Saturday, June 19, 2010
Daily Notes
Breakfast: 14,000 rials (~$1.40)
Taxi to bus ter­minal: 20,000 (~$2.00)
Bus tickets from Tabriz to Zanjan: 90,000 (~$9.00), about a 4-hour ride
Hotel in Zanjan: 450,000 (~$45.00) Dinner: 33,000 (~$3.30)

Chris exchanged $300 US at a shop located in what appeared to be a gold souk.  The exchange rate was $1 = 10,034 rials.

The bus from Tabriz to Zanjan doesn’t actu­ally pull off the highway into Zanjan. Instead, it pulls over on the side of the highway where a bunch of taxi drivers are waiting to shuttle you off the highway into town. The taxi from the highway took us to another des­ig­nated taxi area where it was appar­ent we had to cross the street and find another taxi, a city taxi, to continue.

As we crossed the street some­what con­fused, due to the order of things, a lady in her late 20’s recog­nized our con­fus­sion and gestered for us to share a taxi with her. Shrugging our shoulders, “Why not?”, Chris and I got in. In her begin­ner English she asked us where we were from. After that, con­ver­sa­tion pretty much seized for the remainder of our 5-minute ride. She ordered us to get out and insisted on paying for the taxi ride. She then pro­ceeded to walk us to a hotel. When I hes­it­ated to cross the street she smiled and looked at me lov­ingly like I was a young, inno­cent child. She grabbed my hand and lead me across the weaving traffic. When we came to the next big inter­sec­tion she instantly did the same thing. I felt silly being guided by this petite lady who was a foot and half shorter than me, but who’s bravery/experience with road cross­ing was four feet taller than I. Her name was Meana.