wandering shiraz with a half-dead phone battery and zero regrets
god, alright. i’m sitting here at some café that smells like cardamom and diesel fumes trying to make sense of this place. forgot my charger. map first, because i’ll get lost anyway:
it’s wedged between those zagros mountains-mount derak’s like a grumpy giant watching over everything. elevation’s wild, like a mile up? no wonder my ears popped on the drive here. and i just checked the weather on my dying phone and it’s 3.67°c outside right now, feels exactly like 3.67°c too, hope you like that kind of bone-dry chill with 70% humidity pretending to care. pressure’s 1022 or whatever that means. forgot my jacket.
someone told me you’re supposed to come during nowruz when the orange blossoms go nuts and the whole city turns into a greenhouse. missed that. show up in may, they said. it’ll be mild, they said. but here i am in this concrete-meets-17th-century-maze listening to crickets scream in the dry riverbed. they call it rudkhaneye khoshk for a reason-it’s a river that gave up on life. feeds into maharloo lake, which sounds fancy until you realize it’s salt and probably hates everyone.
history here’s like… oppressive. two thousand BC? they had taverns here while europe was still figuring out how to not eat mud. population exploded from 170k in the 50s to nearly two million now. streets feel it. every corner’s got a story but all i got is this guy selling stolen phone chargers. culture’s thick-persian traditions, poetry ghosts in every alley. didn’t meet any famous people but the kebab guy waved at me twice. if you get bored, fars province has nine thousand other towns apparently. someone told me kerman’s nearby but i don’t trust directions from a dude who tried to sell me a ‘authentic’ plastic carpet.
don’t come in summer. july’s 39°c and your shoes will melt. winter? sure, if you enjoy surprise snowflakes and existential dread. spring’s the move, when the air doesn’t feel like a hair dryer. altitude’s the only reason this place isn’t a furnace. drank something called shirazi wine last night-probaby illegal, definitely fermented in a bathtub. tastes like regret and roses. the mountains are stunning though. bamoo and baba koohi sound like disney characters but they’re actual cliffs that could murder you. locals are chill but they side-eye tourists hard. saw a dude grow tomatoes in a crack in the sidewalk. survival mode. anyway. my phone’s at 3%. if you find me face-down in maharloo lake, tell my mom i smelled nice.
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