Vratsa – Getting up in the Canyon and breakfast from CBA

Dani as usual had got up by the time we got out of our tent near Vratsa, under the huge rocks. It was the first time we had seen the canyon in daylight, it was really wonderful, just as we had suspected at night, at the light of the stars. Dani had been sleeping just next to a board commemorating a young guys motor crash. The only fact that made it clear it was not his grave was that the Bulgarians do not bury people in such places. However, it was still a little bit morbid that Dani had been sleeping there. Of course, it did not disturb us at night, we found a place here, Dani found two trees, so we stayed here. There were huge rocks above our tents, and it was a real experience to start from this place we only had to roll down in the Canyon, back among the rocks to Vratsa.

We purchased the breakfast in a CBA, yes, the Hungarian Shop Network in Bulgaria. Opposite the shop we found a grass-covered area, so we settled there to have breakfast. Dani had eaten so well that he even got down while we were gathering our stuff and bought some fizzy tablets in the pharmacy.

Arriving in the Iskar Valley

After Vratsa we followed a road that was indicated as a highway on the map, but do not be afraid, only the two lanes were true of this, anybody could ride on it, a chariot, a bike or a dog… Until Mezdra we were only rolling, except for a shorter climb. As we turned South, we arrived in the Iskar Valley. Here we got frightened a bit, since the trucks were just as numerous as earlier, but now only on one lane, which was not pleasant at all. But as we left the main road Nr 1, circulation diminished considerably, and we felt completely differently on the asphalt. For some reason I did not remember we would have to leave the main road there, I was a bit frightened seeing the great traffic, I would not have fancied riding to Sofia an such a busy road. The first village was very nice on this small side road. We missed the rural atmosphere, after Montana we were riding along busy roads that did not go through small villages. The Iskar valley also contributed to the beautiful landscape, we were surrounded by mountains, on the right we recognized a really strange rock formation, first it looked like the Great China Wall, but getting closer we could see it was created by Nature.

With one leg to Negotin

Last time I ended up at our arrival in Negotin, the last town before the Serbian Bulgarian border. This day, Zita lost from her shoe a screw that held her SPD cleat. We removed the cleat so that it should not fall because of being held only by one screw then we changed shoes. So, I was riding to Negotin with one foot.

Just as we entered the city, we caught sight of a bike shop, I showed the cleat and explained that we needed a screw. The guy was very helpful, but he did not have kind of screw, only longer. He showed me to wait because a huge guy started to bargain for a motorbike. As I saw the situation, without understanding what they were talking about, it seemed to me tha guy wanted to buy a motorbike for the price of a croissant on credit. And he seemed stupid. Or it was only me who was angry with him, because he was just taking up the seller’s time and mine as well, just when I was very hungry. Of course, as I had thought, I was waiting in vain, the seller could only advise me a mechanical shop some corners away, along the main road.

We were however so hungry, that I really needed to look for something to eat. At the end of the main road, the kebab seller had already shut down, so we were looking for a pekara, that is to say a bakery shop. At this point I felt so hungry that I nearly fell off the recu. Int he pekara we had a good snack of the mini pizzas and the nature yoghurt, which made me feel somewhat better, but I still needed something. Some good rest at some good place and a screw for the shoe. We fancied the park at the end of the main road for a siesta, but we wanted to find a shop first. We realized a shop called Diskont Pića, which made us laugh. Dani had just said a few minutes before he did not like the place and wanted to go to the ass, so there we were. (In Hungarian, picsa is an ugly word for bottom.)

The shop itself was a discount shop for drinks, we even met the boss and took a common photo with him. We bought a lot of cola and beer and sat down in the park on a bench. Near the shop I found a bike service, but unfortunately it was closed so I knocked in vain. We opened the cola but did not feel any better. To make things worse, some gipsy kids arrived. After having chased them away, one of them stayed with us and almost managed to steal Dani’s sunglasses. We realized it just in time.

