DAY NINETEEN… 24.75 miles (39.50 km)
Back on our bicycles again today, but only for a brief ride from the Chak Chak Zorastrian Shrine to the main road. Our A-to-B journey from Yazd today was across the desert with only one road to cycle upon… a busy motorway with lots of big trucks, so not a nice ride. So we opted for a short ride that meant that we could visit the sacred Zorastrian Fire temple at Chak Chak, in a cave with a dripping spring, watering an ancient cedar tree, with a fire that has been continuously burning for over 2,000 years. A very special place.
We have arrived in this most wonderful hotel, a restored caravanserai. We have a two-tiered room with lovely Moroccan style lights and an arched ceiling. There’s a second bedroom up some stairs, where there is a beautiful stained glass window and a huge double bed, which I am going to sleep in tonight, alone!!
The restaurant looked really smart and expensive, but supper was only €1.5 each despite having a ‘special drink’ (saffron, mint, lemon… quite medicinal in taste!), some chicken kebab and a number of the usual veggie dishes. We are still carrying shed loads of cash, thanks to me changing so much by mistake at the airport.
Prior to dinner we were given a brief history of the caravanserai by a sweet man training to be a tour guide. Its 400 years old and there are 999 of them all along the Silk Road going through Iran. They are all sited just outside the city walls to protect the citizens within from strangers and to enable trade to take place easily. Genius! We were asked to make a promotional video for them. Poor Tim agreed to say ’one sentence’, which turned into many more, and then we all had to say a few words. Tim and I had to stand in the courtyard admiring the hotel (which was easy) but in the freezing cold of the night!!
