Albània - Grècia - Turquia - Iran (Nashtarud - Neka)

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

05-10-2022 - Being able to take a good shower and sleep in a bed is great.
I have pomegranate, biscuits and water for breakfast, I'll make the coffee later (I don't dare light the petrol stove inside the room) and go out to see the sea, it's very humid and cool.
I collect everything, load the motorbike and leave for Tehran again crossing the Elburz (or Alborz) mountains where the highest point is the Damavand (volcanic mountain of 5,671 meters). The road is narrow and twisty as it follows the river, it will be fun.
Before leaving the main road I fill up with petrol and stop at a shop where there is a big kettle of water outside and I make tea and a chocolate cake.
When I take the mountain road everything goes very well, I enjoy the scenery and the curves, but after a short while we are stopped and from the other side they don't stop passing cars, from time to time we go a bit and move on a little and sometimes with the cars stopped I can move forward in the middle or in the ditch.
It's hot and with so many stops the motorcycle engine gets very hot. In one of the starts the motorcycle does not pull and when there is a place to stop I pull over and let it cool down for a while while I check the oil and water levels, everything is fine. After two minutes there is already a man who approaches and offers me a tea.
I continue for a bit, maybe 1 km but there the uphill pans start and you can see that everything is stopped and I decide to go back, in the middle of the morning I must have done about 40 kms. On the way down there is almost no traffic and about 25 km further down there are at least 6 police cars blocking the way up. To go towards Tehran, it is best to backtrack and look for the highway that passes further east.
Well, it turns out that the highway goes around a lot, in the end I change plans and instead of going to Tehran I go further east, to the next place where the track would take me: Maixad.
As the afternoon falls I look for a way to camp, I find a place that seems ideal as it is a little hidden from the road and people are having a picnic but a couple of guys approach saying "Danger" and that there is another place up that is much better. I ask them why is the danger, because of bad people? They tell me it's for the animals.
So here we are! It's close, a park where you can have a picnic and has a guard and everything. Once there they ask me if I drink alcohol and I tell them that a cold beer would be fine. No beer, but we can go to my uncle's house to drink some shiraz wine that he makes himself, says the English speaker, Ramtin.
Hamid is 68 years old and has lived in Ukraine and Canada, he seems like a nice guy and very calm, he has an apartment with a garage below where I leave the motorbike, we go upstairs, I shower and put on street clothes, we have a couple of drinks of wine (which he keeps in 2 liter bottles of CocaCola and it's horrible, it looks like vinegar) and something to eat: we are Ramtin, Reza, Hamid and I, later Armin (Hamid's son) arrives and then we go in armin's car to a friend's food place. We sit at a table on the street and eat lamb chops and chicken, all very good. If it keeps adding more people, I don't know if it's because of the novelty of having a foreigner or because of the CocaCola bottle full of wine. Between the aperitif and dinner we chat and laugh a lot.
When Armin finishes, Hamid takes us home where Ramtin and I and Hamid (the owner of the flat) will sleep.
Before I say goodbye to the others with big hugs. It has been a very pleasant evening.