1400 km south of Tehran – Qeshm Island

6:20 am, it’s sunrise at the Persian Gulf. Then, for the first time, the muezzin calls to prayer loudly over loudspeakers. Does it have to be so loud? At some point you fall asleep again. Around 8 am the first guests get up in our accommodation. Matthias takes a shower and completes his morning program with pull-ups and push-ups. I want to lie down a bit more, just a little bit. Stupid muezzin. But sleeping on the floor works well. That’s no problem. Matthias comes to wake me up, breakfast is ready. Hmm, here you’ll find great things every day, including Persian version of our Saxonian “Kräppelchen” and Persian pancakes. I’m going to take a shower, too, which is quite an undertaking. We have a shared bathroom and on the way back and forth please keep the appearance in accordance with the Muslim-Iranian rules. Can’t wear the towel from A to B.

I’ll be the last one to get to the “table”. The Iranians are all sitting relaxed on the floor. The table is a plastic blanket. Matthias has stretched out his legs, his knees do not bear the cross-legged seat. For me it’s okay, but it doesn’t last forever either, because my knees, no stretched joints and shortened muscles, that’s more or less it. And there’s chai again, black tea. The country loves chai. And dates, white flatbread. Great!

It’s getting hectic, we all want to go to the mangrove forests. Go go go. Yallah, yallah. You can barely grab the towel before the engine is started and extremely loud oriental music is played. The whole team in the car claps along with the music, and we laugh a lot. 7/8 time. Shoulder dancing – that’s how men dance here. Imagine Shakira shaking her ass back and forth super fast. Just with your shoulders. You can do that in the car too. Meanwhile, the desert landscape is passing by. And then we get in the boat into the mangrove woods. From the boat we climb onto surfboards and start paddling. Of course there is the obligatory water battle, whether Elster Canal in Leipzig or here in Iran. That’s international. And then you get thrown into the water. As a woman, I end up in the water with long trousers and a long-sleeved top. At least I left the headscarf in the boat. And last but not least, we sit on the surfboards and let the motorboat pull us with high speed. And in the curve… you fall into the water again. A beautiful morning. Thank you, Iran.