Today began the final leg of our visit to Iran which was to be a circuitous route to the border at Bazargan with the prospect of some interesting sights along the way. To our pleasure and relief the rain was gone when we woke and we got under way in bright early morning sunshine. From Hossein's place at (or just below) sea level we climbed into the coastal mountains through some spectacular forests and switchbacks to over 7000ft before arriving on the outskirts of the town of Ardabil.

The plan was to visit a very famous mosque in this town. However this plan ran into a small problem. The mosque in question was closed because of a celebration and street parade (march) that was taking place. Two different events were being celebrated or commemorated together. The commemoration of the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979. The other called Muharram is a celebration of the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali in 680AD at the battle of Karbala. From what we could understand this battle is one of the big disagreements between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

So after a quick look at that mosque through locked gates we spent some time walking around the streets of Ardabil together with a crowd of many thousands of students, some of whom were carry "down with the US" banners. To our relief and despite those sign we the foreigners got lots of smiles and "hellos" while winding out way through the crowd.

The city of Tabriz was our next stop and was where we planned on camping for the night.

We had a few misadventures on the way to Tabriz as Hossein and his driver seemed to have no idea when it came to the well known practice of "follow the leader". No sooner would Hossein say to us "just folow me" than they would tear off weaving through the traffic and within minutes be completely out of sight. But having observed Iranian drivers the problem may be genetic as we have not yet seen a single driver in Iran that exhibits any degree of patience or thought for other vehicles on the road. We have even seen pedestrians standing in the middle of a lane on a freeway reading emails on his phone simply expecting traffic to avoid him.

In any case we eventually found our collective way to a place called El Goli which translates into something like "peoples lake". It is a large park near the southern part of the city's ring road, allows camping in vehicles or tents, has a nice lake and a number of restaurants.