Castles of the Assassins

Let s go and see a bit of countryside...
Bus to Qazvin, dropped at 3h45 in the morning in the middle of nowhere and wait for the sun to rise and people to wake up to plan the next steps of the trip.

Taxi to the "taxi gather" place, then shared taxi for a 80km ride in the hills to reach the city of Alamut, where I jump on an old truck for the last 20km that links Alamut to Gazor Khan....my final destination. pffff

Here we are, the place is great...haven t seem much of the road as I ve slept almost all the way long (except in the truck).
Put my bag in the guesthouse I found there, watch the guestbook for good hiking tips...and lets go for the visit of the the old castle (what rest of it I would say), the castle was part of a 50 castles owned by a group called the Assassins that were living in the area during the 11th and 12th centuries. The members of the Assassins were dispatched to murder leading politicals and religious. They believed that their action would lead them to paradise.
Great story no ?

What s left of the castle stands on a huge rock, which from the top gives a great view on the valley. After a walk in the ruins I follow a small pass that goes beyond the castle and lead to the bottom of the hill.

picture above: On the top right big rock stands the castle ruins....

pic above: Other side of the big rock where the castle stands

I follow the river, crossing cherry trees areas, reaching a first canyonm then a second one....I give up on the escond one a go back to the main road to go back to the guesthouse, as the sun is setting and I don t want to spend the night in the canyon.

On the second day, I take my bag and go for a longer trip, buy enough food for about two days...and lets go through the mountains, following a track explained by two guys on the guestbook at the guesthouse....
The road is very nice, crossing some stunning scenearies, the weather is quite hard and noway to walk between 1 and 3...find a rock and its shade to sleep a bit....then keep going through the mountains

Reach the first village just before dawn...walk a bit through it to find a place to sleep a bit uot of the village.
After asking the local owner, I put my tent under a nut tree for the night...fall asleep at 9pm...the day was hard ;-)

Second day, I follow the little road that goes through the hills and a few canyons to reach the big road.
Little hitch and I m back to Alamut to take a shared taxi that brings me back to Quazvin.
Having a rest there and take a train tomorrow to Tabriz, getting closer to the Turkish border, last country of my silk road trip....

Cheeers