Today I decided to write down a overnight trip I did in Varzaneh, a desert town 105 km southeast of Isfahan. In a country where more than half of the ground is either desert or semi-desert, you can for sure easily find any desert easily.
Being a rather lazy backpacker, I didn’t look for a desert with the most beautifully shaped dunes, but found a relatively approachable one near Isfahan, where I was staying for a couple of nights. Iran is a country quite easy to travel to, even when you are travelling by yourself. In Facebook there’s this group called “See You in Iran”, where many travellers and independent guides and guesthouse owners gather. You could easily find a homestay or guesthouse in places like Varzaneh.
Later when I arrived in the guesthouse, I’ve heard that the host is also doing couchsurfing for one of the rooms, which made me try out couchsurfing later in Tehran.
Varzaneh is an interesting place. I noticed it seems common here to carry stuff in a saddlebag on your motorbike. In Varzaneh, women wear completely white chadors, while women in the rest of Iran, mostly wear black chadors.
 Dome of the tower |
 interiors |
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The Iranians are very flexible, when I arrived, I wasn’t planning to join the tour to the Pigeon Tower and salt lake, but there was a space in the car, so I just went with a group of Polish people.
The tower was cool, I can’t believe that there were 7000 pigeons were once house here.
The salt lake wan’t so impressive though, maybe because earlier last year, I was in the endless Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia already. Although the lake doesn’t look bad in pictures here and I believe the salt flat does cover a huge surface in the area. The the lake itself was more of a puddle
Yet, since it was a unplanned trip after all, and I did enjoy some nice warm Iranian tea, I have nothing to complain.
Sunset was the greatest time in the desert, many guests from different homestays and guesthouses all gather here. It was nice to meet up with fellow travellers here. Sandboarding seems quite popular here, I finally got to try it on. Have fallen a few times but super fun.
Have dinner together in the desert was a special experience for me. Although I had been to the desert before, but I had never had such an amazing dinner in the desert. The guesthouse prepared the BBQed chicken and vegetables.
Nothing could be so cheerful and heart-warming than a well-prepared traditional Iranian BBQ dinner! I also loved how they warm their tea pot on the fire, so that you can have warm tea everywhere.
My original plan was to stay overnight in the tent on the desert. But the desert night was cold in November than I thought and I didn’t bring my warm gears. So I went back with the rest of the group to the guesthouse in town, leaving only a Spanish couple camping there.
The next morning I was driven to the sunrise spot, it was still super cold, luckily we could make some warm tea as usual.
今天我来回顾一下在伊朗的沙漠之旅，对于一个大部分国土都是沙漠和半沙漠的国家来说，找个沙漠玩一下露营是非常容易。对于我这样，旅行途中经常走着走着就找个咖啡店坐坐的懒人来说。与其背着沉重的背包去一个拥有最美沙丘的沙漠，不如就近找个沙漠体验一下伊朗的沙漠生活就好。于是在伊斯法罕的几天，我看了看地图，发现附近就有沙漠，于是打开面书的“See You in Iran”小组询问，这个小组聚集了要去伊朗旅行的旅客，热心的当地人和一些提供导游或住宿服务的旅社。
很快就有旅社联系我，可以住那里，并安排沙漠露营给我。于是我就用伊朗当地的搭车app坐车去伊斯法罕公车站去Varzaneh，车次很频繁。在伊朗旅行，性价比很高，旅社老板去车站接我，告诉我可以加入几个波兰来的旅客下午一起去看盐湖还有鸽子塔，不错的住宿加沙漠交通加午餐晚餐好像才30欧不到。后来我听几个旅客说老板也玩沙发客，如果用沙发客找到他们有空房，甚至还可以免费住宿，真是无所不能了。
鸽子塔很有意思，历史悠久，据说以前有7000个鸽子住在里面，所以才是一格一格的形状，我真是无法想象，觉得太有趣了。而盐湖就一般般了，可能由于去年先去过了玻利维亚的乌尤尼盐湖，这个盐湖比起来太小了，附近的盐沼到时候很大一片，不过不比一望无际的天空之境啊。不过想想也没有损失什么，跟一路同行的说说笑笑，交到了新朋友，也没什么可抱怨的。
本来我打算在沙漠露营，可是日落以后忽然很冷，11月白天的伊朗还是很热，没想到晚上那么冷。日落的时候，我们还在沙丘很开心的滑沙，天黑了以后脚冻得冰凉，无所以觉得还是算了，决定吃完晚饭回旅社睡，第二天早上再去看日出。晚餐吃得很开心，旅社老板的父亲很精心的准备了一下午食材，我们也体验了沙漠特色的伊朗风味烤鸡烤蔬菜，在寒冷的沙漠夜晚，大家聚在一起烤火喝茶吃肉，是我很难忘的经历。
