Residential bathrooms in Iran are a multi-tasking haven of hygiene. The Iranians have mastered the efficient bathroom experience by eliminating a shower curtain or any delineation between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. 2 drains are located in the bathroom, offering the whole area as space to splash. You can be brushing your teeth, showering, and pooping simultaneously. Remarkable.

I buzzed my friend (Aladdin) in Yazd, a desert town 9 hours south, to see what adventures he’s brewing over the next holiday week. He’s a tourguide, mostly leading desert tours nowadays after he got fed up with the other tourguides he ran into on usual routes. “It’s all about nature. That’s what I’ve decided. I gave up the usual historical points of interest…got so sick of hearing other tourguides lecturing on how Iranians invented this and that and all the boasting nationalistic BS…”

“I’m leading a private tour deep into the desert in a few days with 4 foreigners. You should come along as an assistant.”

I decided I have nothing better to do in Tehran. I agreed. It was a few days away and it gave me ample time to rev up on training before taking a break in the desert.

My father agreed to join and see Yazd for the first time but declined on the desert. We took his rugged Nissan Patrol, newly equipped with high performance shock absorbers to eliminate the latent Parkinsonian effect of the vehicle on the body.

I woke up with an extreme hangover headache the morning we were departing; but I didn’t recall a night of drinking. I did have 1 non-alcoholic beer though, (also referred to as “Islamic beer” on the menus.) The ride was a projected 7 hours that somehow turned into 10. I tried recalculating the route several times to see where we went wrong. I did notice that there were 3 signs over a period of approx 100 km that read “Yazd 70km” at three separate forks in the road. We drove past Qom, the capital of mulla production, then past Kashan, a city popular for its past history of enormous bathhouses.

Arriving in Yazd was bumper to bumper traffic for an hour or so until we made it to my father’s destination, The traditional Orient hotel, emulating  staple palace and courtyard structure of the Saffavid dynasty. I had booked a room here for my father but I had another trek left before shuteye.I was becoming increasingly lethargic and rather potent intestinal issues were beginning to brew. It was 1130pm.

My destination was Kharanaq, 80 km northwest, a small desert village where I was planning to meet with Aladdin et al. I buzzed him to gauge cab rates and after I got a figure, I asked the receptionist to book a cab. While waiting for the cab, I arranged the gear I had borrowed from my incessantly hospitable cousin whose a mountain climber and built like a Florida nightclub bouncer.

It was 1am when I made it to Kharanaq, a really small village of mud structures and various animals. Besides the baleful gastric atmosphere inside, some things felt incredibly right outside; the air was comforably cool and everything appeared earthy and benign. I felt like I was in Bethlehem and Jesus would appear at any given moment (and heal my intestinal ailments by pointing at it and saying Inunchuk).

Well. That didn’t happen though.

The cab parked near a small mud structure. The array of stars and the piercing brightness was incredible; I hadn’t seen stars in many days.  the cab driver led me to the Silk Road hotel connection. I could hear laughter and fireside chatter over the wall. I knocked on the medieval wooden door to the backyard.

A familiar voice answered, “Um, this door’s broken I think, use the other entrance.”

At the other entrance a slim Sebastian opened the door. A pleasant surprise. I had met Sebastian with Tyler almost 3 years back when we were seeking route consultation for the run at the Ecotourism office in Tehran. He recognized me after a hello and directed me inside, where several European tourists were mingling and exchanging travel plans.

Sebastian is from Holland but has been living in Iran for over 3 years. He explained that he purchased this piece of land with another man to work on constructing a cultural museum, and a hotel to further promote trips into the desert.

A bearded Aladdin then appeared and proceeded to give me a bear hug and laugh loudly at length, his usual hello. I walked with him over to the  fire casting gory delicious shadows on a tall brick wall. Iranians and european tourists were huddled around sharing stories and singing songs together. It felt like a cozy safe place, where everyone was fully present with an open smiley willingness for exchange and adventuring into the middle of nowhere. I was reminded of the multicultural bonfires in Galway several years ago, where musicians and jugglers came together to share their lives in honest drunkenness. (There were no drinks around this fire though.)

