Monday September 1, 2014Three days 144 miles After a great two night stay in Sayid Abad we were ready for our final Iran ride towards Mashhad. Once again we changed our route to enjoy one more mountain ride and enter Mashhad from the south. After backtracking about 20 miles we once again started climbing. It was a fun climb in a very desolate area. The road was broken up and patchy so we let air out of our tires for a smoother ride. We continued until we found an isolated place to camp. The following day was the same until we dropped out of our final mountain into a busier valley. We then explored a few tourist sites before finding another camping spot. The last two camping sites were very windy with dirt flying. Our goal for Iran was 1,000 miles and we only needed 37 more for that to happen. After that we had a quick celebration then loaded the bikes and drove to Mashhad, Iran’s 2nd largest city. This worked out well since I do not like cycling into large cities. After a two night stay in a hotel we will be guests in our tour guide’s Ehsan’s home.
We cleaned out all our camping gear this afternoon and are enjoying the air conditioning, and one English channel although it is news that we don’t like. This coming week we will be busy getting ready to fly to Tajikistan, extending our Iranian visa a few days, and exploring the city.