Lucky 13th

I made the increasingly familiar trip to the foreigners police station again this morning, this time praying continuously to the collection of angels, saints, prophets, buddhas, bottisatvas, revered ancestors, etc. that have gotten me this far. The first good sign was that my passport didn’t appear to be in the ”waiting to be processed” pile any more. However, after a few minutes it appeared that it wasn’t in any of the other piles either — possibly at the foreign ministry. However, they found it eventually — perhaps it was in the ”people who keep coming back here and bugging us to do our jobs” pile. They asked us to wait — a good sign, and sure enough I was summoned to the window 10 minutes later where they delivered my passport complete with a 1 week visa extension.

We drove back to the hotel, where I hastily packed and loaded everything into El Guapo. The leisure battery had been completely discharged while it waited in Shiraz, but plugging in the battery charger overnight restored everything to working order. We departed the Hotel Khayyam at 10:00 sharp, and entered the mobile lunatic asylum that is Tehran traffic. Without GPS, we made a few minor navigation errors but before 11:00 we were out of the city and on the highway to Tabriz.

Over the next few hours, the traffic steadily grew thinner, and the landscape less urban and more dramatic. At several points, the road approached 2000 metres above sea level, but never quite reached that high. Eventually, we entered the city of Tabriz and spent a good hour circling around trying to locate our hotel, a tiny storefront entrance that I eventually spotted. Then spent another hour trying to figure out how to approach by vehicle, as the main entrance was located on a bus lane. Eventually we found the narrow alley — scarcely 40cm wider than El Guapo — that led to the hotel car park.

Navigating the narrow alley that leads to the Hotel Sahand car park

On a short pedestrian street nearby, I found more restaurant options than I did in all of Tehran, but had to wait until dusk to eat. Tomorrow, I hope to finally leave Iran.

Blogndog

13 July 2015

Tabriz

Lazy Shiites

Today was supposed to be the big day, the Get-Out-of-Tehran Day. We got an early start and headed over to the foreigners police office with my passport receipt, expecting to collect my passport with its extended visa. After a little difficulty in locating the office we went inside, upstairs to the ”Visa Extension” window, where there was no queue, but unfortunately also nobody working. However, through the glass I could see that my passport was on the very top of the pile!

When someone did finally arrive to assist us, however, we soon learned that that was the ”passports waiting to be processed” pile my passport was at the top of, and not the ”passports ready to be picked up” pile. The guy explained that because I was American, my passport had to go to the Foreign Ministry to have the extension approved. OK, fair enough, but what exactly had they been doing with my passport in the six days since I dropped it off? It was just sitting there with my completed application form exactly as I had left it with them, apparently entirely untouched these past few days, except perhaps for an occasional dusting.

Mehdi went to plead my case with the Colonel in charge of the facility, but all he could do was to direct his staff to expedite having the passport sent to the Foreign Ministry. Back at the ”Visa Extensions” window, they promised to do so and told us to call at 14:00.

Back to the hotel. We talked to the front desk. The guy there knew someone at the Ministry. He spoke with him. He promised to expedite processing of my passport as soon as it arrived, but he could nothing until the police sent it over.

In the meantime, we did a get some good news — El Guapo arrived at the Khayyam Hotel in running order. I thanked the two young guys who drove him here, cleaned it up and re-organised a bit, and confirmed that nothing had gone missing. Connected the mains power in order to charge up the leisure battery and run the fridge.

I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to sample some of my caviar, so I went in search of supermarket in order to buy some bread and sour cream to eat it with. I went wandering the streets of Tehran in search of supermarket with no success. Asking for a ”supermarket” inevitably got me directed to some hole-in-the-wall shop selling basics. I decided to try Google, which reliably turned up a half-dozen ”supermarkets” in the area, although none was less than a few kilometres away. I took the metro two stops to the closest one and found it was just a little bigger than the tiny convenience stores I had already passed up, and I couldn’t find any sour cream. There was another a few blocks away, but it wasn’t much better. I decided to settle for some yoghurt with shallots, and something called ”breakfast cream.”. Stocked up on some other snacks in the continued belief I would be taking a long drive in the near future. On the way, I found a bakery cranking out fresh Iranian bread and bought a few sheets. Then took a taxi back to the hotel.

Mehdi was waiting and we called the police office around 13:40 (they had said to call at 14:00); however, no one answered and after a few tries we concluded they had left for the day.

Had some lunch and a nap; it’s a pity I have no chilled vodka to accompany it, but I think its time to dig into that caviar!

Blogndog

12 July 2015

Tehran