by Jamie Maslin
The overhanging rock visible from my hotel window seemed to beckon me, so I decided to hike on up. It looked accessible through a slightly rough area off the main road, lined with lots of abandoned or partially collapsed houses. I was a bit apprehensive at first about going through here, but then thought, “What the hell?” I needn’t have worried. The people were all very friendly, and some of them greeted me with a warm, “Bonjour monsieur” as I walked through their neighborhood. This greeting I assumed was simply the locals using a Western language they were familiar with rather than me looking French—or at least I hoped so.
After the houses, it was steep, rough terrain where several fallen boulders had blocked my route. I puffed and panted my way over a couple of these before realizing an established path ran nearby. The higher I climbed, the more impressive the mountain overhang became.
From the town below, the overhang had looked quite interesting and maybe worth a visit, but close by it was incredible and far larger than I’d thought. It was a huge tidal wave of rock, looking as if it were just about to break, swallowing everything in its path below. Interestingly, there were a couple of small trees growing almost horizontally from the side of the rock, hundreds of feet above me, clinging tenaciously to life.
I felt dizzy just staring up at it and had to sit down. Whilst gazing up in awe, I was approached by a local guy of about eighteen with a big friendly smile. He spoke no English but gestured for me to follow him. I got up and walked over to what looked like the remains of an old tower or chimney, then climbed up and looked inside, revealing . . . nothing at all.
My friendly guide gestured that I should maybe take a photo of it. I politely declined and pointed to the tsunami of rock above. It was the equivalent of standing next to a mighty elephant and taking a photo of its steaming pile of poop. There was just no comparison between the chimney and the rock face. It was simply too big to get in the viewfinder, and despite trying many different angles, I only managed to capture a mere fraction of its size and, as such, a fraction of its splendor. The local guy left soon after, leaving me to admire the site all by myself.
Whilst sitting, I began to watch a vast flock of birds slowly ebbing and flowing in perfect harmony hundreds of feet above. It was as if they no longer were comprised of individual birds but were instead a single entity. Periodically, their poetic synergy would shatter as the birds scattered wildly in a panicked flurry, but despite my best efforts, I spotted no predators.
By now it was dusk and as the sun began to set, it bathed the gorge below in a soothing orange hue that instilled in me a deep sense of tranquility. I felt so very alive and happy to be me, to be here and to be far away from England.
Just two and a half weeks earlier, I’d been stuck in a job I despised, confined within that office prison. There I’d sat under the artificial glow of strip lighting entering data onto a computer screen. The monotony was mind-numbing. Working there, I’d felt my happiness slipping slowly away from me. There hadn’t even been a plant to look at for solace, no windows to offer temporary respite. I was a trapped animal longing desperately for adventure, for rapture, for nature, and to truly feel alive again.
As I gazed out across the wild, rugged expanse of mountains that stretched to the horizon, it all seemed so very far away now. I was happy beyond belief to be exactly where I was, and my spirit soared.
A soft wind hissed gently across the sand-colored rocks as I headed down, this time along a different path, which was far more gradual and went around the neighborhood I’d previously walked through. Near the bottom, I came across a small outdoor volleyball court where a group of guys ranging from about eighteen to thirty were dividing themselves into two teams. This procedure wasn’t going too smoothly and an animated debate broke out which seemed to be about which team would get the most athletic-looking player and which would be burdened with the one who looked like he’d eaten all the pies.
I perched myself on a wall overlooking the court in order to watch the debate and reminisced on a similar situation in high school, when I’d been lucky enough to be chosen as one of two team captains. This tried and tested method of captains picking players from a line up was always employed to balance the teams out, and to throw in a bit of ritual humiliation for the fat kids.
It wasn’t that I was particularly bad at sports back then, but more that I just couldn’t give a damn about them, especially since, at the time, puberty-fuelled growth had not quite kicked in for me, making games like rugby more than just a little on the uneven side. One day, though, when our much-despised pock-faced rugby teacher, Mr. Brown, was being evaluated by a school inspector, I decided it would be fun to mix things up a bit.
