Left Romania for Bulgaria
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2008
1
2
5
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
With Shaun the peace corps volunteer!
Razgrad,
Bulgaria
Sunday, June 22, 2008
I have left Romania for Bulgaria and have been in Bulgaria now for two nights. I have decided to hitch hike most of the time from now on, not just because its a cheap way to travel but for the adventure and unknown experiences to be had. Two days ago I hitched from Bucharest to the border, walked a good 4 miles from the town to the bridge over the Danube River (a good two miles its self, because i figured nobody would pick up a hitch hiker and take them over a border for security reasons so I just hiked it. All the trucks and cars had to pay a tax to cross the bridge but when I walked up to the window they just laughed at me in a very friendly way smiled and waved me through. I also got a lot of strange looks from truck drivers and people crossing the bridge and a few shouts of which I couldn't tell if they were encouraging or yelling "what the fuck are you doing you crazy traveler!!" Anyways it was blisteringly hot, I was covered in sweat and was a really cool experience walking across this huge bridge.
Ok so I don't really tend to write in chronological order...and so lets see where I left off before...
Ok so after Cluj I really started my hitch hiking and went to sibiu for the TIFF (transylvania international film festival) to see a few movies (saw an excellent documentary of Bob Dylan on a temporary outside movie theatre), couch surfed with two german guys doing their required social service (i think its a really cool idea that its required to do a year of social service in germany either in the military, within germany, or as these guy's case internationally), saw germany lose to i think Turkey?? and listened to a bunch of german curse words while they were losing.
after the hike
Sibiu is historically a german settlement of sorts and the architecture has lots of german influence and there is a fairly large population of germans there...enough that a lot of signs are posted in romanian and german. Also due to the proximity of hungary there is a large population of hungarians in north eastern romania. After sibiu I made my way to Sinaia where I met my couch surfing hosts from Bucharest for a crazy two night excursion to the mountains! Our first attempt on the trail landed us in front of a mother bear and her two cubs...and so deeming the trail unsafe for the evening camped it in a little grassy area between some houses down in the town and decided to take the gondola up the next day with the other friends we were supposed to be meeting at the top anyways. The next 24 hours proved to be a crazy ass adventure hiking in 20m visibility fog, rain, wind, and cold. After a solid 6 hours of hiking we eventually reached the "cabana" at the top of the mountain which was a primitive cabin with bunks and a limited restaurant. However being hard core campers we put the damn tents up in a break in the rain and camped outside that night. Before bed, however, we went inside cold and wet and had a wonderful and delicious romanian dinner including sausages, beans, bread, the best pickles i've ever had, hot tea (with rum!), and tzwika (I can't find the right 't' to put there so that is spelled phonetically) which is a delicious plum brandy heated up piping hot with cinnamon! absolutely hit the spot! We crashed soon after and did our best to stay warm that night.
Brasov
It probably got just below freezing and my sleeping bag is rated for freezing and I had my thermal undies on and was fairly comfortable the whole night. The next day we were hoping to have good weather and continue our hike to Bran....but when we woke up it was....well....the same.....cold, rainy, foggy, etc so we decided to head 2 hours to another gondola and take it down to this small town. From there we parted ways and I headed to Brasov to couch surf with 2 spaniards and a german all on Arasmus. Good times watching euro cup game with a terrace full of romanians shouting at the television as we watched them lose to Croatia?? Sorry football isn't something I keep up on but I do remember the teams that I was supposed to be rooting for!! haha....Met a couple other Canadian couch surfers at the same host I was staying with and we had great nights of delicious romanian food, a sunset on top of a hill, and hikes to the 'hollywood' style sign that annouced you had reached Brasov....the locals think its a real eye sore and actually tore down the first one....but the city put it back up.
Hmmm yes out of order story here....but on my FIRST day in Brasov I actually went to the neighboring town of Rasnov to see the 14th century Citadel. It was built in 1300's to protect the three villages from the invading mongols and eventually the turks and whom ever else attacked the country for the next 700 years. The outside wall has been preserved as well as a few houses and building but i'd say more than 60% of the place is in ruins.
Crossbows!
Still it had a great little museum with artifacts (weapons tools coins etc) and other tidbits about the area.After Brasov came Victoria, a little communist era town, where I couch surfed with Daniel, this kid who had grown up there and knew the mountains like the back of his hand so i understood. He had another french guy staying with him who was going to climb the highest mountain in romania the next morning (right in the town's back yard) and I had decided to join him....but in the morning it was cloudy and rainy and the mountain was covered clouds/fog....and I thought of my adventure 5 days previous....and said noooo way I know exactly what to expect there and decided to move on.
Tried to hitch all the way to Bulgaria the next day but ended up near bucharest around 8pm and decided to call up my faithful couchsurfing friends for a surprise visit for the night. They graciously hosted me again and we went out for beers that night with the two other american couchsurfers they had and we stayed out till 5am drinking beeeers :-)
Beer is of a fairly good quality and runs less than 2$ for a half litre for a decent beer....
Hmmmm well the next day I hitched to the border, crossed the bridge, and then hitched to Razgrad where I am currently staying with Shaun a peace corps volunteers and for the past two days have been hanging out with peace corps volunteers from the area. Very mixed reviews of peace corps....one guy does nothing all day except read and study bulgarian and is bored out of his mind.....to a girl who is an english teacher and has a full schedule.
Dancing!!
Yesturday Shaun and his friend took me to a Roma (Gypsy) village to meet one of his kids that he works with. I met his family and they fed us some awesome turkish/romanian food and Shauns friend showed us around the town. The town was pretty poor but with interesting contrasts. For example his friend's family had a washing machine, television, and running water in the house but the toilet was a hole in a shack outside of the house. Also a lot of the villages in the area actually speak turkish as their first language, bulgarian as their second, and then maybe roma or english. Also different parts of the village actually identify themselves as turkish rather than roma (even though they are from Roma decent) but I think everyone spoke turkish.
Shaun works with an organization that works with Roma children in helping them with all aspects of life from what i understand. Mostly just working on integrating them into the community. However Shaun faces a lot of problems with the Bulgarians because of his work. There is incredible prejudice here (and all over europe for that matter) against the Roma people and Shaun faces a catch 22 where he is helping the lowest people on the totem pole but is learning bulgarian and trying to integrate himself in the community.
Well anyways after out lovely trip to the Roma village we came back for dinner at a fantastic restaurant which involved traditional bulgarian dancing!!! Everyone holds hands and dances in a circle or follows in a train like manner around the restaurant with steps from the simplest to quite complicated steps, kicks etc.
Hiking
They taught me a few of them and we joined in dancing around the restaurant! SOOO much fun!! What a great way to have dinner!! Eating awesome food (and CHEAP) and then getting up and holding hands and dancing around the outside terrace. Such a great time!Today we went to an old roman fortress from like 300BC that still had some walls and pillars standing. There was also a museum with lots of artifacts like bowls and tools and weapons and coins. Such a cool location! We had brought food and had a picnic in the fortress and were talking about how the fortress had been conquered multiple times by people from all over the region and that now we could just walk through what was left of the gate and have a peaceful picnic inside!
Tomorrow i'll be heading to another town an hour away or less to stay with another peace corps volunteer and hike to a monastery in the mountains from the first centuries and after possibly to the black sea....we'll see ;-)
Anyways thats about it for now!
Hope everyone is doing well!
dylan
