#2: [24-Aug-11]

30-Aug-2004 -- This is the 4^th out of 29 Confluences on our tour from Germany to China, the story continues from 40N 41E.

On the ninth day, we started at 7:30 a.m. from Tabrīz. We were woken up by our new friend Reza who wanted to say good-bye to us and, by the way, ask if we would sell our car to him. We explained him that we had a Carnet de Passage, which didn't allow us to sell the car in Iran, otherwise we would loose our 5000 Euro deposit on the car. To make the story complete, I should say that we were invited to his house the night before and had great fun (and a great meal) with his family.

At 10:30 a.m. with a trip mileage of 4,250 km since we left our home in Germany and an odometer reading of 20.4007 km, we got to the turnoff at the town Bostānābād (23 km from the CP) in direction to Ardabīl. After passing through the village Dūzdūzān (7 km from the CP), we turned into a smaller road, at the distance of 1.3 km we turned into a gravelled road and got to the CP directly with only 85 m to go. Such an easy confluence hunt!

We parked the car in the shade and intended to go to the point. But this would have meant to step over the crops. In order not to destroy any plantation, we decided that 85 m is good enough and shot the pictures. A man, who had come by his motor-bike (seen in the East view) started to work in one of the irrigated fields. He ignored us which seemed amazing, because there are hardly ever any tourists in this area. We thought it might be a little weird to ask him if we could take his picture, so we went off without one. On the way back we took a picture of the next village, which was a little ugly. After that we headed off towards Tehrān.

CP visit details:

• Time at CP: 10:30 am
• Duration: 1 h (until we were back to our route)
• Distance of car parking: 85 m
• GPS height: 1665 m
• Description: Flat, irrigated plantation, soy beans. Little cottonwood trees next to the road.
• Given Name: The Easy Confluence

Story continues at 37N 48E.