Realizing there was little chance that a pupil of my reputation would be picked as a captain, I piped up with a completely out of character, “Excuse me, sir, can I be a captain please? It’s just I haven’t been one yet and I’d really like the opportunity.” Mr. Brown eyed me suspiciously and looked like he was about to refuse, but with the inspector standing next to him, pencil poised above his clipboard and staring his way through the tops of his glasses, he reluctantly agreed.
My fellow captain, Rory, was first to choose from the line up and picked a brawny athletic type who replied with a confident nod.
No such logic with my selection. I picked, to everybody’s amazement, most of all his own, Darren Hopton. To say that Hopton was underweight was a gross understatement. The kid was positively skeletal, and about as good at the sport of rugby as I am at synchronized swimming, which is to say no good at all. Hopton couldn’t have tackled his grandmother—and she’d been dead for over a decade. But today was his day. It was the first time he’d not been picked last and he seized his moment of glory. Glancing back at the far more athletic players, he puffed out his chest in mock bravado and gave an audible condescending “hah!” their way. Everybody laughed except Mr. Brown.
My most unlikely, and unfortunate, rugby team of misfits ended up getting the drubbing of our lives from the burly cream of the class. But it was well worth it. When we passed the one hundred to zero mark, Mr. Brown, in a fit of frustration, scrapped the game and changed the teams, receiving, I hope, a disapproving scribble on the inspector’s clipboard.
The dispute over teams on the volleyball court was finally resolved and the players, most of them wearing work shirts, shoes, and dress pants, not sporting gear, began a game. Three other guys, who were in fact wearing “casuals,” sat watching from a bench nearby. Also spectating were lots of younger boys, of around seven to ten years old, who all hung out together in a big group.
It was a pretty even match, but when one particularly good point was scored, everyone applauded. I did likewise and received a couple of gracious nods from the players below. Lots of the little kids now tentatively looked my way. They all whispered together and looked as if they were discussing approaching the strange tourist but didn’t quite have the courage in case he wasn’t friendly. After a couple more applauded shots, one of the biggest of the kids threw caution to the wind and began his advance. The others stayed a safe distance back and looked on.
He got within a few feet of me and said cautiously, “Hello.”
“Hello, salaam,” I replied.
That was it—he turned and smiled triumphantly down at his friends, giving them the all clear. They stampeded en masse up to join their friend, and now with an assembled audience he did it again.
“Hello,” he said, as if performing a demonstration.
“Hello, salaam,” I replied again.
They all wanted to give this a try. To everyone’s delight, it worked as well for them as it had done for their friend and the tourist replied “Hello, salaam” in return. Although this was the limit of the conversation, it did nothing to curb their enthusiasm and they tried it repeatedly just to make sure it still worked. Luckily, I was rescued by one of the guys on the bench, who waved me down to join them. I walked over and was immediately offered a glass of tea, or chay as it is called in
Iran, from a decorative silver tray. There were only three glasses so I hesitated—I didn’t want to steal their drink.
I took one though, figuring that as they’d offered, it must be okay and what’s more, I fancied a drink. One of them spoke a tiny bit of English, and asked me in a matter-of-fact way for my name, age, occupation, and salary, along with where I was from and whether I was married. On hearing that I wasn’t married yet, he expressed his sadness, as if this was a terrible trauma for a male of nearly thirty to bear. I learned later that these questions, including the seemingly tactless ones of how much I earned and whether I was married, are in fact standard Iranian icebreakers, and I was to hear them again and again wherever I went. I kind of liked this forthright approach that rejected the idea of delicately pussyfooting around a new social encounter and instead cut through the BS and went directly for the required information. Perhaps, I wondered, Iranian guys had a similarly frank approach when chatting up women, and asked directly for waist, chest, and leg measurements, along with a full STD history, and whether or not they were up for it.