After all this we thought we had better leave Negotin, this town was not suitable for an afternoon siesta. Just leaving the town, we found a screw shop, where we found the right screw, but not with an allen head. We purchased three spare screws and Dani bought a lot of duck tape. Such things may come handy on a bike tour. On the outskirts of the town we found a deserted industrial area where there were some rusty tanks. This place, I do not understand why, really fascinated Dani, we did not only stop there to piss and brush our teeth but also to take some photos. I laughed well at what places Dani wanted to be photographed. Well, he is not the typical mass tourist, that’s sure. While other people want to be photographed in front of famous sights, he asks me here, very enthusiastically to take some photos about him. He even asked me to do it in a way so that the rusty tanks be visible.

After Negotin there was only one more village before the border. At the edge of it there was a cemetery, which was really different from the ones at home. There was no fence around, the graves were right by the road, the majority in marble, with the photos of the deceased person and with plenty of artificial flowers. In the village we spent the remainder of our Serbian money on food and set off towards Bulgaria.

We quickly reached the border where we got through without any difficulties. Bulgaria was a completely unknown country for all of us, Zita was here at the age of 1 or 2, but she does not have any memories, she was only told stories about it.

We arrived in Bulgaria

We really fancied Bulgaria at the first impressions, at the petrol station we managed to fill up our horns with air and the restroom had high standards, although it was in the Balkan style. The road from the first village was wide and of good quality. We chose Vidin as our destination for this day, but already halfway we went off the road at Gamzovo to try our luck. We asked a lady for water, then tried to ask some local people at the main square where we could put up our tents, but we did not manage to make ourselves understood in any language. Otherwise the whole village was just like one in a Kusturica film, which we really liked. We did not find any site for our tents, however we made the local youths very interested. It wa here that we started the unga-bunga, I tried to take a photo of three kids, but they were just standing there very stupid, the elder took the younger by the hand, they were just looking at me, as if I had come from another planet. I thought “csíííz” would not work here so an “Unga-bunga” came on my lips, which had great success, the kids laughed at once. Some teenagers followed un as far as the end of the village, that is the top of the great hill. One of them, the most talented one was riding by us sitting on the handle bar of the bike, looking backwards and riding forward, which was in fact backwards for him. All this on a steep climb uphill. He looked a really talented guy, was very interested, but we could not talk to him in any languages. While riding by him, Zita and I were thinking of the fact that he looked really talented, would he succeed in life starting from this small Kusturica village? Would he become an important person orr would he live all his life in this village as supposedly his parents did? It was slightly sad to think that no matter how talented and hard-working this guy looked all he could succeed in was to ride on one wheel and ride backwards without grabbing the handle bar. This guy accompanied us almost as far as Vidin. After the long uphill there came a long descent, at the end of which he disappeared from our eyes from in a moment. We wanted to give him a reflective stripe, on the one hand to have some gift from us, on the other hand for him to be visible on the way back to his village, because it was really getting dark then.

Parish Hotel*****, Vidin

We were driven by the stimulus, so we decided to ride as far as Vidin, although it was already really dark. At the diversion we were also driven away, so we could not ride straight on, we had to turn one avenue later. However, right on this way we found a church with a garden at high standards and a parish behind. Zita knocked and soon we were invited in, not only in the garden, but we were given a whole room in the house, we slept on the carpet of the dining room. We were even given a shower, a restroom and a kitchen, we were wild with joy. Dani lay down on the carpet, I connected all our gadgets, Zita made a good lemonade (we had al least a kilo of lemons) then we took a shower one after the other, then we collapsed in our sleeping bags. It was a long and tiring day, we all were very pleased to have ended in such a good place under a roof..

The following morning we found the priests nowhere when we left. We hung a letter of thanks on the door handle with some vanilla roods. In Vidin we saw another rider on a recu, but unfortunately he did not catch sight of us, so we could not talk, although we would have fancied. We did not think we would meet other riders on a recu here. We exchanged money then sat in a place to use the net and sent the Couch Surfing requests to Sofia, since we did not know where and how we would put un in the capital of Bulgaria.

