Cycling in South America is about as easy as it gets when it comes to interactions with men. It has been different! Here a Mirror View on this particular subject:
Tag: How much harassment as a lone female cyclist in Iran?
In an anxious mood I start the trip towards Bandar Lengeh. Darryl had advised me it would perhaps better for me to take the bus. I would be without his guarding support, although he said that I was more supporting him than the other way around. He said it would perhaps be a struggle for me, dealing with all the police asking for my passport, checking my misshaped visa.
The people of Iran
‘We are not animals,’ says Ali Shah, the man who brought me from Tabriz to Tehran. That’s a fact I know too well, otherwise I would not have trust him while he and his wife act as my private taxi hosts.
This is one of the more interesting -not to say glorious posts- because it has a real newsworthy interview with a newspaper of Iran. It also holds an interrogation which I enjoyed but Darryl not so much.
A long downhill of 25 kilometer made it easy to reach Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan. I’d asked a taxi driver along the road how hilly the route would be, his answer that it is going to be downwards only is questioned by me, but he was right: finally I made a 90 kilometer day again and I end up in Khorramabad.
The week starts with saying goodbye to a cyclist from Denmark while I peddel on with Darryl. The Australian born man changed his plans a bit and decided he wanted to discover the country rather by bicycle than by public transport. It is nice to have some company.
This one is a tribute to you, lady’s of Iran!
Unsuspectingly I am munching from the partly raw fried eggs and paper-thin bread. I mean, what else would you do, while eating? Would you suspect a hand erecting over your shoulder which is about to grab your breast? But that is what happens, the hand of the restaurant owner is firmly holding onto my left breast. He attacks me from behind. The coward!
Crossing the border at an altitude of around 1700 meter, having past all the waiting trucks into Iraq and after visited a decent toilet I am off to the first town in Iran, Piranshahr.
Cycling Cindy 