J85 – 3/12/2006

Breakfast at 7H00 for a 7H35 departure.

Just like yesterday, Serge had a good start.  He was relaxed at the beginning and then got tired on the second part of the day, especially because at the 50th kilometer the road went up and up to almost 1800 meters.

Today René ran 10 km with Serge.  He is happy to start running again and plans to run a marathon in 2007.  This is the start of his training.

The sunshine was very pleasant.  -1° Celsius at departure and a good 20° in the middle of the afternoon.  Only Georges dared to wear just a T-shirt.  As for me, I have taken to wearing a head band that covers a part of my hair: Adapting to local customs and not wanting to shock is the rule for all travelers.  Here the women wear scarves or a hidjam (they cover the hair completely but one sees the face) or a black chador which is ground length and covers the whole body, in which case you see only the eyes.  This is held by the hands and here I give up.  How do they manage to free their hands to carry their packages?  To close this parenthesis on clothing, we met a couple on the road who stooped to greet us: the lady wore a scarf and a rather tight sweater which left her forearms bare.  But that is only to wear in the car. In the end, there are rules but everyone adapts them to his/her own convictions.

As to our guide, Medhi, he is of great help for conversations with the Iranians because the Farsi or Persian language (not to be confused with Arabic), is very difficult, even if there are French words in the language.  Medhi has adapted to our snail’s pace and even helped with some feedings.

This evening Serge understood why he was feeling so worn out during the second part of the day: this evening he had a runny nose, a sore throat, sore glands and a headache.  All this reminds us of the border crossing when he was so cold he couldn’t get undressed by himself and couldn’t get warm.  We got out our stock of  Paracétamol (Tylenol in the USA)! Watch this space…..