Tabriz – Urmia

29th August 2014       33℃       155km
Tabriz – Urmia

After pushing my bike out of the lobby of the hotel, where it was parked last night, I was headed out of Tabriz city, when I passed a fresh juice shop that I had visited last night. I decided a fresh carrot juice would be a great idea, but with nowhere to stop, I just did what the locals do, and stopped in the middle of the road, forcing the traffic to go around the parked bike. Sometimes the loose interpretation of road rules is a good thing. It didn’t take long before some other cars stopped behind me, and blocked further traffic, while the occupants got out and looked at the bike, and I sucked down my fresh juice from the footpath.   They came over to tell me of the fissures in the rear tyre, which I already knew about, but there is nothing I can do to replace the tyre until I reach Istanbul. Nice of them to notice though.

I reached Lake Urmia, a massive salt lake, and stopped for photos and bit of a ride on the salt.  Which I knew wasn’t the wisest idea, but how often do you get to ride on a salt lake.  With the bike and my boots now covered in sticky, wet salt, I needed to find somewhere to wash the bike.

I passed yet another car crash, a 4WD had driven off the road and rolled into a ditch, people were trying to lever the doors open with metal bars.

I continued on, reaching the small city of Urmia, stopping for fuel on the outskirts, where I met a very kind young man at the petrol station, who didn’t want me to pay for the fuel.  I had to insist on paying, to which he insisted I take from him two lovely large peaches. We said goodbye with a couple of photos and he pointed me off towards the centre of town.  As I passed a construction site, I noticed they had a hose running, so I stopped and they let me wash the bike, even using their broom to help me scrub the bike and my boots.

With the bike now clean, and a beef shashlik in my stomach, I found my digs for the night, parked up the bike and relaxed on my last night in Iran.