In a country where rain is scarce, the people of the Iranian plateau found a way to bring water from the mountains to the plains without pumps. A qanat is a gently sloping underground tunnel, dug by hand from a series of vertical shafts, that taps water in the foothills and carries it by gravity to a village or farm many kilometres away. Evaporation is minimal because the water is underground, and the shafts, ringed with mounds of spoil, mark the line across the desert like a row of volcano craters. UNESCO lists eleven qanats together as The Persian Qanat, and the ones near Gonabad, in the arid east of Khorasan, are among the most famous.
The Gonabad qanat system is often described as among the oldest and deepest in Iran, with a mother well that is said to reach some three hundred metres, and a tunnel that runs for tens of kilometres, though figures vary between sources. Workers called muqannis went down on ropes with picks and oil lamps, and the job was dangerous and skilled, handed from father to son. Qanats shaped Iranian law and community, with water shares measured in hours and sold or inherited, and a village's social life grew around the point where the channel emerged.
For the rider, this is a stark and impressive region. Gonabad sits on the edge of the great salt deserts, with brown mountains to the south and a wide gravel plain, and the roads run straight for kilometres with long views and little traffic outside the towns. Summers are extremely hot, with winds that raise dust, and winters can be bitterly cold, so spring and autumn are best. Pistachio and saffron farms are scattered across the area, and the bright green of the irrigated fields beside the pale ground is a striking contrast.
Gonabad, about eight kilometres away, has some forty-three thousand people, with fuel, bakeries and simple restaurants, and the road to Birjand or Mashhad is lined with service stations at long intervals, so fill up when you can. Ask locally about visiting a working qanat, since some are open to visitors with a guide, and wear sturdy shoes. The water is cold and clear, and a few minutes in the shade of a shaft, listening to the trickle, is one of the great pleasures of desert travel.