After listening to some singing, a rich communal debate ensued:  on the notion of ” an intrinsic cross cultural yearning and instinctual sorrow for something unrecognizable.” Aladdin suddenly distracted me with a life story:

“Hey bud, I spent time in jail recently.”

“Oh? For what?”

“Remember our friend Hadi? He was leading a tour in the desert. He was with two Swiss travelers and I was with two Iranians. Our paths crossed. My two Iranian tourists weren’t wearing a hejab. A local spotted us and notified the authorities…they showed up and attempted to take us to the police station. Hadi successfully ran away and left his tourists with me. At the police station, they let everyone go except for me for further questioning. I leaned over to say goodbye to the female swiss tourist and shook her hand. They threw me in jail for three days.”

“No shit! For shaking a female hand?”

“Yea.” He lit a Winston cigarette and smiled into the fire. He was looking like a glorious hobo these days, with his beard, grey scarf, and colorful attire.

“Well, how was it in there?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you….it was incredible! They immediately confiscated everything and gave me hygiene products and some clean clothes. Then I was provided with a credit card-“

“Credit card?”

“Yea. They had a little bazaar in there, with lots of books on a variety of subjects and a small shopping area…plus the food was amazing too.”

“Get out of here. You’re shitting me.” I had read several articles on the prison system in Iran and it was quite the contrary according to these reports.

“ It was a relaxing experience. Plus they had lots of worthwhile educational groups, on drugs and management of daily activities, etc.”

“Did you try to stay longer?”

“I couldn’t. On day 3, they suddenly threw me out while I was eating some delicious lamb.”

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It was about 230am by now and we had an early morning approaching. My lethargy and intestinal issues were becoming more complicated. I wandered into the busy common area decorated with signatures of visitors on white tiles, visitors from all over. The space felt honest and welcoming; without a thought I laid out my sleeping bag. I noticed a poster advertising a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe: a Caucasian looking small boy smiling beneath an ice sculpture of a famous structure near the downtown Tehran airport.

Around 7am, I was awoken to the heavy slurping of the kitchen staff drinking tea and stocking breakfast items: dates, feta cheese, pita bread, cherry jam, butter, hard boiled eggs, walnuts and honey.

A chipper Swedish lad wandered in around 8am and exclaimed to Aladdin, “Your crew has arrived!” (referring to myself and the reticent driver who didn’t speak any english). He wandered out to a table outside and sat with 3 other Swedes. I declined on breakfast and asked who we were touring the next two days.

“That’s the ambassador of Sweden and his wife. Plus two of his friend from Sweden.”

We drove off in an old 70’s Cherokee prototype until we reached a desolate oasis spot in the high desert, where we hiked into rather rocky terrain. The Swedes asked several questions about animals, vegetation, camel feeding habits, etc,  all of which I deferred to Aladdin. The Swedes were sociable and fun: 2 adventurous couples, merry spirited, and pro-actively curious and invested. I learned that the other male Swede was a journalist and had just recently resigned from his position as a writer for the national paper, the Swedish Daily, after over 30 years. “This is an exciting point in my life,” he said to me.

We ventured back into the vehicle and drove for another 45 minutes or so until we arrived at a small hut in literally the middle of nowhere which offered a fireplace, utensils, and bedding. A small creek trickled nearby, with mountain ranges to the east and west of us. The driver came to a halt and immediately manifested a fire and began making dough for bread. This was base camp for the next 1.5 days. A small brick square was the bathroom nearby with no roof- the toilet was a hole in the ground. It had a phenomenol view of desert and hovering mountain ranges if you stood on tippy toes while urinating. It was clearly not a multi tasking hygiene unit.

I distinctly recall making the 30 yard sprint to the bathroom regularly over the next few hours as the others meandered about in unchartered territory.