Siesta with Stephanie, good-bye frisbee, good-bye Danube! :)

We left Vidin in the direction of south at noon. We were riding along the Danube. In the beginning, the landscape was not to our taste, we did not even see the river and we had to climb a hill with our tired muscles, then to go round the machines at a construction site with half the road closed. Right when this stage was over, we met Stephanie, who is a rider having travelled to Australia and India, all alone. We had a great talk by the road, she examined our lying bikes and we listened her with great enthusiasm as for what she had gone through and how many places she had been to by bike. In fact she is approaching the end of her two year long trip and if we look at it on a world scale, after Australia, Germany is really near, almost in the neighbourhood. We managed to persuade Stephanie to turn back and come a few kilometres with us, to have lunch together and to swim together in the Danube. This was how she greeted and how we said farewell to the Danube, since we were riding in the opposite direction. Stefanie was right coming from where we were going so she could tell us what landscape to expect as far as Montana. While the spicy-tuna pasta was cooking, she told us about Australia and India and about her journey. Being a German, she could get a visa very easily, so she could travel spontaneously, just going where and when she wanted to. It was only in Pakistan where she was refused the visa. Despite all this, we would give everything to get a visa so easily. She also told us about Iran and she also started the sentence like this: “The best country in the
World…”, so we are really curious. With all this, she made even Dani very interested in Iran, he even thought over whether to come with us after Istanbul. :) Lunch was followed by swimming in the Danube and we played with Dani’s huge and world record breaking Frisbee. Only until the first shot, since it sank in the Danube. :) Stefanie was the doer, although she could not know the Frisbee was not floating on the surface of water, not it is all the same, we had a good laugh, we have a Frisbee in the Danube and Dani would have a date with Stephanie somewhere for playing Frisbee, at least this is what they agreed on.

A rewarding slope after a tough climb

After swimming we said farewell to Stephanie, we continued our road along the road, then southward among the hills. We stopped to look around in another Kusturica village where practically all the inhabitants were in the street, we remarked they probably did not leave their social life on Facebook. Which is not a problem, on the contrary! We entered the village because of the church, but we could see it was in vain, it was fenced around, the door closed and surrounded by weed. We found however an OTP Bank and we took a photo of it. We cannot even think what the local people could think of us. Three extraterrestrial creatures on strange vehicles taking a photo of the local bank…. :)

As we left the Danube, the landscape became steep and we faced a really long, 10%-os climb. It was really tough even in the smallest gear but we got on top of it in 20-30 minutes after some breaks. On top we waited for each other then came the reward downhill ride, since on the other side it was a slope, not that steep, instead longer so that we could enjoy it for a long time.

Hay Hotel** – Smirnenski

We ended up in a village called Smirnenski. We asked for water in a house and asked where we could find a site for our tents, the latter by gestures. We let our guy think, soon he understood so we went to the local “stadium”. The latter turned out to be a meadow used as a football pitch at the end of the village. At the end of the gravelled road we turned left and there we were. There was an old building in ruins there, it might have been a changing room now it was used for hay storage. We chose it, but in the meantime the guys with the trumpets arrived from the village. It was a gipsy family, they were kind and reserved, they did not touch the bikes, they were just interested their eyes were shining. The grandfather explained that the small girls was his granddaughter, they were talking about a lot of things that we did not understand and told us to go to them if we were hungry. After all this we took it easy, especially that our man told us morgen, magazin, kafé, – that is to say the following morning we could buy coffee and breakfast in his shop. Should we have any problem, we just could go to him.
Our greatest problem was how to stretch Dani’s hammock under the roof, but we managed to solve it. We did not even take off the bags from the bikes, we put them in a rear room where one could only go by climbing over the three of us. We made a tea, wrote the NRE then went to sleep.

