- After a traditional lunch with my new travel companions in a fancy restaurant in Kerman. we meet our guide Ali. I immediately feel that we are in the right hands. He would turn out not just to be very friendly and curious, but also a knowledgeable guy who will deepen our knowledge of the things we will see. We drive towards the southeast, and then begin climbing in a dry landscape. We make a stop on the way down at a 1000 year old cypress tree in Sirch village: we will be heading straight into the desert. Ali tells us about the qanat, the extensive and ingenious water system of the ancient Persians. They dug underground water channels from the mountains through plains to provide cities with the crucial life ingredient. At regular intervals, these channels had openings on top for cooling and access, and we see lines of these openings throughout the landscape.
- It doesn't take long before we see our first kalut. Meaning sandy mountain in Persian, the word also reminds one of kalat, or castle. And indeed, many of these mountains look like mighty castles from a distance. We see them on both sides of the road, and I feel like stopping every second to take pictures of the spectacular landscape. We first drive on though, the road deteriorates as it was washed away by a flood the year before, and reach a salt pan. We walk on the white crystals, marvel at the patterns in the salt, and drive back to the highest concentration of kaluts again. After parking the car in the desert, we head straight for one of the sand castles. Seeing the huge mountains rise next to us, we realise how big they really are. We climb one of the tallest ones; the higher we get, the more we have to use our hands to get up. Unfortunately, a thick cloud is blocking the sun, and the light is not as warm as I had hoped it to be. Still, the views from the top are tremendous, and we stay a while to enjoy looking at the kaluts all around us, and the stretches of sand in between.
- We drive back to the south, have a late dinner, and head into a different part of Lut Desert. It is pitch dark now, we erect our tents, and marvel at an overwhelming sky filled with stars. It is absolutely quiet when we crawl into our tents. Two hours later, I am woken up by the sound of flapping tents. Second by second, the wind gets stronger, and before I know it, I make sure to lie as close as possible to the edge to try and keep the tent on the ground. Sand is blown straight through the tent, my mouth is full of it. What follows is a scramble in the dark to collect our stuff, dismount the tents, and seeking shelter in the car. Even though the only thing we see is a vertical barrage of sand, the driver steers the car down the dune. We will never see the landscape. We drive for quite a while, and find shelter in a house where we sleep on carpets. The next morning, the sky is blue, there is no wind whatsoever, and we clean our stuff, our shoes, the car. We drive to the ruins of Keshit, a desert village made of adobe. Close by, we find Keshit Canyon, an unexpected stretch of green in the extremely dry environment. We walk down, and spend a few hours at a small pool with a lovely waterfall. A great place to have breakfast. Sure enough, youngsters appear at the top of the cliffs to see if there are any nice women to watch. From here, we drive through Lut Desert, drive over sand dunes, and finally get back to the home of the driver of the 4WD where we have lunch. We walk through his village with palm trees, before we drive back through the mountains, to Kerman. It is lovely to have a good shower and wash off the sand of the Lut that has ended up almost everywhere on our bodies.
