Re: From Theran again
(From Hynek)
And so 2 days before the expiry of our Iranian Visa we left Tehran waving Ali goodby who was pouring water behind our car for good luck... direction Tabriz. On the way we ate the last pistachios that Emma bought some 4 weeks before...
Yes we stayed in the Iran till the last day ... BECAUSE IRAN IS GREAT!!!! I really recommend this country to anybody. The countryside is beautiful the historical monuments are stunning, the people are veeery helpful and life is cheap... In all aspects Iran surprised me a lot!
On the way to the boarder we had another last drama: as we approached Tabriz I noticed that the car was loosing a lot of power and you could smell the diesel in the car!!! Also the sound that the engine makes when you push the acceleraion changed ..... hmmm !!!
But we had to reach Tabriz and so I pushed on and we reached the city by the evening, stopping in a Hotel just for one night. After checking in, out of curiosity, I opened the engine hood (I say out of curiosity since I have no idea about engines and I prefer not to know the bad news). And as I lift it I noticed that the whole engine was soaked... soaked in Diesel... !!! There was a leak somewhere!--- But I would leave that for tomorrow!! I closed the hood behind me and dove into the fresh hotel bed sheets.
The next morning we drove the car to the nearest mechanic... The problem was that one of the four tubes that deliver the diesel to each piston was leaking... I mean the Diesel was nicely spraying out!!! This way one piston was not getting enough petrol and too much air... The mechanic welded the piece and in about 30 min we were on the road again....
ON the way we tanked the car full... The car has two tanks and can hold about 180 liters of Diesel and I think we reached the upper limit for Diesel was dripping as we were approaching the boarder... (for your info: The Petrol in Turkey is suuuper expensive (more expensive than inSwitzerland!!)... and up to Goreme (some 1000km from the boarder) we are still running on cheap Iranian Diesel... )
But again this devilish tube started leaking and just about 25 km before the boarder we had to stop again... this time the mechanic was smarter: he welded the piece and attached it to the engine. For the vibration of the engine was breaking the tube that was not vibrating with the engine... somehow our car doesn't like to cross boarders.
We also washed the car and the engine to get rid of all the diesel smell!!! and reached the boarder just before nightfall.
On the way to the boarder Aurelie asked me where the mount Ararat is... as it was indicated on the map. In search for the tourist attraction we both turn our heads to the right and there it was ... a beautiful Ararat Volcanic mountain!!! A very sexy mountain with a nice sexy curve (saddle) that leads to his smaller volcano twin.
Crossing the boarder took us about 2.5 hours... and so we reached our final destination, a small camping place, at around 8 in the evening where we had dinner and where we noticed that TURKEY IS NOT THE CHEAPEST COUNTRY!!!!!! The dinner cost us some 17 Usd.
But it is a beautiful country for motorbiking!! many hills and nice turns on fairly good roads (though iranian roads are the best!!) .... and no pass is too high that you would think "my bike won't make it" as it was the case on our Himalaya bike tours... he he
Now we are at Goreme. A very touristic place! --- in another 2 days we will be at the Mediterranean at a friend of a friend's house relaxing before hitting the big city, Istanbul.... Still driving around with the welded piece int he car hoping it will make it another 1000 km to Istanbul.
love Hynek
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