The driver was a man of clockwork habits, constantly on different missions, speaking little, and in a very speedy choppy dialect; I understood about 9% of what he said at all times. He reminded me of my freshman year at Bowdoin College, my first experience of meeting someone from Waltham, Massachusetts. (I thought I was listening to a Dutch man speaking Chinese while doped up on opium.) We connected on another level though as I tried to match his clockwork rhythym in ways of helping out.

My intestinal issues rapidly evolved into Cirque Du Soleil proportions but I tried to hide it as I was the assistant guide on this journey. The Swedes soon discovered something was up, being the highly alert ones that they are, and the Journalist’s wife revealed she is a physician. She gave me meds that temporarily suspended the avalanche diarrhea.

I didn’t eat for the next 2 days, consuming only water and often declining on desert adventures to lie down with the most intense stomach pain I have ever experienced. In my hazy state, I was reminded of Dean Karnazes’ first attempt at Badwater, a 120 mile marathon in Death Valley, Calif.; he was vomiting and had severe diarrhea for hours mid-run, but kept running…until he blacked out. I wasn’t running in 115 degree heat, nor was I vomiting. I was lying in a hut and the desert was about 82 degrees. This was reassuring.

During the night, I forced myself to head out on a long walk with Aladdin. We asked the driver to keep the hut light on which ran on a generator; otherwise we would probably get lost, as there was literally no point of reference except for the highways of stars above.

While practicing slow deep breathing, I walked into the sheering darkness and browsed the incomprehensible vegetation and hilly entities around me. When the small hut light dissipated in the distance, I began to wonder if the water I was drinking that day was doused with peyote. Endless space, stars, and small shrubs that presented as lurking mini dragons all made me hypervigilant at first. A cool breeze every now and then calmed the carnival within me and my being slowly began to feel like a floating castle. My legs felt like large tubs of slowly melting butter.

Anything and everything felt probable here in this waning loss of particularity. An erosion of sorts. Self became the observed. There was no conceptualizing here, as the sky demanded all faculties, sucking you up like a Sylvia Plath poem.

Guidance in the stars…I recalled a verse from the Quran. I stopped moving and stared up, admiring, surrendering, adoring this vast greatness that I had not seen for some time. A warmth soon pervaded the lofty vault of being that had become of me. I then felt lava tears roll down my cheeks. They were heavy tears; a primordial awe of submission cuckooned me. Closing my eyes the image of pearling tsunami portioned waves appeared in their greatness, suspended, and becoming/ guiding the intensity of my tears. At that moment, it felt as if this was my way of bowing, bowing down to the Creator, giving thanks for the gracious vastness and all the humbling and half decipherable things and contours around me.

“Hey bud, want a smoke?”

I had forgotten that Aladdin was right next tome; his energy/ presence tends to thin out in his sometimes oblivious ways. He flashed me a Winston cig.

“I’ll probably poop my pants if I do”

“Oh…well… this is fucking incredible….We better get back soon though, the Swedes are probably waiting for their sleeping arrangement.”

I said I’d catch up with him and tried to resume where I left off.

Back at the hut, we noticed the four had taken liberties to lay out their pads. The next 9 hours offered a snoring symphony of six as I lay awake defeated by intestinal distress. Just before dawn, I wandered out and was startled by a lovely crescent moon hovering above the ridge; the moon snuck up on me like I was being robbed by an Afghan knife. I thought about Marilyn Monroe at brief, and for no good reason. Then I thought about how Analisa Svehaug might react to this crescent moon. I went for a walk.

Upon returning to the hut, I observed the driver (who was also an incredible chef) rapidly and systematically hop out of his sleeping bag, leave the hut to wash up, and in deft calculated motions proceed to pray. When he re-entered his bag, and zipped up, I heard Aladdin wake up and say to him, “Well, we should get up and get going, they have a flight to catch at noon.” The driver didn’t answer.

“C’mon, get up….shit, he’s a heavy sleeper. Can you throw something at him?”

“He was awake 10 seconds ago. I think he’s pretending to be asleep.”

“Hmm…C’mon bud we need to leave soon. They can’t miss their flight.”

The driver then groaned and mumbled what sounded like an “up yours” (but probably wasn’t) and slowly got out of his bag.

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