The American cyclist who was caught in Iran talks about his tense escape as Israeli

A bottle of champagne appears on the Atlantic coast of Portugal in February, 32 -year -old American Ian Andersen He set out to fulfill his dream of bicycle on the seven continents of the world. He planned to travel for 10 months, covering approximately 10,000 miles to reach his final destination in Japan.

However, he did not plan that Israel launched a war against Iran.

While crossing Iran on June 1, Andersen was full of emotion and anxiety.

“I was quite nervous. It was like, that’s fine, now we are getting into an unknown territory here,” News told News on Thursday from a hotel room in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku. “But I immediately calmed down with so many positive experiences of people I met on the way … and hospitality, generosity.”

He said he was “surprised daily” by the friendly and curious Iranians who invited him to have tea or offering food, even trying to pay his food in a restaurant.

On June 13, that changed, when Israel began bombing Iran’s nuclear and military sites.

“It is no external hostility, but I only read the body language of people and their facial expressions,” Andersen said. “And I knew it was quite dangerous, because people were seeing Israel and the United States as quite tied at that time, since the bombs continued to fall and the missiles were still striking.”

He and his local Iranian guide Pray, decided to bend down in a guest house about 45 miles north of Tehran, in a town called Harijan, for two days.

Reza, who said Andersen had become her friend, advised her to avoid telling people who were American and avoid talking to people if possible. But he said he slipped, revealing his nationality to some local travelers who joined them at the hotel.

“They were not happy with the fact that they had to share a hotel with ‘that American’ who was there,” Andersen said.

On June 15, Andersen heard an Israeli bomb explode in the distance. That same day he received an email from the United States Department of State, advising him options for Americans who wish to leave Iran, according to their current locations. He decided that his best bet was an eight -hour trip to the north, around the Caspian Sea, to get to Azerbaijan.

He and Praza were quickly trapped in a constant flow of dense traffic, while residents left Tehran. Service stations passed with long car rows and many military control points.

“It was quite heartbreaking,” he said. “The idea of ​​perhaps being stopped at one of the military control points.”

“Pray, my guide, I had told me that I can no longer protect me, and that really shook me, right? Because, he is my guide. He is my Iranian guide, and a very stable, resistant and reliable guide. And he is like, ‘very well, that is.

Andersen said he became “more and more to taste as we approached”, and finally came without incident to the Iran border with Azerbaijan.

But the most stressful part of that last day was about to begin, since it was interviewed not one, but twice by Iranian officials: the normal border police and then by the revolutionary body of the guard of Iran.

For the second interview, he was taken from a crowd and led to the back room of a storage closet in an impromptu barracks of the army.

“That’s where I thought, ‘that’s fine, I have a 50-50 possibility to be taken as a negotiation chip or for more questioning,” he said. “Actually, the interview was like, less than a minute.”

“I went back to the night to take my bicycle and then enter Azerbaijan, and half expected to be called. It was like, ‘something is wrong here. Um, why, why was it so easy?’ But they did not, and I could enter Azerbaijan. “

Iran’s Internet Firewall cleaned, he was able to send messages to his family in the United States before he registered at the first hotel he could find, and then sleep for 12 hours in relief and exhaustion.

Now surely when Israel-Iran’s conflict crawls, Andersen said he believes a lot about the possible indirect effect for anyone with an American passport that lives and travel abroad.

He said he recorded his travel itinerary with the US. State Department Steps Programwhich sends specific notifications and updates from the country based on the movements of a traveler. This is how he knew how to address Azerbaijan, and urges all Americans who travel abroad to do the same.

Andersen also said that if it weren’t for his Iranian guide, he could not have left the country. He hopes to raise money for Reza and his family, who are still in Iran.

He also intends to continue his bike trip to Japan, to fulfill his dream of bicycle by all the continents of the world.

• Tehran
• War
• Iran
• Israel