The first leg of the days travel was a pleasant mountain descent that brought us to the main highway into, and about 35 km from, Kerman. There we were confronted by another no-truck sign and an indication that we should take a western ring road around the town. We were a bit perplexed by this as none of our maps, even the GPS map, indicated that this ring road existed. We followed this for some time as it made a very wide detour and eventually linked up with another major highway running west out of Kerman towards the city of Yazd. Again no-truck signs seemed to bar our entry to (or even bypass of) the town.

By this time our plans for the day had changed a bit so we were now not looking to get into the center of Kerman but to find our way onto the road south out of Kerman, towards the town of Mahan, the road to Shahdad and a desert feature called Kaluts. But even so the no-truck signs had us stumped. We noticed however that many trucks seemed to drive right past these signs and on into town so eventually we tried the same idea, and we soon discovered that the town was full of trucks all seeming to ignore those signs. We guessed there is something about those signs that we don't understand. We skirted the center of the city a little bit and eventually found ourselves traveling south out of Kerman and towards the turn off to Shahdad. On the Shahdad road we climbed over an impressive mountain range (up to 8700 ft) before dropping down into the south western corner of the Dasht-e Lut (sand desert) and the town of Shahdad. As we descended from our high point the temperature rose from a comfortable 71°F to a not so comfortable 105°F. We were not really surprised by this as the Dasht-e Lut is one of the hottest places on earth with summer surface temperatures of up to 160°F.

Just before Shahdad we were relieved and surprised to find a sign that pointed us along a nice paved road north towards Kaluts. After 45 km or so along this road through increasingly dry and desolate country we arrived. The Kalut are a series of geological features standing above the desert. To me they look like sandstone castles, we guessed some form of sedimetary rock that has been carved by wind and water into fanciful shapes. We found our way off the highway in among the castles and decided to camp there for the night. We broke out the camp chairs, positioned them in the shade being provided by the truck and proceeded to idle away the afternoon reading and taking photos. Our trusty thermometer told us that in the shade the temperatre was 108°F; and we were going to camp here!!

During the course of the afternoon and evening a couple of separate groups of locals dropped by to take in the scenery and we chatted with one group for quite a while. They also provided dinner in the form of gifts of cake and apples.


After the sun went down the temperature moderated slowly. By 8:30 Nina was able to convince herself to try and get some sleep inside the sweltering camper but I decided to layout a tarp, blanket and sheet and sleep under the stars. I have not done this in years. About midnight a gusty wind arrived and, after wrapping up my make shift bed, I adjourned to the camper.