When the world takes you away

Iran has lots to offer, whether culturally, culinary, historically or architecturally. In one of those villages where you really don't expect anything interesting to happen, we were gobsmacked by all of this … and more!

It was the day we left Isfahan and were headed towards Shiraz. We had absolutely no intention of taking the main road and had decided to follow a smaller alternative which would take us through a much more isolated province. 

We had left the city's agglomeration of towns and villages and the landscape was flat and rather boring with some promising mountains a few miles away. It was observing these that we started seeing some very peculiar looking structures; camouflaging themselves over the dry, barren land there were a number of round towers.

Mud villages! 

We had heard of Iranian traditional desert dwellings being built out of earth and hay and for the first time we were only a few metres away from a fortified settlement.

We slowed down and considered the possibility of exploring it for a while and maybe try to find a place to camp, but for some reason we decided to push on. Twice this pattern repeated itself until on the map we could only see two tiny villages just 2 and 4 kilometres off the main road. The latter is where we headed.

At the first crossroad, we asked a group of men who were busy installing a road sign which read “Mariabad” (still think the name is hilarious) about the existance of a shop and they pointed towards the second village, Cian. One of them spoke a little English and told us that there was also a place where travellers could sleep.

Ok, that was easy.

It was January and the Sun was already behind the mountains, so it must have been about 4, and we were feeling pretty tired. However, we quickly forgot about our sore muscles when we caught sight of a small collection of houses, most of which were the same colour as the ground they were built on, a shrine looking monument (which ended up containing a rare collection of statues in its courtyard) to the right, and to the left the biggest mud castle we had ever, and will probably ever, see.

The person who had spoken a little English at the first intersection met us outside the shop. He ended up being the Mayor of all the villages in that area and he escorted us to a house where a comfy room with kitchen and bathroom was waiting for us. We managed to exchange some basic conversation with Zahra, a 16 years old girl who lived there with her family and we also managed to exchange some words in Farsi with the mother and father, Fatemeh and Hossein, both of which were absolute sweethearts!

The biggest surprise however was when at around 9 o'clock in the evening a car pulled into the courtyard and a young couple entered our quarters. We quickly identified the young man, Mohamad Reza, as Hossein's son (they looked incredibly alike) and so we deduced the young woman, Faezeh, must be his wife or fiancé since in Iran a couple cannot be alone in any other circumstance.

They spoke English, and well. So, although we were really tired, we engaged in more than two hours of conversation with them and we just couldn't get enough. They had come all the way from Isfahan just to meet us and we were eager not to let them down. We learned so much about a lot of aspects of their culture thanks to them!

In the morning we were taken to the other end of the village to the castle. From up close it's even more imposing. The rampants and two floors were still in very good condition with a third only half standing in ruins. The main gate was also missing a big chunk of the façade but the guards' quarters, about 5 meters above the door was clearly visible.

A local historian met us in the first hall and our young translators made the best of finding ways of conveying difficult words in English. 

So, from what was related to us, this is one of the rarest castles of the country having being raised by the Safavid dynasty over 500 years ago. At the time, this was a strategic location in the kingdom being in the vicinity of a salt mine and the village of Cian Sharifa Faqiyad which was built around an abundant fresh water spring (don't forget that we're in the middle of a desert).

Anyway, bottom line is that it shook our world. For one, we didn't actually expect mud structures to last this long and, secondly, it was just an altogether amazing experience; the people we met and who hosted us better than if we were family, the historic and architectural discoveries we made which have forever enriched our lives.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in this part of the world thrived such a rich culture in which the value and respect of humanity was so deeply engraved in their traits that, today, its uniqueness is still palpable on a daily basis.

More often than not we meet people with huge hearts who we still remember after so long, who have widened our understanding of many different things in many different ways with their eagerness to share their time and culture with others and that we hope to see again sometime in the future.