozen Azeri villages I can appreciate the privacy of a creepy showerless mozaferkhune (guesthouse).

SEE YOU LATER IRAQ….!

Not far from the Turkish border it’s Mickey Mouse who waves me good bye.

Walking into Turkey from Iraq.