It was a relief to cruise down the motorway into Mashhad, Iran's holiest city, and bring to a close our Iranian odyssey. In the twelve days from Tabriz we had covered nearly 1800km at an average of 148km per day. Enforced by a short visa, our speedy transition of Iran was always destined to be one of the greater physical challenges of the trip. On the face of it, this was not a problem - it simply meant adjusting to a routine whereby we woke with the 4am sunrise and made sure we stayed firmly in the saddle for a good 8 hours. However, like Odysseus, we discovered that as soon as you believe that you are making good headway your fortunes tend to fade. For the last four days we faced an increasingly strong headwind which tore unabated across the bleak, open landscape of uninhabited desert. On one day, we were reduced to crawling along at 13km/h as the gusts, which raged from dawn to dusk, effectively made the beautifully flat roads feel like one long, depressing climb. While this may sound like a tortuous way to travel (and for sure there are times when you curse every stroke of the pedals) ultimately it adds to the experience as it spurs you on into pushing harder. The more challenging a leg of the journey has been, the more enjoyable it is to sit back afterwards with one of Iran's delicious fruit smoothies.

Although settlements were few and far between after Tehran, the occasional encounter would characterise each day. As we cycled along mopeds laden with comically inappropriate loads, such as ladders at jaunty angles, a live goat or even a washing machine tied on the back, would whizz by in clouds of leaded petrol fumes and with a cacophony of beeps. They would occasionally pull along side and start up a conversation, deciding that the middle of a motorway interchange was a opportune moment to discover where you were going or to pass comment on the strike force of the English football team. We had to stop after one particularly persistent van driver had dodged pedestrians on the hard shoulder, navigated through a set of roadworks and rummaged through his tape collection to blast out some pre-Islamic revolution Pink Floyd to spur us on. We are glad that we did as immediately ran off to fetch cold orange juice.

On another occasion, we were slightly perturbed when the blue lights of the law began to flash behind us just as a storm was gathering in the evening sky. The local police demanded to know what we were doing and ruled emphatically that the central reservation of the duel carriageway was no place for us for us to pitch camp. Unlike in Turkey though, where I am sure that the humourless gendarme would have made this into a big problem, the Iranian cops escorted us to a local factory and arranged a lavish night of hospitality complete with some big helpings of local food.

Possibly our most random encounter came when we decided to visit an Iranian petrol station, not for some of its sooty fuel but to pick up some much needed (and more expensive) water. Across the forecourt an old man bellowed rather flamboyant "hola amigos!". Slightly taken aback, we strolled over to meet the wonderfully eccentric Hussein who took to christening the three of us in turn "Sammy David", "Christopher Columbus" and "George Washington". Having previously read a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, he interspersed each sentence with elegant vocabulary and, despite our constant insistence he refused to accept payment for several provisions, dryly informing us that God had paid in advance. Amazingly, Hussein also recalled meeting Jon and Andy ( www.cyclehome.net) when they completed the reverse journey across Eastern Iran in the very different, freezing depths of winter.

After all the cycling, we had precious little time left to visit one of the finest cities in Persia. Barely had we stopped for a few hours before we were on a plane heading towards Esfahan. The photos struggle to do the architecture of its fantastically opulent mosques justice: their towering archways and expansive courtyards are all adorned with intricately detailed ceramic mosaics. We whiled away the afternoon on the rooftops overlooking Imam square (the second largest square in the world) with a water pipe aiding mellow contemplation of our journey through Iran. It had been intriguing to experience an Islamic republic first hand and quite an unexpected contrast to Turkey. In Turkey, mosques are very much in your face; rarely was there a stretch of Black Sea coast when we were out of earshot of their megaphones. Iran, on the other hand, has a much more subtle call to prayer and seemingly fewer, more lavish mosques. Although all Iranian women are obliged to keep their hair covered, headscarves are often draped in a more fashionable way back on the head in defiance, not necessarily all that different to conservative parts of Turkey. What takes more getting used to are the lack of certain freedoms Iranian women have: our tea shop had a sign up prohibiting them from entering; the word of two women in court is equivalent to that of one man; men and women are kept in separate carriages on the tube. I can imagine many of the younger generation find such government restrictions frustrating to say the least, which is potentially why many of them choose not to return from overseas, although it is difficult to tell without having had the opportunity to question people's true feelings.

Iran really is a beautiful country and the only threat to Western travellers away from its southeastern borders is of being overwhelmed by the constant offers of hospitality. We would all like to travel back to discover more of its architectural gems and only hope that diplomatic relations remain good enough to allow us to get another visa. Once we have explored the holy shrine of Imam Reza and one of Iran's best smoothie bars in Mashhad tomorrow, we will embark on the Central Asian phase of our journey and head through Turkmenistan for the Silk Road town of Bukhara in Uzbekistan.