Albània - Grècia - Turquia - Iran (Dasht-e Lut - Mahan)

Motorbike trip from Catalonia to Iran passing through Italy, Albania, Greece, Turkey and Iran.

10-10-2022 - At 2:00 I go out to pee, the temperature is 14°C but with the wind it feels colder.
I wake up at 5:45 when the sun comes up and the temperature is still 14°C and the same icy wind is blowing. I have breakfast, collect my belongings and continue the route towards the Kaluts desert.
I don't change my shirt, it will be the 3rd day I wear it and it doesn't smell of sweat but of mosquito repellent. Let's see if I can shower and change my clothes today.
I start the bike at 2/4 of 8, 24°C
Yesterday I did about 150 kms from Nehbandan and I have about 150 more to go to Shahdad where there is a gas station and shops, in between there is nothing but Dasht-e-Lut desert where it seems that the maximum has been recorded of heat with 70ºC.
Suddenly I stop listening to the silence, no one anywhere.
You can see some brake ruts because the sand has invaded the road or there is some big hole in the asphalt, in the whole day I may have encountered half a dozen cars or trucks.
Occasionally the desert sand is white in places where the water from the little rain has pooled and evaporated and only the salt remains. There is no sign of life anywhere.
There is a sign on the road that a few kms further on there is a car park, petrol station, food, red moon, etc... so no, just a large esplanade and some abandoned and half-demolished buildings.
Arriving at the Kaluts (rock formations that look like castles in the middle of the desert plains) I stop by the side of the road to take a photo and see water, further inside it looks like some kind of walled building and a man comes out and comes towards me , when he arrives we greet each other, he speaks English and says he is a watchman in the area. After a while a car from the same house arrives with 2 men, the man from before tells me to show them his passport, I ask if they are police and he says yes.
I ask if it is safe to sleep by the Kaluts and he tells me yes, that they are the watchmen.
I continue to Shafiabad where I visit the caravanserai and then on to Shahdad where I fill up on petrol and buy water and a mango juice. We are at 32°C
The road climbs up to 2,700 meters and then descends again.
I stop Mahan for lunch at a place that has a sign outside with a European-style cook.
It looks good, it's a spacious, cool place, with a small outlet inside and those kind of beds for eating half lying down.
They show me what they have: assorted skewers and rice but on one side I see chicken thighs to bake, perfect, I order thighs with rice.
In the end when I ask when it's worth he says nothing, that he invites me, I insist again that I want to pay and he doesn't, and so a 3rd time and he's the same, that it's a gift.
So I understand that this is the "tarof" that they give everything at the outset but really it's just a sign of courtesy and that you have to insist that you want to pay, if on the third time they say no then it really is a gift.
Before leaving I pass through the "Shazdeh Mahan Historical Garden" (Prince's Garden) a splendid place with monumental trees and lots of water. They let my motorbike inside, I don't know why they are so afraid of theft. I pay 1,000,000 rials for the entrance.
When I leave, the same man who brought me the motorbike inside tells me if I have visited the village museum and that there is a green space there and you can camp. I tell him that it would be interesting to be able to sleep there and he tells me to follow him to a shop next door (in fact it is his shop where he sells all kinds of electrical appliances) and I park the motorbike there as there will be a lot of people in the park now and later everyone will leave. It is right next to the "Shah Nematollah Vali Shrine", there is a large grassy park, ideal for pitching your tent after dark.
For dinner I made Cream of Mushrooms, then I go to a swimming pool where there is a small one, I fill a water bottle and go back to the tent to scrub the dishes with a drop of Fairy and the Scotch Britte, I sit down and a dwarf arrives, we call each other Salam, and he sits next to us, we don't say anything else, me scrubbing and him watching, once clean I go back to the pool and rinse everything, I go back to the tent and the dwarf is still sitting there floor, I sit in the chair and take my mobile, a few minutes later the nano leaves without saying anything. Now I will be able to make dessert without any problems, cookies soaked with the Nocilla I bought this afternoon.