Leaving Shiraz, we also left cooler climes behind us. Over 6 days and 600km, we dropped over 1,500m in altitude until we ended up back at sea level when we hit the Persian Gulf at Bandar Abbas. For the last three months since leaving Istanbul we had always been at high altitude, never dropping below 1,000m as we cycled on the Anatolian Plateau in Turkey and along the Zagros mountain range in Iran. ||

The photo was taken on our first day out of Shiraz, where the arid land became dotted with date palms, orange groves and cotton plantations. The temperature rose steadily as we lost altitude, until it was in the low 30°C’s on the Gulf.