TEHRAN – Over 50 artists, musicians, chefs, and craftspeople showed off their indigenous skills for a host of visitors and sightseers during a cultural night held in Qeshm Island on Friday.

People who were natives of Riku village put on show indigenous handicrafts and dishes; staged live performances; and held various workshops at a cultural center in Qeshm, IRNA quoted a local official as saying on Saturday.

The Persian Gulf Island recorded over 2.8 million visitors during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), which shows a 20 percent increase in tourism flow compared to the same period year on year, IRNA reported.

The island is a heaven for eco-tourists as it embraces wide-ranging attractions such as the Hara marine forests and about 60 villages dotted mostly across its rocky coastlines. It also features geologically eye-catching canyons, hills, caves, and valleys, most of which are protected as part of the UNESCO-tagged Qeshm Island Geopark, itself a haven for nature-lovers.

Many travelers to Qeshm believe that the Stars Valley or Valley of Stars is a “MUST SEE”. It is home to bizarre-shaped gorges, tall pillars, canyon-like paths, hollowed-out spaces as well as the smooth and round stones, which have been formed by the wind and rain eroding the soil, rocks, and stones. Locals believe that a star once fell on this area thereby creating the rocky shapes that make it seem as if from another planet.

AFM