During my introductions with the guys on the bench, the bigger of the little lads who’d approached me before came over for a piece of the action with the tourist. He attempted his tried and tested “Hello” line again, but before I could answer he got the Farsi equivalent of “Get lost, shorty” from the proper big boys. He looked a little annoyed; after all, he’d been the one who’d found the tourist first and now the big boys had stolen him. He did as he was told though, and walked off sullenly.
Gesturing to the game, I asked the guy who spoke a little English if he played volleyball. Shaking his head, he replied, “Football and box,” followed by a brief shadowboxing demonstration.
Having done a bit of this myself, I did likewise with a quick flurry of the noble art. They all liked this so he did his again. I again followed suit. We were buddies now, and to show it he produced a flick knife and began meticulously slicing up an apple and banana for us to share. They were delicious. I stayed around trying to communicate with them long after it got dark, and when it was finally time to leave, they insisted on driving me back to my hotel.
Before going inside to bed, I headed up the street for a stroll; I was struck by the clarity of the stars, which blazed in the clear night sky with an intensity I’d not yet seen on this trip, and I stood for several minutes just looking up. They were spectacular and although I was delighted to be here, I couldn’t help but wish I had someone to share this magical sight with.
When I got back to the hotel, the fatigue of the last couple of nights caught up with me and I crashed out exhausted but happy.
Iranian taxi drivers can be a pain in the ass. I’d spent the last twenty minutes in animated negotiation with a group of hard-nosed cabbies in an attempt to get a ride to my intended destination of today, the church of St. Thaddeus, but things hadn’t gone according to plan.
I had made my way out to a little junction just outside of Maku where a group of taxis was parked haphazardly along the road I needed to take to get to the church. Despite my best efforts, none of the crafty cabbies, of which there were about fifteen, was willing to take me unless I paid way over the standard price and stumped up an outrageously big tourist fee instead. They didn’t say this, of course, but since the prices they were quoting were seven times higher than those in my guidebook, it didn’t take a genius to work it out.
Taxis in Iran work in a slightly different way from those in the West, in that they can be hired in two ways, either in the conventional manner, or as a so-called shared taxi. This is where the taxi picks up multiple passengers along a standard route in much the same way as a bus does in the West. Both are interchangeable, though, with the driver going for the best option as it presents itself.
My plan had been to catch a shared cab to the church, as the costs for this were much lower, but the cabbies vetoed this option despite there being other people heading along the same route. They insisted that they would only take me privately, and only to the town nearest the church, Kandi Kelisa, but not to the church itself. And for this they wanted a ridiculous amount of money, IR200,000, which at about twenty dollars was having a laugh to say the least.
The fact that they were all together made them impossible to negotiate with, as a sort of group mentality developed that made none of them want to haggle, or more accurately back down in front of their buddies, and especially not to a tourist. A gangly traffic cop from across the street who had been watching all the commotion and lively negotiations loped over to lend his authority to the drivers’ argument. He insisted, in broken English, that their price was an absolute bargain just for me, and that I was a very lucky tourist indeed to have encountered such generous drivers. Yeah right. I shook my head with a laugh. He demanded my passport.
Whoops. I explained as best I could that it was at my hotel in the safe. He didn’t seem to mind and thankfully went back to his traffic duties, which seemed to entail standing in the road staring at my frustrated efforts to secure a ride and not much else.
Things took an ominous twist now as I was waved over by three military guys and a man in a dark suit and shades, who were standing across the main road next to a little office.
“Oh shit,” I thought.
They asked for my passport and once again, I had to explain where it was. The guy in the suit and shades seemed to be the main man and had the distinct air of a secret policeman of some sort. I soon got them all on my side when I produced my Iranian guidebook, which totally fascinated them. Their officious attitudes melted as they flicked through the glossy color photos, smiling and pointing out places to each other. The guy in the suit now explained, in good English, what I already knew: that the cabbies were trying to rip me off because I was a tourist, and that my best bet was to go back to Maku proper where they didn’t have a monopoly, and to get a taxi there.