The next morning we were woken up by a horse neighing, I had never seen Zita wake up so happy, I even thought I should learn to neigh. A local man brought hay on a chariot to put under the roof and he found us there but we did not have any problems of this. We did our bags and went to the shop along the main road, bought tasty bakery products and coffee for Zita. The locals looked at us carefully. The shopkeeper gave us some wheat drink or I do not know how to call it. It was some interesting liquid, at first sight it reminded of cocoa, until one tasted it. It had a really wild flavour, we had never drunk anything similar.

Doktor Yosifovo – The man with the honey and of course Tim and Mat, who ride to Kenya daily 200kms

Still in Smirnenski we found a post office but they did not have any postcards, so we only used their restroom. Two villages and two hills later we arrived in Doktor
Yosifovo. I chose this place for its name the previous day, but we reached it only then. We even have a story for this funny name, since we stopped there to ask for water after a tough climb. We could see a man work in his garden, we talked to him and to our surprise, he talked a bit in English. We did not even get water, but he showed us around in his garden and showed us the vineyard, the fruit trees and his bees. In the end he gave us a jar pf honey. We took our bread and started to eat bread and honey.
In the meantime he told us that it was only the summer hut, otherwise they live in Montana, the next town where we were heading to.

While we were having a siesta, two guys appeared on a huge tandem bike. We rushed out and greeted them. We met Tim and Mat in Doktor Yosifovo. They are doing a Charity Adventure Race from the UK to Kenya. We call it a race, because they have to cover 200kms a day to get there in time. 200kms a day are much even on a one day trip, not in Africa for several months! So all our appreciation for the guys, we hope and wish them to succeed with their plan, which will be a great sporting performance. We tested each other’s bikes, but it was not easy for us. Zita and I had great difficulties to sit on their bike, we somehow did not find the balance, so we did not try for a long time. We knew that with 200kms to cover a day they did not have much time to waste, so we let them go, wishing then back wind and great luck.

Shopping in Montana – Parajlibatop extract

Our next stop was in Montana.
We went in the local Kauflandba to do some shoppint. Looking back, I must admit that seeing the low prices we purchased awfully lot. For instance the two packets of half a kilo pasta were completely unnecessary, I do not know what we thought. Di d we think maybe there would be no more shops that we bought two at once? Not to talk about the two likos of onion. As for the ayran, the adulterated salty youghurt, we came to like it, just like the halva, which is different from the one at home, less sweet, contains more sunflower seeds, very tasty, easier to store, does not go off, healthy and is full of calories. In one word an ideal food for bikers like us. However, we discovered something interesting on the packaging of the halva purchased in Montana. The ingredients were also written in Hungarian, (betűvel) among others the parajlibatop extract. As for what it can be, we do not have the ffaintest idea. :)

After shopping, we stopped at the edge of the town to take a siesta during the warm afternoon hours, we used the net in an inn, we tasted the really tasty draught beer and Zita drank a coffee. We got an answer from a certain Milos form the CS from Sophia, he said he would not be at home but his girlfriend would let us in and would give us a key to the flat. We burst out in joy how someone can be so kind.

Camping Canyon** – The Vratsa Mountains
(Vracanska Planina)

The landscape changed after Montana we followed a superior road to the South-East and we had to cover a 600 – 800 level difference. We were going up and down. On our right we had the Vratsa Mountains (Vracanska Planina) with their rocks, making it clear to us that in the following days we would have to climb an awfully lot. We arrived in Vratsa after dusk we had to climb at a height of almost 850 metres. We filled water at a petrol station then asked for help from the children around us in order to find a site for our tents. None of them spoke any foreign language, only Bulgarian, but in the end we managed to make ourselves understood, so one of them led us to a place. We had ridden almost as high as 900m, to the canyon to the south of the town. It was already dark, but it was clearly visible that we were in a marvellous place, among lovely rocks. We thanked for the help, then put up our tents. We had some slices of bread, took a bath in the creek then went to sleep after this long and tiring day.

