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that no one would ever live in. It was haunting— beauty turned absurd.
To wash away the unease, I rode to Amasya, a place I already knew and loved, tucked along the banks of a river between cliffs and mosques. The stillness of the evening, the smell of food, the hum of life— it brought me back to myself.
The next day I headed toward Erzurum, hoping to meet a friend returning from Armenia. Past Erzincan, I saw a familiar side road and turned without thinking. The asphalt was broken, the hills wide and golden, a stream beside me growing into a river that demanded I stop and swim.
Later, against the advice of a kind but cautious Turk— who told me not to go because it was“ dangerous”— I turned toward Kurdish territory. He was wrong. Kurdistan welcomed me like family.
A quiet checkpoint waved me through. Refugee camps dotted the roadside. When I stopped for shawarma in a small town, a group of Kurds gathered around, curious and open. Within minutes we were eating, laughing, and talking like old friends. Time dissolved; suddenly it was night, and I still hadn’ t found a place to sleep.
The next morning in Van, I met Virgilio— just long enough for a quick hug and a photo— before he turned back from Armenia and I continued toward the Iranian border.
It wasn’ t my first time in Iran. Angela and I had entered in 2017, nervous and full of clichés. But that first journey had changed everything.
Back then, in Tabriz, a car had stopped beside us. For a moment we’ d been wary. Then a woman stepped out, smiling— Roza. She and her family invited us to stay in their home for two days. It wasn’ t a kidnapping; it was kindness.
Now, years later, I was returning. They welcomed me again, this time as one of their own— no veils, no hesitation, no formalities. They even poured me a forbidden drink, laughing as they did. It was their way of saying: we trust you, and our walls are gone.
I called her parents Mama and Baba. They called me brother. That night we celebrated with music and dancing— just as I had in Albania, in Serbia, and now, in Tabriz, in Iran.
When I left the next morning, I cried.
The road to Mashhad was long, slowed by endless requests for selfies and my own temptation to leave the asphalt for desert tracks. That restless part of me— the motorcyclist’ s instinct— couldn’ t resist. I chased dirt trails that led to forgotten caravanserais and crumbling mud villages, places unseen by most travellers. It was my third time through Iran, yet it felt entirely new.
One afternoon, scrolling through Maps. Me— my only navigation tool— I noticed a marked hot spring nearby. I followed the track, a broad gravel road that soon narrowed into a twisting mule trail. It crossed a stream again and again, weaving between hills of red and gold. After eighteen kilometres, I found myself on the edge of a crater, at the centre of which shimmered a pool of clear hot water. There was no one. Not a soul. I stripped and swam— freedom, solitude, and the sound of the wind echoing off stone.
The air was so hot that the water felt cool.
Two days later, I reached Mashhad. The odometer read 5,450 kilometres. Ahead lay the border, and the leap into the unknown. RAC
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