After a few hours of fractured sleep, we woke to the hazy sight of the sun rising over the Strait of Hormuz. I like to think there was something magical, romantic even about this moment, but the humidity had not dissipated, and standing on deck it was not long until the familiar feeling of sweat trickling down your front and back resumed… believe me it’s not a particularly nice sensation, especially at 6.30 in the morning.
So back indoors to the bright neon lit passenger lounge to grab a little more sleep.
It was not much longer until I was awakened by the familiar (and comforting) bleep of peoples’ mobile phones, indicating that we were approaching land. We had been preparing for a long stretch without any connectivity to the outside world, so there was a little sense of triumph and relief at this moment. Especially at the fact that Whatsapp was active - despite having just been told by a local on the ground that it’s only Iranian social & comms networks which are not filtered, unlike international (US) ones.
Looking out the foggy window we could make out a flotilla of oil tankers and fishing vessels, and before long the ferry ground to a halt, and after a quick costume change for me, we were finally able to set foot onto the fabled IRI!
Curiously, Iran’s time zone is 30 mins behind the UAE, which caused a little confusion when we started the clock on our bet as to how long the disembarkation process would take.
The clock started at 10am, and as I write this, it is now 2.30pm, and Rem and I have not seen or heard from Eric or Lando for the last two of those 4.5 hours…. Remco has guessed 4hrs, and I guessed 5, so time will be tell which of us is the winner…
Hanger was fast approaching, and sitting outside a cafeteria with no local currency is even less fun!
Add to that the multiple layers of clothing I was wearing coupled with minimal AC tripled the fun.
Bureaucracy is never fun, but from the look of sheer exasperation on Eric’s face as he finally emerged clutching documents but no car keys told us that this experience was next level.
Eric is escorted out again… Eric has just reappeared... “would you like the good news or the bad news?” The good news is we are all cleared to go, whoop! But the bad news? Lando isn’t.
The flickering on and off of the lights in the passenger hall a couple of hours back should have probably tipped us off, but a power cut had taken out a comms system. The very comms system they needed to inform the Turkmeni border of our IRI exit date… and without this, Lando was not allowed to enter the country… he remains parked up in a warehouse “out back”. And with the comms network down, the staff had clocked out for the day, meaning that even if the system came back up, there would be no one there to do the needful. So… after 5 hrs waiting in the waiting room… it was off to a local hotel for the three of us..
Oh, and of course… the outage had knocked out that AC too!
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