Visit to a mud volcano that decides to annoy me by exploding mud at the moments I am not shooting. My CL is very patiently bursting shots until I get a half decent one. Unfortunately not the one, where the Iranian tourist was covered in mud...

Anyways. Then further to a village, where we go by boat to a sand dune. Very impressive. Very hot too. I try to scale the dune with bare feet. Turns out: not such a great idea. Water cooling required soon. And shoes.

Back in the village. We are invited at a local family for a nice lunch. After lunch the ladies are invited to sit with the women of the house – and I have to stay with the dudes. Boring. 

On it goes to Chabahar, a free trade zone like Qeshm, located on the south coast of Iran on the gulf of Oman. We'll stay here for some days as a base camp for the next activities.

Food shopping for a picknick on the beach. We have the beach for us, except for –and this goes for most of the trip – large amounts of trash. Everywhere. On the ferries to Hormoz for instance one observes trash floating everywhere on the ocean. And the same is true for the beach and most other locations you visit. This is in fact a horrible  outlook for our future. 

Finally we arrive in Chabahar and go to the bazaar.

After heat and rocks at Hormoz, we go back to Bandar Abbas in the evening. Eating  nice fish and visiting the (fish) market.

A long day ahead, including two ferries, so we leave at five o'clock with the ferry from Qeshm island to Bandar Abbas for a (still early) breakfast. 

Then to the next ferry: from Bandar Abbas to the island of Hormoz. 

All right, at this point I have to confess: the most fascinating aspects of this island, the impressively coloured rock formations are not entirely compatible with black and white. Hence, you'll have to wait for the colour renditions here.

It is freaking hot, and walking in the sun I nearly collapsed. The wonderful Café Gelak and the impressive museum and culture initiative of Dr. Nadalian come to the rescue.

A last comment on food, which is interestingly different in the south of Iran compared to the north. Food is spicier, (obviously) more fish and shrimp is offered and one feels the influence from Pakistan, e.g. in the street foot like Samosa filled with different things or Pakora.

This lady is frying (among other things) Samosa.

The gentleman in the picture above is frying Pakora, in the picture below a kind of Pakistani burger as he proudly explained in details. Both on the bazaar in Chabahar.

Obviously, there is no trip to Iran without one of the signature dishes, Kebab. One of the best (goat) kebabs of the trip we had in Qeshm.

Star Valley and Chakooh Gorge are impressive geological sites on Qeshm.

And sunset on the way back.

We arrived by plane from Tehran on the Qeshm island and spend some days in a small and simple hotel. ​El capitano.

No lack of ship wrecks and also repair and building on this island.

Well, I am back. So these pictures are not hot from the trip. One reason was, that I actually did not have proper internet connection and also Weebly was blocked in Iran. Thank you very much.

Nonetheless I will post some B/W previews, as the processing of the colour photos and the update of the regular website (approx 3.000 pictures made) will take some time. 

And also, some motives are quite nice in black and white too. So stay tuned.

This was roughly the tour we made. All in all about 6.000 km through Iran (including trips in Tehran).

And this is yours truly, on the first day in Qeshm among mangroves and unfortunately still a bit feverish from an infection, which made the first days a bit of a struggle.