"Hear with your ears the best things; look upon them with clear-seeing thought," Zoroastrian Chant 30, verse 2
There is a fire that has been burning since 470 AD. The Fire Temple in Yazd houses this particular fire, which is kept burning by Zoroastrian priests. There are an estimated 10,000 Zoroastrians living in Yazd now. Zoroastrianism is full of dualism. Man has free will to choose Good over Evil, and if he does, he be rewarded with a spot in Heaven. There is only one God, making Zoroastrianism the oldest monotheistic religion in the world.
"Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves in unison as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought, and word and action. And between these two, the wise ones choose aright, the foolish not so." Chant 39, verse 3
In the fire temple courtyard, a man asked to take his picture with me, so his friend got out the cell phone and started snapping. I insisted that I get a picture too, of course.
We walked through a little mosque to get onto the main square in Yazd.
There was a visit to the Water Museum. I popped in, but it took just a moment to remember that I don't care that much about the history of water in Yazd. To be fair, it is important, and they have a reason to dedicate a museum to their efforts. I just don't find it particularly interesting. So I stepped outside to see what else I could see, and I got talking to another guide. He asked me if I had had a nose job. Which I took as a compliment, but could have been an Iranian pick up line. I decided that it was the latter when he asked me to have tea with him later. I declined, but the conversation was interesting and we agreed that know-it-all foreign tourists are the worst.
On the way back, I spotted the confectionery where I had bought baklava in 2011. I made everyone stop and buy some. The same Supreme Leader portrait was up, the only thing missing was Ahmadinejad.
The Friday mosque was closed for three days, but we could see the tiled portal, which is crowned by twin minarets, and is the tallest in the country. This mosque dates from 1324-1365 and a wonderfully preserved mosque. Instead we visited a smaller city mosque. The caretaker was very proud of his building.
We walked through the labyrinth that is Yazd to get to dinner. Yazd's architecture is probably the most traditionally Persian style we will see. It is very dry here and they specialize in things like water retrieval and wind towers to cool homes. It is a maze of small streets, punctuated by the sound of zipping motorbikes. They scream past, sometimes without their lights on, sometimes with a woman on back, her black chador flapping in the wake.
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