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Published: December 20th 2007
The littlest church ever
In the Rodopi Mountains...Hello, hello!
So, Bulgaria was an incredible experience... but a bit of a weird one! (Imagine!!!) John and I arrived in Sophia and had arranged to stay with Sava, the couch surfer we were going to stay with a week or so prior, but ended up canceling on the last second when we decided to blast through to Turkey instead of pausing in Bulgaria. So, we met sava and Sava's incredible grandma and settled into an old, crazy house.
Each night, we would have dinner with the two of them, the grandma not able to see or speak english, but enjoying jabbering away through Sava every now and then and also a few words to me in French here and there. Now, this woman was incredible, she had actually worked in the underground when she was young, distributing banned literature and risking everything. Not only that, but her husband had been a diplomat so she also had enchanting stories of many different countries she had lived in.
However, there were the wild-cockroaches to contend with... they had completely taken over the house and roamed freely through the kitchen and just about anywhere they pleased. Needless to say, we
were happy to eat the boiled food, and even though they packed us off with sandwiches when we left, we polity accepted and deposited them in the nearest garbage we encountered.
Mind you, we also found ourselves invited to Sava's open house for his business he had just started, and we partied late into the night... almost falling asleep, but meeting many of his friends and finding ourselves invited and enticed to go to the local mountains for the weekend with a group of them.
After some thought and planning, we through our schedule too the wind and jumped in a borrowed car, set off for the Rodopi Mountains. We were astounded by the views (and by the amount of ground we covered). Late into the night we made our way to a little house that was rented to us for the weekend and feasted on fish, meat, and the local spirits which was so strong, you drank it and chased it with a liquid yogurt drink and salt...
The night was long and interesting, watching everyone chat and celebrate, enjoying the time together, and periodically having one of them gain enough courage to tell us some
of the local myths, history, or interesting tidbits of information through broken english and a lot of gesturing.
The next day we were off to devil's throat... one of the deepest gorges I have ever seen - so spectacular and truly impossible to gage... we just walked flight after flight of stairs, lower and lower into the darkness and sounds or rushing, swirling, venomous currents. After the short stop we continued on our way to a distant and almost unreachable location where they wanted to reserve a place for new years. Sadly, with all the ground we had to cover, it was very short, but it was one of the best opportunities to see the Bulgarian and Greek mountains and really get out of the city. From the smallest churches and clearest stars, to the jutting hills and the mind-blowing ramble of our host, we were constantly entertained and relished being able to slip into Bulgarian culture, if only for a moment...
More to come...
Trish xxx
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