On the edge of Lali town, a place where many former Bakhtiari nomads end up in simple dwellings, Mehdi Ghafari and his friend Aidi Shams shared a water pipe. The sun was setting as they reminisced about their past as nomads. Their wives are happier now, they admitted, and their children go to school. "There was no way but to adjust," Ghafari said.
One of the last on the mountain, Nejat Ghanbari, the 76-year-old husband of Bibi Naz, insisted that nomads stem from the pre-Islamic Iranian kings.