Yet another cycling adventure is waiting for me, this time I go to a beautiful exotic country with some peculiar politics and culture, Iran.
It´s interesting to note that in Persia was born the first monotheistic religion of the word: Zoroastrianism. A religion that may disappear in just a few decades.
More than 1100km have to be pedaled, and it could be much more with detours or taking wrong directions.
Due the fact that I have a cheap three-gears bicycle, I have chosen for the moment to follow the main road, which spans in the middle of Iran through Tabriz – Zanjan. It´s the fastest and flattest route and it seems to be the best for me, cause the distance between Yerevan and Tehran is huge and it will take months otherwise. My main stop will be Tehran, hence I will be cycling for almost one month nonstop, taking this fastest route.
Other cyclists have told me great stories about Iranians and their great hospitality. Iran is quite safe and cyclists friendly.
VISA
The adventure starts here!
The online procedure of the Evisa from the Iranian government works the 20% of the times. I don’t suggest to use it cause then you are stuck and you can’t apply by agency (which costs about 20€) until you don’t get an answer: it can take weeks or months.
I applied online, waited for 17 days, called several times (maybe 10) to the embassy but nobody could help and they would give me the wrong number. Finally, once I got to Yerevan, I went to the Iranian embassy (which is also on a mountain out of the city) to hear from the clerk that my request has been refused. She told me to apply again with an agency and she even gave me the visit card of the agency.
Probably they want to make it complicated, have some ‘relationship’ with the agencies, or they want simply to work less and have the agency do all the work.
The most popular agencies are:
https://1stquest.com/visa
https://apochi.com/online-iran-visa-services/
For Invitation letter https://ww2.apochi.com/invitation-letter
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My tour before and after iran
29 Sep. – 04 Oct. KIEV (Ukraine)
04 Oct. – 14 Oct. YEREVAN (Armenia)
14 Oct. – 12. Nov. CYCLING from Armenia to Iran (Tehran)
12 Nov. – 19 Nov. TEHRAN (Iran)
20 Nov. – 04 Dec. BAKU (Azerbaijan)
04 Dec. – 13 Dec. TBILISI (Georgia)
14 Dec. – 18 Dec. MILAN (Italy)
and then…
Ghent (Belgium)
Copenhagen (Denmark)
Helsinki (Finland)
