Car trouble remains

Half way the scenery was so beautiful that we stopped to film and take some pictures. It was Pete who noticed the leakage under the car. Michel reacted quickly by looking underneath the car. By smelling he noticed that the massive leakage wasn’t fuel. What then? We looked in the car and saw that our watertank was leaking and that all of the contents had disappeared. No more water while being in the middle of the dessert. We decided to head for Chaq Chaq anyway and see what happened. We were relieved nothing was wrong in the car and continued our way through the desert.

Chaq chaq is situated half way on a rocky mountain. The buildings are actually quite new and not even attractive. The scenery and the views however are stunning. When we got to the shrine a sign got our attention that women were not allowed in during the time of menstruation? How in the world can they check that?

The caretaker is an old friendly looking chap who’s business is to open the door and close it again. Over the years it has turned into some sort of ritual. When we walked into the shrine we saw a fire basket in the middle which had no fire in it. Elles made a remark that the 400 or so flames had died. But on the wall we noticed two tiny flames, the size of a candle flame. Was that it? Well not really as mr caretaker walked up to the flames and added another one. So we had three very tiny flames to look at. That’s much better we all thought! A bit disappointed we left and as Pete had said before, it is not the image but the story behind the image that does it sometimes. And that’s what counts for Chaq Chaq. We continued out trip through the desert and felt like the movie Priscilla Queen of the desert!

Back in Yazd we headed straight towards the Zoroastrian towers of silence. These were burial grounds for the Zoroastrians and they were lying on the outskirts of Yazd. But disaster struck before we even got there. Suddenly the engine died and we looked at fuel gage which was, as the night in the bazaar, on half full. We had only driven 200 kilometers so the tank could not be empty. We did the same trick and filled the tank with fuel from the jerry cans. But this time it did not work. We were approached by an English speaking Iranian guy who asked if we needed help. At first we thought he was just interested in what was happening but then he offered to get a VW mechanic. How nice!

Two minutes later he returned with a VW specialist who told us we had a vacuum problem. There was petrol in the tank but because of a vacuum, no petrol got to the carburetor. He removed the filter and immediately the fuel started flowing and when he replaced the filter the problem was solved. How the problem was caused we don’t know and still don’t know. The only thing he said was not to fill the tank completely full and if so leave the car running for a while with the petrol tank lit off. We reckon there is dirt in the tank but how can it only be happening when the tanks is half full?? If somebody has encountered such a problem, we’d love to hear the answer on how to solve it as we have some long travels in the desert ahead of us…..