Alexander, Lubomir and the story of the 100 km watermelon

The starting from the church garden wasn’t so easy that we thought.
Dani woke me up and I started to pack, leaved Zita to sleep. I packed the tent, so she was just lying down in a little blanket; only the outside sheet was there when she woke up. We had our breakfast in the park between the church and shop, the menu was bred with margarine and honey.
After the first hardest 10 km (when we are in the sleeping-bag yet in mind and our muscle are stinging) was everything quicker. Before the first top of hump, we met a pair with country bike and not so much pack, just one of them had a backpack. We started to talk with each other: they were Alexander and Lubomir, father and son, who were bicycling for 5 days from Sofia to Burgos and back. They are reeling 200 km per day which is very hard, even if they are doing this “just” for 5 days. We were talking just for few minutes, didn’t want to retard them so everybody can go further to reach their goal. At the hump we started to laugh very much as just remembered that we are carrying a gift watermelon more than 100 km. We made also a video from this but as our camera is so new and made in HD version which is so big (more mega) – we cannot upload or play or to just over code with our notebook. The solution will be the following: we will use the old, spare camera for making videos. One of us will make the videos, the other one the photos.
:)

Way to the Turkish border – the kilometer cavalryman and his kilometers

After the hump we arrived with crunching wheels to one Lidl. This is the last chance to buy cheap and junk, western products. We didn’t buy any competent thing: chocolate, ice cream, sweets, hazel fritter. Dani was tired; Zita wanted to wash so started to find a right place: somewhere where Dani could sleep (anywhere) and somewhere where Zita could wash (where can be found water) and where I can have an internet connection. The last would be the hardest work, but after 100 meters just find a free net connection. (we used to do the following: I’m going on front with my mobile to try to find the wifi and if we have luck, we just stop).

We just stopped in a restaurant near to a camping: we ordered a bear with Arpi, Zita went to wash and I started to use the net. The bicycle pair from the morning and Arman said as well that the road between Svilengrad (Bulgaria) and Edirne (the first town in Turkey) can be done by bicycle but I wanted to double-check. The first website shown by Google was Sofa’s and Felix’s blog. Zsófi és Félix They were here last year and choose the Greek side to Edime but find motorway. But just read that they choose the couch-surfing to Edirne. Why we didn’t thing for that until this? I just wrote for few guys who were online not so long, maybe I can have some answer for the last minute couch request. Last minute, maybe we can arrive today evening to Edirne. As I knew that I can be online for a one more hour at least, I left time for the answer. I spend this hour to upload pictures and at the end, I got answer from Ali on coach-surfing: he is waiting for us in Edirne. Joy and happiness, I wake up Dani and Zita is coming back as well so we can decide: bicycle to Edirne and sleep in house. We were very happy for good news, we merit it.

Ali is waiting for us in Turkey and to arrive in a new country like this, will be a good feeling. Even so when I crossed the beach going to toilet and saw the pools, I was thinking to stay and take a rest, swim and write our memoir. I knew, Zita would love it and the cavalryman would excuse for his kilometers. If we would stay longer would cost 7 euro/person so we decided to go further, this will be better also for Ali. Was a good idea to carry on because later started to rain as well when we across Harmanli. Started mildly but at the end we had to take on our rain jackets, we were happy that didn’t straw it away 7 euro/person for this weather.

Rainbow-gate to Turkey

As we could carry on with 30 km/h, the rain didn’t disturb us too much. In Svilengrad we stopped to take a rest and to dry. Now Zita ordered a café for 0,8 Lave (about 100 Hungarian forint), we wrote some letter to Ali double checked the meeting place with him and carry on: go to the border. We stopped once more to change money. The border was monumental like a flight terminal. In a gas station Dani just stopped to upload his horn with bar and we outrun him. We thought that he already passed the border so we were “running” and we showed our passports and passed the first gates. We just went under the terminal terrace before the rain when Dani wrote us a sms that he is in Bulgaria yet and looking for us. We answered him and about 20 minutes later he arrived and got back our loyal itinerary mate. Before Dani’s eyes happened the guard changing, this is why he was late. At the Turkish gate we asked the Turkish visa for 90 day, it was 15 euro/person. After this we showed our passports twice at the Turkish gates when the immigration officer asked the bicycle’s papers. We said to him, that it doesn’t have engine so we could pass. We just started to go into the middle of rainbow, into Turkey. Because main time from Bulgaria the sun just woke up and made a big, full and from one side a double rainbow. It was beautiful and we had to pass this to get to Turkey.

