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| looking at the Agorz Mountains across a tea plantation, Fuman, Iran |
I had a lovely experience with a group of women in the
picturesque mountain village of Masouleh today.
Late in the day, our guide and I were peering into the small town
mosque. Three ladies invited me in, so I
took off my shoes, draped myself in the colorful chador they provided, and
followed them inside. Four older women
sat to one side drinking tea and chatting. I was clearly a curiosity. Farther inside was a beautifully decorated
tomb. The women led me inside and told
me to make a wish, then led me counter-clockwise around the tomb, showing me
how to rub my hand on each panel and then rub my face with the same hand,
transferring the good wishes from the dead one to me.
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| village of Masouleh in the Agorz Mountains |
Back outside, they helped me take off my borrowed chador
and, when my head scarf slipped off, quickly grabbed it to gently cover my head
again. They were all smiles, saying
salaam and bye bye with their hands over their hearts in the traditional greeting
as I thanked them for their kindness.
A few minutes later, we visited a tiny private museum filled
with stuffed animals the owner had found dead on the mountain trails and
road. He’d taken them to a taxidermist
and then displayed them in 2 rooms of his home so that people could see the
kinds of animals that live in these mountains.
He is surrounded by martens, many birds, a bear, wild boar, weasels,
several kinds of bobcat, and a jackal, among others, all looking like they
would like to devour him.
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| traditional Masouleh house |
He is 77 and
graduated from engineering school 57 years ago.
He looked at the walking stick I’d picked up on our hike up the mountain
to the Rudkhan Castle and promptly exchanged it for a much better-looking
bamboo walking stick because he said I needed something more elegant than my
stripped-down branch. As we walked out,
he showed us his father’s house next door, where he now lives, recently and
beautifully restored. He must have quite
a few visitors who pay to enter and leave him tips.
Yesterday, we drove from Tehran to Fuman, in Guilon
Province, near the Caspian Sea where we will go tomorrow. On the south side of the Algorz range of high
mountains, all is dry and brown, with jagged rocks, but no trees. After crossing a pass, we made a long descent
to the wetter northern side and began to see pine forests and then rain
forest.
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| pickled fruit and olives |
Before we reached the forest, we passed through large farms
of dry land wheat and corn as well as olive orchards irrigated by drip
systems. There are olive factories here
to process the fruit. The roadway is
lined with shops selling olives, pickled garlic and fruits, fruit leather, all
kinds of preserved herbs and seeds, and eggplant in a variety of preparations.
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| man selling grapes along desert road |
Heading down the long descent to the humid plain below, we
came to rice and tea plantations. The
rice harvest is nearly over, the second one this year, so cattle graze in the
paddies. The rice straw used to be used
for thatching roofs and is still made into many products, including floor mats
and brooms. All these farms are
privately owned. The tea plantations, in
particular, seem to generate considerable income as the houses next to them are
quite large and well-maintained.
Mountain villages, except for those that are fortunate enough to attract
tourists, are much less prosperous.
We started the day today with a drive through the rice fields
and up to the mountains to visit the Rudkhan Castle, originally a Sassanid
fortress dating back at least 900 years.
The climb to the castle is over 1000 uneven steps, about 1100 feet and 1
½ miles up the steep mountainside.
Fortunately, the climb is through the forest, so it’s relatively
cool. The castle sprawls along a steep
ridgetop. Up one side is the area where
the king and his family lived if under attack.
We clambered up about 150 more very steep, narrow steps to reach the top
and look out over the valleys and mountains that surround this fortification.
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| watchtower at Rudkhan Castle |
All the way along the steep steps up the mountain are tea
and souvenir shops. We stopped for tea
on the way down, sweetened with toothpicks that had been dipped in boiling
sugar that creates a candy about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long for sweetening
your tea. Quite delicious. For the merchants, this is a daily slog up
the many steps carrying food, water and souvenirs on their backs.
Understandably, as we got higher up the
mountain, fewer of the shops were open.
But, at the bottom, business is thriving for both shops and restaurants. We had a great lunch of kebabs, rice and
yoghurt as we sat on a raised platform covered with a carpet. My legs were already warning me that they
would pay me back tomorrow for the drubbing they got today.
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| Don on bench before lunch at Rudkhan Castle | | | | |
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