As I left to go back to Maku, the cabbies waved goodbye sarcastically and had a good-natured giggle at me. That was it; the gauntlet had been thrown.
Once back in Maku, I found it easy to get a driver to agree to take me on a return trip to the church. His price was slightly more than I wanted to pay at IR40,000, but it would be more than worth it to drive past the cabbies at the junction and see their faces drop. I planned not only to wave out of the window but to hold up three fingers, like I had done when trying to negotiate with them, as if to say I had only paid 30,000. It was a bit of a white lie, but I didn’t care and couldn’t wait to see them all again.
My hopes for revenge were dashed when my driver headed along a different route to get to the church, which went nowhere near their junction. It was a much longer drive than I thought it would be, through a near-deserted, barren, rocky landscape whose stark emptiness was broken only by the occasional wandering goat herder or hovering hawk in the sky, of which I spotted a surprising number. The sky was an intense blue and virtually cloudless, save for a few fluffy cotton wool-like forms drifting low toward the horizon. I didn’t see any other cars the whole way there and was amazed at how sparse the area was. It would have been a great place to have had my own car and explore at length.
St. Thaddeus came into view long before we arrived. Although prominent, the church blended in beautifully with the sand-colored rolling hills, as much of the church was composed of a similar shade of rock. Surrounded by a large, fortresslike stone wall, the church was an impressive sight, graced with two large twelve-sided domed towers, one of which also had twelve arched windows. The other tower had four windows and was constructed with alternating black and sand-colored stone. At its western end, the church was constructed with sand-colored rock, and at its far eastern end with black stone. This reflected the other name for the church, “Qareh Kelisa,” which translates from Azeri as “black church,” although the vast majority of it was anything but black. Its isolated location and the fact it was in Iran, where I had not expected to be looking at early Christian churches, made it all the more interesting.
&n
bsp; Contrary to popular belief, Iran has a significant Christian community totaling somewhere in the region of 300,000 worshipers. The religion has a long history in Iran with some of the earliest saints spreading the gospels there. Most Iranian Christians are Armenian, but many other Christian communities exist in the country, including Catholics, Protestants, Adventists, and Nestorians. As a result, you can find churches in nearly all large Iranian towns. For the most part, Iran’s Christian community enjoys religious freedom, even to the extent that the country’s outright ban on alcohol consumption is annulled for churches, which are allowed to import communion wine. These freedoms do not extend, however, to Muslims who convert to Christianity. In these circumstances, you run the risk of being executed; under Iranian law, this can be punished with the death penalty.
The cab driver and I approached a little booth stationed by the main entrance. There was no one about so we walked straight into the courtyard in search of someone. The janitor was located in a small building off the main church and welcomed us in warmly. For a very small fee, I was given a little leaflet and entrance to the church itself, which the janitor unlocked for me. The taxi driver was allowed in for free, although for now he remained outside.
I stepped out of the roasting sun into the church’s mercifully cool interior and, like a good Catholic, made the sign of the cross. It was quite dark inside, with only a few hazy shafts of sunlight from the dome above for lighting, and was unlike any church I’d seen before. The first thing I noticed was a load of internal scaffolding supporting the cracked sections of the structure, of which there were many. Some of the larger cracks ran down from the domes themselves. Growing from these cracks were several wild plants. Strangely, the main flooring area was completely empty; for some reason, all the benches had been piled haphazardly on top of one another in a corner. They looked, quite frankly, like they’d been thrown there to create a barricade of some sort and were in a right old mess. To add to the unloved look were several crosses scratched into the walls, which looked very recent and of a graffiti nature. I walked slowly toward the altar, which was made predominantly from stained and dirty black rock and knelt down. Here I said a brief prayer and whilst doing so was joined by the cabby. On seeing me make the sign of the cross, he put his hand on his heart and bowed respectfully at the altar. I found this interesting as clearly he wasn’t a Christian but treated the church with not just respect but a certain reverence. Both of us now had a quiet look around the place.