02-Sep-2004 -- This is the 6th out of 29 Confluences on our tour from Germany to China, the story continues from 37N 48E.
On the twelfth day, we started very early in the morning at 5:30 a.m. from Qom. Getting up at the crack of dawn we were rewarded with a wonderful sunrise. The Confluence Point was not really on our way to Eṣfahān, but we decided to go for it anyway. So we left the highway to Eṣfahān in Vazvān, but unfortunately we took the wrong turnoff and ended in a town called Ḥasan. In order not to go back the way we came, we decided to take a shortcut towards Dehaq. But the small road to Dehaq turned out to be a dusty track of about 30 km in length. Our small car is not suitable for such sandy tracks, but it did do well there.
Through uncountable turnoffs over many desert tracks we managed to drive within 250 m of the CP, when suddenly an old man stopped us in the middle of nowhere (well, some confluencers might disagree here, arguing that a confluence point is never nowhere). He pointed to his motorbike, which was obviously broken down, and asked for a lift. He got in our car and we passed the CP by 137 m. I thought it might be better to take him home first and then capture the Confluence. So we did. But it turned out that his home was quite far away. It was 13 km away on dusty roads, when he finally asked us to stop our car, he got out and asked us to wait for some reason. After a minute he came back with his hands full of fresh walnuts. This was a little present for the ride we gave him, so we could not refuse it.
We drove all the way back to the CP, and did the documentation of the point as usual. The area is a desert in Iran's highlands. The nearby town called Ḥoseynjeh can be seen from the point. We reached the large city Eṣfahān in the early afternoon and visited the ancient city.
CP visit details:
- Time at CP: 11:00 a.m.
- Duration: 2.5 h (until we were back to our route)
- Distance of car parking: 137 m
- GPS height: 1988 m
- Description: Flat desert with some little clusters of grass. Distant mountains all around.
- Given Name: The Walnut Confluence
Story continues at 33N 53E.