Ali in Edirne, who knows exactly what we need

We felt the culture shock even at the border: huge mosques next to the gate, the Turkish songs are audible at the terminal; you can read the text about Turkey in LCD TV’s. We had 15 km more to Edirne. We were carrying on in the turn-out because the way it looks like a motorway without any overpass, we could turn it left just with lamp from the interior zone and wasn’t rare the 30,40 km/h tables as well. In a word, there was a 2 meters bicycle zone at the edge of the road. Once we met 4-5 big, white dogs who were barking and chasing us. Wasn’t nice t all! At the next gas station we stopped but felt the adrenalin yet. We didn’t use the Dazer dog alarming until this, but after this Zita got it as her bicycle horn wasn’t working. At the gas station we had a fight with the mosquitos so we carried on fast. We had to pass all Edirne until we met Ali and his friend at the meeting place. At this hurry I was very stressed, we were late, had to write sms, had to run, and were also traffic, slopes, and as the rain was very warm but didn’t want to stop as we didn’t want to be so late from Ali.

Ali and his friend were also by bicycle so we could go further together to Ali’s flat, which was a 100 foursquare flat at the 3rd floor. We put the Ortlieb bags into the shower and washed the mud from it. Ali was very helpful and as he is also a big bicycle man, he knows exactly what we need. We went together into a close restaurant and had dinner. After it we had showered, Zita went to sleep and we were talking a bit with Ali. It was very nice, this couch surfing is incredible. 1400 km away from home, you arrive in a nice place with a local guy who knows your problems, is good to speak with him and is very helpful. He posted about us in a Turkish bicycle forum, , helped us in the itinerary managing until Istambul, he narrowed a lot about Turkey: he said that if we would like to use our tent, we have to find a Apec gas station, as they have a grassy garden and usually they let people stay there, they are open all day which means that we can use the nice and clean toilets as well.

Ali offered us that we can stay longer if we would like and we decided to stay: we deserve a rest, to upload ourselves with energy, have time to write our itinerary report, wash our clothes, cook and eat a good and also to see better Edirne. Ali narrowed a lot from the city and at evening also got a correct guide in sms from Tamás Huber, thanks him very much for that. Ali said that he knows that dogs who were chasing us, once he had the same and he also felt with the bicycle, but thanks for luck, the dogs stopped yipping and left him. He thinks that dogs get angry because of the moving of the wheels, and he also has that Dazer dog alarm which is very good, so he was salving us in the dog thing and also in Kurds. I showed him where we would like to go across in Turkey and he said that on that way won’t be any problem with Kurds. End of soothing section for parents!

Ali left us alone in the flat as he has learning hours all day (he is a 5th year medical student, will be a chemist so he is a grave guy). Zita already switched on the washing machine, went down to the shop for some food, Dani blended the roundel cake from the rest flour bought in Temesvar and I cooked it while wrote this entry. Now we will eat and go to Edirne, at evening I will try to recover the behindhand entry about the Serb boarder and Sofia.

Lunch with Petya

On our rest day in Plovdiv we woke up around 9:30 when Petya was already at work, the rest of the family just woke up too and finally his little 4 year old son befriended us. .
Stanimir couldn’t make to be our guide but we arranged a meeting at lunch with Petya. We sat in a restaurant next to a tiny park and it turned out to be the jackpot. The place was very friendly and cheap and even the toilet was fascinating, we liked the design so much Zita and I agreed to make our future bathroom like this. We had a good time with Petya despite the short time.

