The sun starts to rise over the mountains, the cat has decided that we shall wake, so we wake, for the biscuits he makes get more and more aggressive as he hops between the both of us trying to wake us up. Breakfast for him and coffee for us. Plus some paly time on the jungle gym.. aka car.
From our perch on top of the canyon we head south towards Dezful, we are on the hunt for a shower, like really badly. We first find the waterworks though; this is where they used to grind flour in mills for thousands of years. As a bonus there is a nice little restaurant you can go to for brekky. Some eggs have us sorted and ready to rock and roll.
For the shower, we hunt and hunt, but due to the holidays all hotels are either full, or not accepting guests to use the showers and the public showers are men only in this town. Asareh has a bright idea to go to a school boarding area for teachers, this works wonderful as they all know her uncle and we are welcomed in with open arms. Showered up we spend the next 30 minutes talking with what seems to be a never-ending stream of teachers all who know her uncle and want to see the car and chat with us.
Our next stop is at Shush, where there is an old fort from the beginning of the persian empire. The Shush castle, but of course it has bee almost 24 hours since our last ice cream, and we are now in the area of buffalo milk ice cream, and it would be rude not to try it. Vs full cream milk it is fattier, but the flavour is a bit different and while a fan, I am not a die-hard fan for it. But would obviously buy it again, as ice cream.
On the way to the castle, we grab fuel, and once again a local donates 50 liters to me (0.75$ worth), and refuses payment, all he says is “Please tell others that we are not all evil like the media shows” At the castle we wonder around in the open area where bits used to be, it was a large area for entertaining and in your head, you picture what it may have been like many many years ago. Inside the castle has been built upon with every new empire and has grown vastly in size. Now housing a land rover that has no oil in it, as its not actively leaking. Lol. The museum itself houses artifacts from 7000 years!! Insane. I am of course dressed like Indiana jones just incase I am offered a quest.
\
For the night we head out of town to set up on the river, but a local comes to us after we have set up and explains this is the party area for the locals, ie: not the area you want to be staying in apparently, as we are told the parties can get out of hand, so back in the car we drive to Dezful again and end up setup in the Alikaleh park, its Eid, so the place is pumping, our first hurdle is getting on top of the 12 inch high curbs to park, we definitely attracted attention doing that as the wagon is loud and crawled up with ease, even though they offered ramps. But the best part was the food, falafel was on hand and homemade, there is music, people are dancing. They carry on late into the night, but we love it. It feels very safe and everyone has a good happy mood about it.
