Until 1989 traffic was permitted on the historic bridges of
Isfahan. It is hard to believe it could have been so. These days the lower
arches of their 400 year old stone and mortar structures conceal tea houses,
their upper youths and couples of all ages. Circles gather around men
performing card tricks, a woman parts her chador to offer Miriam socks for
sale.
We arrive in the city just before No Ruz, the Iranian
celebration of New Year that still adheres, post Revolution, to a stubbornly
solar calendar. It is the biggest holiday in Iran, and locals flock to the
tourist cities of Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and the Caspian Sea and Persian
Gulf.
In preparation for crowds of sightseers a weir is opened
upstream. On the first morning the river is no more than a greasy trickle,
paddle boats marooned hopelessly in banks of cracked grey mud. Families walk
along the dry causeway below the bridge or cross between lower arches on
stepping stones that taper out to present the largest area to your foot but
smallest to the flowing stream.
By afternoon the causeway floods, the arches close, an
upstream fountain shoots water into the sky.
The difference is considerable. The water, taken from the
bottom of some dam, is cold, and the air on either grass-lined shore drops several
degrees and gains much needed – in what is still a desert environment –
humidity. The sewer smell and rafts of blue green algae disappear. The boats
begin to float and water birds paddle.
Best of all the sounds of the river displace those of traffic.
We sit and ate ice cream on the grassy shore. It may be barely spring but the
sun is warm and passing time with other Iranians, all in holiday mode, seems by
far the best thing to do.
