Bamshad (Bob) Lotfabadi's Website

Sometimes I feel helpless when I love to describe a scene just too beautiful in life and I see that I need to use the same-as-always words of my out-of-date vocabulary to describe the experience. That’s when I realize how important it is to expand my thought, knowledge, and vocabulary all-together to be able to better express things. But what I do also know and perhaps some of my readers don’t, is that every time we look at nature, and even though we use the same range of words for it,there is something absolutely new and amazing to see and assess, which the author has seen and is trying to get the readers attention to. However, most of the success in how you understand the author’s true experience depends on the author’s skill in conveying his message. Being an armature writer, I can only hope you realize that there was something magical about the place I visited today!

Now that I just got up from bed at night to write this, I still feel the group’s laughter and joy, their careful walking on the slippery paths of this amazing natural cave where the only way to walk on and find your way is the head-lamp you are using. Spotlights of all the good experiences I had with my new friends are also going around my head. I had just met these people and become introduced to. So here I go with my description of this one day trip to Rud-Afshan Cave some 45 kilometers away from city of Firuz-Kooh, Iran.

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It is 4:00 in the morning. I wake up to my Mobile’s alarm clock but I prefer to sleep another ten minutes. My experience says that when I wake up after a long sleep, a few minutes of extra snoozing will help get up sharper and clearer. I know I am having a long day a head of me.

I get up, go for a short but relaxing shower, brush my teeth and shave. I pack up my knapsack with things I have already put aside for the trip such as the quick but yummy food I have for lunch. The taxi cab is awaiting me in front of the building. I had requested the service last night as I know it is very difficult to find a regular taxi-cab that early in the morning. I am now in the car talking happily to the driver about some common social issues – things that almost everyone talks about these days. I am soon in Vanak Square, much earlier than the time the group was to meet for heading toward Rud-Afshaan Cave.

This is my first time with this group. I wonder how things will turn out. The team is finally getting together. The leader who seems like a fun confident guy with a muscular appearance is welcoming the new members and talking happily to the group at large. He is 25 years old, a year younger than me. I am trying to fit in and I think I am being very successful as the tour-leaders are open-minded persons. I start to ask a few questions and scan the group members to ensure I will be spending some good time with them. We finally get on the bus. The trip officially begins at 5:50 in the morning.

Fun talk and the friendly environment makes us comfy. We start to talk more easily although most of the group members including I are new. As we get closer to our destination, the scenery becomes more beautiful. The mountains with the green cover and valleys with tall cedars pop-up in the front. The two mini-buses curve around along the bent pavements through out the mountain belt. After about three hours of ride we are finally there.

We are in a beautiful scenery of mountains, and large gardens. We walk the path, up and over the mountain. As we are climbing the mountain to reach the cave, friendships grow. Eventually the very huge cave entry sticks out its head and welcomes us. This beautiful cave has such a large entrance – the biggest actually in the Middle East. It is a huge dark semi circle. The throwing of a few peaces of stone down toward the cave echoes back the sound a few times.

We move down the hill and enter this first cave hall. Apparently the cave has three halls and a place where many many years ago people had used as their homes. Our ancestors seemed to had found a comfortable place in the depth of the mountain. We turn-on our head-lamps and move on, climb up some large cliffs that make our journey in a bit difficult. We are yet to face the difficulties but for now we feel like this is something difficult. In fact one of our professional guides is telling us that compared to some very interesting caves we have in Iran, this is among the most easy to explore. Anyway we climb over the rocks and enter the second hall.

This second hall is absolutely amazing… dark, huge, with cone-shaped stone structures (ghandile ahaki). The dark tunnel-like path of the cave has a muddy path forward, which can’t be distinguished without our lights. It is quiet, but our group’s loud voices disturbed the peace although it gave our tour members a happy time. One of these happy campers was speaking English with me in one part. I was enjoying the discussion a lot. I had found friends and I had started talking English and singing songs while climbing with both my feet and my hands. I loved it, although it also came to my mind to think of other social skills I can use to devise good friendships. I found many.

It is amazing how this passionate underground tunnel is so long and marvelous with a tall roof and sometimes dangerous slippery path, up and down, and through big pieces of rocks. Close to the end I injured my knee a bit (a couple of times) , but it was nothing serious. I was getting physically tired.

We entered the third hall. A second tour was following us. They had almost caught up. But we continued. We finally reached the end. After some serious rock climbing inside the cave we had now found the general-end of the cave. Of course this was an end just for the novice, while the small holes continued some distance further for the professional climbers. Here we did doing several things: having moments of silence for a couple of minutes with all lights off, having volunteers sing for everyone (including me), and taking photos of the group members. It is really fantastic. The place is a real beauty at peace. We decide that it is time to return. So the rock climbing continues. I am using my mountain stick to help me get over on top of the slippery rocks.
The head lamps are all moving around on the rocky walls and on the ground. In my mind this makes it look like the police-cars shining light on a sky-scraper at night while Batman is fighting the bad guys on the 48th floor We finally get to the cave entry. Being very tired, we sit, eat lunch, and drink a lot of water.

The return to Tehran was very fun. We had a great time in the bus. I performed some of those entertaining works that pleased most of us in the bus (Perhaps even all). After the experience I had felt physically and mentally much more strong. My breathing had become more rhythmic and the memory of those good affiliates in the bus and on the way back was like a loliby that helped me close my eyes and sleep well at night.

/Bamshad\