Advertisement
Rila monastry
what I didn't see in Bulgaria... I arrive in the capital Sofia at 5am, still dark, no sleep, no map; just a piece of paper with a hostel name scribbled on it. I set off into the city looking for a Taxi - unknown city in an unknown country - and my Bulgarian is about as good as yours. Call me strange, but these little situations make me feel alive - waving down dodgy taxi drivers and judging by their reactions whether they know where the place is - of course they all do, but their confused expressions and head scratching give the game away. “Danger!” they say as a final defiant gesture, “I think I’ll walk if its all the same with you…”
Visions of depraved Macedonian women riding the pink pony have bought me to Sofia; on an impromptu rendezvous with my girlfriend, who I wasn’t supposed to meet until Istanbul. I check into a Hostel at around six, and awaken at 8.30am by American peace corp. workers talking about how they used to eat ants when they were kids? At breakfast I can’t help but overhear an Australian women in her late thirties “…you know she was actually thinking about going to Albania until I warned her about the place… you know Albania is the capital of the white slave trade don’t you…” her crowds eyes widen in fascinated terror.
Sofia is on the eastern European backpacker trail, which is good and bad - I’ll probably have to bite my tongue for another half hour or so, but then they’ll all clear out to see the city before they catch a night train to Budapest, Bucharest or Prague. My girlfriend arrives just before midday which was great - we’ve clearly been missing each other… The next day she goes off to Rila Monastery - we decided that she should be afforded some personal freedom to wash away the cobwebs of conformity back home. I’m now in my own little material world - I have a laptop, Digital Camera and mini disc; luxuries really do quickly become necessities. I realise just how much I’ve missed decent music. I decide that since its Monday I’ll start a personal weekend today - two days off! The hostel owner thinks I’m crazy - why haven’t I gone to visit the Rila Monastery with everyone else? He then, at the risk of being sent to Siberia, confides in me that he admires my nonchalance and that he and his girlfriend both think the Monastery’s touristy and overrated. We strike up a bond “maybe you should go visit some of the Muslim villages in southern Bulgaria close to the Greek border …nobody ever goes down there” This guy clearly knows what strings to pull.
Later in the day Mark, 31 from England arrives, he’s at the end of a two year trip to Papua New Guinea and back, after selling his 7 book shops and hitting the road. We instantly hit it off and are joined by a Swiss couple at the end of a year’s trip to Asia and back. Kindred spirits drinking good quality cheap Bulgarian wine long into the night, There is definitely an aura surrounding people who are so free and have seen so much - an aura that will unfortunately soon fade once the adventure comes to an end, but the memories will remain forever.
My new adventure has yet to begin, and later the next afternoon my girlfriend returns from the Monastery and we go out for a nice meal “why haven’t you left the hostel?...I can’t believe you haven’t seen any of Sofia at all?”
So you see I’m not as free as I would like to imagine!
We visit Plovdiv’s old town next, with its lovely steep cobbled streets. Its raining and we clearly have to get used to travelling together again. Ditte would like to visit the annual Rose festival 3 hrs to the north, and I would like to get lost in the unexplored little villages to the south. We part again, but my enthusiasm for adventure has waned; rain is forecast for the next week - its not raining in Istanbul however - so I go there!
So you see I learnt nothing of Bulgaria - except that it rains a lot, but apparently it is supposed to this time of year. Its good for the roses they say, and Bulgaria has the best roses in the world!
I reach the Turkish border, and I reckon, like me, you’ve always wondered what it looks like at the far flung borders of Europe; the border between east and west, Christianity and Islam, Civilization and Barbarism! Well I can tell you - It looks a lot like England really. In fact just like the A40 heading out of London, although I’m sure I just saw Graeme Sounness riding a donkey!?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0221s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Fan
non-member comment
Love your style and insight :)) Keep on.