buses at speed , we skid in the sand and scarcely miss an oncoming bus . This very near head on collision prompts me to look up annual fatalities on Iranian roads . In 2018 it was around 16 000 , passengers and drivers of cars and light vehicles making up just under 50 percent of deaths on the road .
We pass a rudimentary campsite set up about a hundred metres from the road . There are no facilities to speak of but the lure of a night in the desert for Iranians is strong . I see a camel in the distance , but there is no stopping Mehdi .
Ahead , the road divides a small cluster of dusty flat rooved huts . This is the official desert entrance . Mehdi brakes sharply and skids to a halt . With a warning that this is the last place for a toilet stop , he hops out the car to pay the entry fee .
I adjust my headscarf and settle in to wait . After nearly four weeks in Iran , I ’ m comfortable wearing the headscarf and long-sleeved tunic top over long pants .
A four-wheel drive pulls up beside us . Three young men get out while the young woman remains seated in the car . I ’ m surprised and more than a little shocked to see that instead of a headscarf , she ’ s wearing a khaki kepi style cotton cap . It hardly covers her shoulder length blond hair .
In Kashan and other more religious cities most women wear the black chador , a full-length body cloak held under the chin with one hand . However , in Tehran many women , especially young women , push the boundaries .
They wear tight leggings or pants , fashionable tunics with long or threequarter length sleeves and colourful headscarfs worn back from their forehead so that their hair shows around their face . I guess the young woman is from Tehran .
Back on the road , I reach for the grab handle as Mehdi resumes his breakneck speed . So far , the road and surrounding desert stretching into the distance has been flat . Now , a series of flat-topped hills appears in the distance . Mehdi engages a lower gear and turns sharply onto a side road which leads up to the top of one of the hills .
At the top , the surface is flat . Composed of hard , friable sandstone it drops away steeply in parts . Soft sand piles up against the hard core forming dunes in the gullies . The roar of a motorbike catches my attention .
A helmetless man wearing jeans and a leather jacket manoeuvres his slow-moving but hard-working
motorbike up through the thick soft sand of a nearby gully . Putting his feet down on the ground as the bike surges forwards , he grimaces as he struggles to maintain his balance .
Behind him a second man appears similarly dressed , but he is walking , disconsolately pushing his bike up the hill .
Mehdi parks at the edge of a sharp drop and I get out to take in my surroundings .
The view stretches for miles . My eyes follow the dust cloud along the curve of the road as a stream of cars make their way home . Some are only going as far as Kashan while others
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