Well not really, but it sure looked close with the green rolling fields. Packing up in the morning the fog is heavy heavy, maybe 30M visibility, and in some places you can barely see past the hood. This is a nightmare to drive in as the drivers here cant be trusted to stay on their respective sides of the road even on a sunny day. It’s a slow go, with speeds never exceeding 40, and honestly most at 25-30 to be safe. But amazingly we came around a corner and POP! Straight out of the fog and sunny.
We stop in the next small town, Kivi Bala for supplies. With chicken and fresh veggies. Wait no, and a stock up of fake beer, which I am sure is worse for you than real beer, waist line wise. We go looking for a place to reheat dinner and chill. I pull up a small road and straight into a locals farm, he is more than happy to host us and allows us to stay for lunch, while Asareh cooks he shows me around. A great plot of land with a view over the whole city. We are even given some natural flowers to flavour our tea later that night.
We motor straight to Ardabil to see the shrine for Sheikh Safi Al-din Ardabili, phew that was a mouth full. The entry for a foreigner is always about 10 fold what a local pays, so prepare your self for that, although still not expensive. The shrine itself is stunning. The architecture and beauty, it makes you wish you had a time machine to at least see it in the past. Ill let the photos do the talking here.
I wanna get paid an assload too…
With a fresh package of halva we head east into the mountains, we were going to head an extra 10kms further back into the mountains, but decided due to the risk of wolves we will stay in the open fields. We arrive in what I will describe as little Ireland, green rolling hills with the softest grass you will find and sheep in flocks litter the land. We enjoy the show and just as sun starts to set the shepherds take their herds back home leaving us alone on the mountain side.
