Lost in the Sands
A morning in the Varzaneh desert
During long intercity travels inside Iran, it’s easy to think that almost all country consists of deserts. That’s not true because there are at least 14.2 million hectares of forest. And 17.5 million hectares are really deserts, 10% of Iran’s territory. But most of them are gloomy gray plains. It’s necessary to look for places that correspond to classic encyclopedic conceptions of immeasurable sand mountains. Today we’ll go to one such place.
It is called Varzaneh and is located near a small town with the same name, 105 km east of Isfahan. The town of low yellow huts looks like something typical near deserts, but the green fields in front of them were unexpected.
It was April 2021; the world was still crazy because of covid. During the biggest part of the trip, we were lucky to avoid restrictions, but some strange things happened too. For example, somebody decided to close the desert(!) under quarantine. In this regard, we had to go dunes half legal way, not by jeeps but on one quadricycle and one buggy. It looked pretty extreme. Our guide just told us about an incident in Peru where a buggy had rolled over, which finished with the broken hand of one girl. But that buggy had seat belts … unlike ours. But as a result, we got there and back safely.
So let’s wander in the dunes.
This trace of a scorpion, as we were told.
Varzaneh is one of the easiest accessible deserts in Iran but one of the most spectacular. Yes, there’s only sand around and nothing more, but how impressive it shapes natural hills and unearthly landscapes.
Modest vegetation was presented with two half-meter flowers of a phallic shape. Even one of the local drivers was interested in it. It may be a rare plant.
The number of trees is considerable, but all of them are dead. Worth mentioning that nothing can live in deserts because of water absence but not because of heat. In the morning, there was pretty cold.
With covid “help,” there was nobody except my group.
One of us went too far and took off to a very photogenic place.
After returning to the main road, we stopped for about an hour while our guides handled with police. So, some responsible citizen saw us and called them about the strangers who spread viruses in their desert. But all finished well. In addition to good photos, we had sand poured from our things for a few days after that trip.
