The Qanat of the Moon, Qanat-e Mah, lies just outside Ardestan, a small town on the edge of Iran's central desert, and it is one of those places where the engineering is hidden. A qanat is an underground channel that carries water from the foothills to the plain, running downhill at a gentle gradient so the water flows by gravity alone, without pumps and without evaporating in the desert sun. It starts at a mother well, sometimes deep in the rock, and a line of vertical shafts runs along the course so that workers could remove the soil and ventilate the tunnel. Seen from the air, the shafts look like a row of craters leading toward a village.
For a rider the interest lies in what these systems made possible. The qanats allowed people to live in places that would otherwise be uninhabitable, and the oasis towns of the Iranian plateau, including Ardestan, owe their existence to them. UNESCO recognised a group of Persian qanats in 2016, and this one belongs to that list. The work was done by specialist diggers, the muqannis, a respected, dangerous profession handed down in families.
Ardestan is a town of sixteen thousand, so it has fuel, a bazaar, bakeries and tea houses, and the Seljuk Jameh mosque, with its brick minaret and graceful twelfth-century prayer hall, is worth a look. Zavareh, a short ride away, has another old mosque with fine stucco and brickwork. On the edge of town, the land turns to open desert with the dark outline of the Karkas mountains behind.
The riding here is on long, straight desert roads, usually in excellent condition, with big skies and distances that swallow the miles. The wind can blow strongly and dust sometimes reduces visibility, and the midday sun is fierce, so start early. In summer, temperatures reach levels where stopping for water every hour is sensible. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, with warm days and cold clear nights, and the winter desert is surprisingly cold. Fuel stations are spaced far enough that it makes sense to fill up whenever you see one.
From Ardestan, you can head south-west toward Kashan, a historic city of courtyard houses and rose water, or north-east toward the old mud-brick villages of the desert edge, such as Kharanaq. Both make good additions, and the long light of late afternoon on mud walls makes the scenery glow.