I got a call …
It was about 5 days before the tour I got a call on my mobile number from an Iranian sim card.
I replied as I do if I am receiving this call from a Farsi-speaking person.
“Aloo,” I said. This is a phrase we say when answering phone calls. The same as the French people say. I think we borrowed this phrase from the French.
Then I heard a warm voice telling me: “Hello, I am trying to reach Hosein Farhady from Gate of Alamut.”
“Yes, this is me”, I replied.
Then we continued our talk that they are a couple from Germany and Slovenia, and they are planning to visit Alamut Valley and do the cross-Caspian trek.
The main issue for them was their shoes. I asked them to send me a photo of their shoes to check. The shoes for one person were quite okay. But the other one, (for the man) was not 100% perfect.
But we all agreed to go with the same shoes. In the meanwhile, I asked the European size for his shoes. He said 47.5 to 48. For a second, I thought he had made a mistake with writing his shoe size, but he was not wrong! I was shocked! How can someone have a shoe size that big?! In Iran, the largest one we ever had was 45. Anyway, I promised him to try to find the proper trekking shoes fit for his feet.
Later we tried in Alamut Valley, but we failed! The largest one we had was 46.
The time passed, on Wednesday (one day before their arrival), I offered 3 options to sleep in Qazvin.
One: Qazvin Hostel. A local Qazvin house close to the bazaar, run by a family. They have turned one of their rooms into a dorm with 4 beds.
Two: Hotel Minoo. A nice modern hotel in the west entrance to the central section of the town (Vali Asr intersection).
Three: A recently-opened traditional hotel in the historical zone of the town named Nabavi Hotel.
Based on the price and application, they chose Hotel Minoo of Qazvin. I booked it right away for them.
On Thursday, Nov 16th 2023, I received a call from Tomaž (the man). He said we would be in Qazvin soon at 15:00 o’clock. We arranged a meeting in Qazvin Caravanserai for the evening around 19:00 o’clock.
How we met.
Finally, we met in the Caravanserai of Sa’ad al Saltaneh in Qazvin in the evening.
Before the protests of 2023 in Iran, there were over 10 cafés in the Caravanserai of Sa’ad al Saltaneh. But right after that incident, many of them were closed. Today and for now, only two of them are open. Negar al Saltaneh and Ersiyeh. We chose Negar café to sit, drink some warm coffee or tea and talk about our tour.
The couple were in the café before me. I arrived some 5 minutes later. I saw a high dark-blond guy in his 40’s and a blond woman in his late 30’s.
It was at very first glance that I thought: “these people seem to be nice ones”.
They were smiling and laughing during our talks showing their high and positive energy.
I was offered by the couple to order something. I liked to drink a double espresso. Tomaž and Antje ordered a mixed tea. Both teas had a Persian name.
It was a meeting of approximately 1 hour. We briefly talked about our jobs, our countries, our interests and many different topics along with our tour.
Finally, they confirmed the tour to be started in Qazvin and being finished in the Caspian Sea.
The next day I picked them up at 7:30 from hotel Minoo in Qazvin. We had our ride to Alamut Valley.
Let’s hit the road!
During the drive, we had a photo stop. But it was quite chilly in the morning in the heights of approx. 1900m.
We passed the first range of Alborz mountain ranges and reached down to the valley. We went to the West Alamut. In the town of Razmian we had our meeting point with the local mountain guide, named Seif.
From the time we stopped until Seif arrived, there was 20 minutes of delay by him. We spend the time on the toilet, to buy some bottles of water and to drink coffee!
Before reaching Razmian I told Antje and Tomaž a funny story.
Some 12 years ago, I was working in a hotel in Qazvin named Alborz Hotel.
At the time, Iran did not have an infrastructure for coffee. We were the only hotel serving coffee made by machines. This was a nice marketing tool for the hotel owner. He also provided high-speed internet at the time and these two items attracted many tourists to our hotel.
It was during those times that I got to know about tour guiding and tour performing at Alamut Valley and Alamut Castle.
But today the case with coffee is different. You can find coffee at every corner in every town or village in Iran. Even here in the middle of the mountains in Alamut Valley, I could find coffee, a nice, double espresso coffee.
Dizi lovers!
The double espresso kind of lifted us all. In the meanwhile, Seif and his son (as the driver) showed up.
The previous night, I had told Seif that Tomaž needed a couple of trekking shoes (size 48). Seif could bring a 46 which was small for sure. Tomaž had to start trekking with his own shoes.
That night, the young couple told me they loved to eat Dizi for one of their meals in Alamut Valley.
“Dizi – Farsi: دیزی” or “Ab-goosht – Farsi: آبگوشت” is the stewed chops of meat, usually lamb, stewed with onions, peas, beans, potatoes and tomatoes.
If we study the word formation of “Ab-goosht”, it comes from “Ab” meaning “water” and “Goosht” meaning “meat”.
This Iranian dish is not usually popular with foreign tourists. And if they like to eat Dizi, it is only on a tasting level, not repeating the same dish during their trip to Iran. Antje and Tomaž already had Dizi in Iran for 5 times.
I was kind of surprised, but since they ordered, I arranged the first dinner in the valley with the “Dizi” or “Abgoosht” for dinner.
In Razmian I double-checked with Seif the meal of the night.
We started our ride from Razmian to Lambesar Castle.
