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We already had a woofing place organized for Greece starting on the 9th of may and seeing as it was only mid April we thought it would be good to find a place to go for a week in either Bulgaria or Serbia. We were conflicted between two places, a hippy hostel in Bulgaria or a family in Serbia. At the last minute the Bulgarian place cancelled so Serbia it would be!
We asked about the easiest way to get to Belgrade from Timisoara and it seemed the only option would be a train that strangely went all the way back to Budapest before heading to Serbia. It seemed the only way would be to hitchhike. We had no trouble flagging down a car as there was a Ramstein gig that night in Belgrade and we were quickly picked up by some excited fans. I hoped they were not too pissed off with how long we had to wait at the boarder as the controller seemed to be very confused about my New Zealand passport and wanted me to translate the Maori for him. I tried to explain that it said exactly what the English said and he finally let
us through after doing a Google search of the N.Z Passport.
Arriving in Belgrade we saw the damage still evident from the NATO bombings of the early 90's. There were buildings still standing that had obviously been bombed badly and it was a sombre moment as we realized that the people we were passing on the streets, even the ones our own age, would have fresh memories of the attacks.
We thought because of this fresh history there might be some resentment towards foreigners but we were again surprised how eager people were to help us and as soon as we opened our map someone came to ask if we were ok.
After a couple of days resting in Belgrade we took a bus to Zajecar, a smaller town in south Serbia near the boarder of Bulgaria. From there we had to take a local bus to Planinicia, where we would be staying with a family we had found on Helpx. Most of the people on the bus were over the age of 75 and there was a great sense of community with everyone excitedly chatting to one another. A few of the older men were trying
to communicate with us but unfortunately they had no English or German and sadly we had no Serbian. Thankfully a younger woman stated she could speak some French so Eric tried to tell them what we were up to in basic French and she eagerly translated it to the rest of the bus.
The bus soon left the city and we were able to see how Scenic rural Serbia is, with rolling hills, lush green forest and picturesque wide open fields. We arrived in gorgeous Planinicia and met our hosts Ivana, Sinisha and their little boy Banjan. Their house is how I would imagine my dream home, tucked away in the forest with lots of natural light and very cosy. Apparently it also has a large population of wolves and we were told to be careful at night (this may have been a joke, I'm not sure yet). We had stayed in contact with Simon, a Frenchman, that we had gotten on really well with at the yurt in Hungary and had organized for him to join us with the family. He had hitchhiked to get to us and didn't arrive in the village until 10pm, so it was
our job to make the hike through the forest to find him. We took an axe and made as much noise as possible to scare away any hungry wolves and thankfully we all survived. We were only there a week and two of those days we went on day trips to see the surrounding mountains and waterfalls. On the days we were working we did some building and learnt some useful tips for organic beekeeping. Again I'll put the pictures up with detailed descriptions.
Lots of love, Leah and Eric.
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georgina
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WOW
Just love this adventure