Whoa, it’s been a long haul to the Iranian border city of Yazdan, made all the more exhausting by the local pasha’s sprightly camel train, whom I met in the desert and challenged to a race to the border. I’ve never been so delighted to see the fraternal brotherhood billboard at the city limits, proclaiming WELCOME by the Shriners, the Freemasons, and the Taliban Freedom Fighters.


I must also apologize for last month’s, collarbone, pain-killer induced rant. Who ever heard of a singing 3-speed... I mean, with the proper Italian Ugo DeRosa virtuosi, equipped with Campagnolo’s Chorus parts, sure, but a third-world 3-speed? Ridiculous!


Yazdan is derived from the Kurdish word for God (Tullio) or angel, and so it seems fitting that I should take a welcomed rest here. In the morning I will go looking for a bicycle trader, and relinquish my indigenous “Magic Carpet” 3-speed, but right now I am just enjoying the cool evening air over the city.


And as I’m relaxing, I have this vision that I am a traveling speaker, giving orations across the land. The odd part about it is that I am actually a complete and total fibber, telling one tall tale after another, but in this vision the audience doesn’t seem to mind at all. And after each presentation, I find myself feeling all tingly, like a little kid riding a bike for the first time -without training wheels- almost behaving outside the laws of the physics.


See you Eagle readers next month in Afghanistan, where I’ll be sleeping in a yurt and dining on yogurt.  But right now I am just enjoying floating, high above Yazdar, on my Magic Carpet ride -Global Freddie.


<INDEX                                                     JUNE - 2000                                                     NEXT>


 






 

Criterium Corner with Euro Freddie