Lambesr Castle
We hiked to a castle named Lambesar. It is also called Lambsar or Lamyasar. They are all the same word but with different pronunciations.
Next to exploring the castle and going through the history of the Assassins or Ismailis, I intended to test the shoes of Tomaž. Even though the hike was not big, I knew Tomaž would come to this idea of how are the trails in Alamut Valley and how careful should he be during the trek.
This couple was super-enthusiast about seeing Lambesar Castle.
They kind of bombarded me with different questions and I replied to them all with my pleasure. I enjoy it when tourists have some information about the Assassins of Alamut. When they are in the castles of Assassins, their knowledge is so authentic and then there comes their various questions.
The complete visit and discovery of Lambsar castle will take half a day (some 4 hours). But since we had a day for trekking and the Autumn days here are relatively short, we needed to hit the road and start our journey.
We had a short drive by car (approx. 10 minutes), then we started our hiking in the mountains.
Our first hour of the hike was relatively steep. My eyes were more on Tomaž than Antje.
Antje was showing that as a future trekking guide, she is quite fit and there is nothing to worry about her.
Tomaž had been sick for 2 weeks. So, his buddy was kind of weak and not fully recovered. He was sweating more than normal.
After approx. 2 hours of hike, we stopped for a short break. Antje and Tomaž shared some sweets. “Sohan – Farsi: سوهان” from “Qom” and “Gaz – Farsi: ” from “Isfahan”. We all loved them.
I shared some biscuits and Seif found a thorn from a porcupine. The couple took it and kept it as a memory from the nature of Alamut Valley.
We hiked for two more hours until we reached a point with almost no wind. Everyone helped to gather some wood and we started a fire to warm up our lunch.
Trekking in Alamut Valley
The food was “Loobiya Polo – Farsi: لوبیا پلو”. A mixture of chopped green beans, rice, onions and small chops of meat.
Loubia Polo was tasty.
After lunch, Tomaž put the fire out by pouring some water from the natural spring nearby.
We continued our hike. We passed mountains, hills, gardens and livestock farms. Then reached a natural spring which was made as a trough for the animals to drink water. We sat there for about half an hour. The sunlight was amazing. Antje and Tomaž were sitting on a stone, trying to take selfies, making jokes and laughing. Seif was looking for something in his cellphone.
And I …, I was drowning in the horizon, looking to the infinite view being colored in shiny gold with the light from the sun. I was talking to myself: “Gosh, I love this moment, I love this view, I love my job, I love these people, what an amazing moment.” I wish I could stop the time in there in that moment.
We continued our hike towards the village Hir, where Seif’s mother was waiting to host the group.
We walked for less than one hour when we saw a big herd of goats and sheep. The shepherd was quite a picturesque, warm-hearted Alamut man. I took a nice photo of him. Antje and Tomaž were busy watching and taking photos of the goats and sheep. Seif was talking with the shepherd, they were from the same village.
Reaching to the village house.
After about half an hour, we continued our trek, descending via a rough road to the village. When we reached the village, it was already almost dark.
The house had a large wooden gate from the olden times with a door knocker of the same age.
We entered a large yard with some rooms in front. You needed to ascend two steps to get to the rooms. Inside, we entered a large room, with a gas-fueled fireplace already heated up the room.
The elderly lady (Mother of Seif) with many other people (I could count up to 10!) welcomed us.
There were no seats in the room but it was floored with carpet.
Everyone had to sit on the ground on the carpets.
I thought: “Damn it! Now Tomaž and Antje will have difficulty sitting like this! I wish they had a sofa …”.
But suddenly I noticed they could sit as easily as we do! Maybe Tomaž had a bit of difficulty sitting, but not Antje. She seemed to be trained to live in Alamut Valley long before she visited the Valley of Assassins in Iran!
We had a warm tea and my lovely tourists shared some pistachio they already had with them.
I said goodbye!
The time was ticking, I was going to say goodbye to two of the best people I’ve ever met.
Just minutes before leaving, Antje asked me if I could leave a note in their memory book.
They let me be open to write whatever idea comes to me.
This was the moment for me! The moment that I could shout my thoughts with some written words.
I decided to write both in English and Farsi. Because they appreciated both.
It was not a short “I had a great day”-note. My feelings made me write words and sentences close to 10 lines.
I can remember some of the notes that came out of my heart to their memory book: “Today I had one of the best days in my life, I met an in-love couple, happy and kind-hearted people.”
I will remember this tour …
Yes, it was one of the best days in my life and I will remember that day and that trekking tour in Alamut valley until the day I die.
I was doing my farewells. We all stood up. Antje thought of a good last group photo.
I stood in between the lovely couple. And we took the last photo.
I was getting so much emotional, kind of wanted to cry a bit. But I left with a smile.
Down to Razmian, I was reviewing every single minute of that day’s trip to Alamut Valley with Antje and Tomaž and I loved every second of it.
The next days I checked up with Seif until they reached the Caspian Sea on the 3rd evening.
I had already booked a nice room in a recently-opened eco-lodge. Antje and Tomaž loved the room and slept there. The next morning after breakfast I arranged the transfer from their hostel to the bus terminal in Kelachay. I had booked the bus tickets from Kelachai to Tehran. A nice VIP bus. It was approx. 7 hours of trip. They reached Tehran and here it finished another tour to Alamut Valley.