As I may have mentioned, days 8 to 12 in Iran went by in a blur and involved much time, shopping, walking and long rides on the bus. Near the last two days, tour members started departing as we made our way back to Tehran. The last night in Tehran we dropped off our luggage in the lobby of a downtown hotel and Derek, Michael, Stella and I walked to the same park we visited the first or second day of our trip. Michael finally got to ride a Ferris wheel–something he had wanted to do during this trip and then immediately departed for his long train ride to Turkey. The remaining three of us had tea in a restaurant in the middle of the park and then tried to locate another restaurant we visited earlier in our trip to have our final meal in Iran. We were able to navigate the Tehran subway system with the help of a couple of guidebooks and survived being packed into one of the trains like I have never experienced before. Fortunately, we found the restaurant was located only a few meters from the exit of the subway station. We ordered dinner and were surprised when some of the other members of our tour group arrived–serendipitously, the French and Italian couples had the same idea to spend their last night visiting the restaurant. We had a very good last dinner together before the French and Italian couples left to find a female friendly shisha bar. Derek, Stella and I managed to navigate on foot back to the hotel where our bags were stored. We sat in the lobby for two hours–Derek and I waiting to be taken to the airport and Stella killing time before going back to her own hotel. She was staying an additional few days. We all left the hotel around 11pm, riding in a car owned by one of the hotel workers. It was a bit sad that the trip was ending and we were all going our separate ways. We dropped Stella off, said a quick goodbye and made sure she walked to her hotel safely. For some reason the drive to the airport seemed a lot longer than the drive from the airport on day 1. We had a very uneventful pass through Iranian customs and a long two-leg flight back to Chicago.
I hope to post some photos from the trip in the next couple of weeks. Another really good trip overall and I don’t yet want to consider what’s next for me on the travel horizon.