He’s an ex-collagegue of Magdi, who I went to College together, and she asked him to translate our 10 key sentences to Bulgarian. He also offered his hospitality straight away, even though he already knew he’ll have a busy week this time around. He told us how glad they moved to the village 3 years ago, because the life is so much better, it feels like they are part of a big family. We also told about our journey and our silliness yesterday. Of course Petya told us he could have given detailed description, but we told it was better this way as we will learn our lesson. We’re happy we met Petya in person too; he turned out to be the cool guy we imagined through his e-mails. It would have been shame if we missed the opportunity to see each other. Thank you very much for the hospitality, you made our stay in Plovdiv brilliant.

You WON – in Plovdiv

After lunch we went to town to do some things then we cycled up to the old town on the top of the hill. We had a look at the ancient theatre then strolled back to the center on a bumpy road thanks to the macadam road. The old town is the best district in Plovdiv for sure, the inner town is nowhere near that. We could spend days here with a guide like Stanimir and a good camera. A lot of people did this way. The nice weather attracted more tourist than before, so we had even more admirers, curious people around which was not bad at all. So far we handle them very well, we have a few words with everyone who comes to us. Sometimes it feels strange having many people taking photos of us. :) But it isn’t a problem, we knew this will happen. In the old town we met a Hungarian family too and Zita gave them a Sportszelet chocolate bar packaging. It was a “winner” paper that could be exchanged for another bar. We got that from a friend in Hungary, but had no time to exchange it so we passed on. :)

Camping Riverside Bugville*

It’s good to be away from the busy towns and be out in the nature, we set our camp up 10kms away from Plovdiv along the river. We invited Dani it our tent as ha couldn’t find a suitable place for his hammock, plus there were way too many bugs, mosquitoes around. While moving the bags out from the back of our tent so all of us could fit in, I left the door open accidentally. This resulted an unwanted guest, a huge spider we’ve never encountered before in the wild. After the surprise we evicted the spider and burst into laughter as we moved Dani in from the bugs and spiders. Finally I could write without struggling, hopefully I will have more time to write from now on. There’s a lot to catch up on. I hope we’ll catch up with the miles tomorrow, we made a 65km loss today according to the plan… The landscape doesn’t look too exciting but we’ll see. I’m not worried about the schedule, we’ll get the invitation letter for the Iran visa when it arrives. Till then we’ll discover Istambul, then play catch up with the lost time.

Breakfast with a group of kids

On the 20th day of the journey we woke up relatively late and by 8:45am we were on the road. Dani woke up hours earlier and was walking around, met some local fishermen as he was waiting for us. We told him to wake us up next time – he wakes up around 5am. We stopped at a shope in the first village where we met a group of kids, who clearly enjoyed our bikes. They escorted us on the way out with loud cheers. I noticed here that I left my military cutlery at the shop. Hopefully the shopkeeper lady found it because she gave us watermelon before we left. I’m sad for the cutlery set as I have nice memories about it.

Lunch with Arman

After breakfast we hit the road. Shortly after we lost Dani. He had some gear problems, so we stopped regularly to wait for him. At one point he appeared with a companion. We met Arman, a French-Turkish lad who was having the same Ortleib bags on his trekking bike as we have. We stopped at the next marketplace along the road and started chatting. Arman was born in South Turkey but grew up in France. He studies to become a geography-history teacher, but he had a gap year when he worked to have enough money to have a 3 month trip back home to Turkey. He told his story in a restaurant at lunch. We was excited to get home and was riding a much faster tempo than us, so we parted ways.

A carriage and a BMW on the same road

The miles gone faster than in the morning. The landscape was nice but not as exciting as on a lower graded road where we could meet more people and see more villages. We passed a happy man on a horse carriage, who we passed 3 times because we stopped to take photos. We waved each other every time and he responded with a smile. I wonder how it feels like to be on a carriage when he sees expensive cars with people with different lifestyle in them passing by. Does he envy them? Who’s happier? One thing for sure, it’s less likely to get to know the driver who locks him in a black box and goes 70-80km/h.At a petrol station we had a break where we fixed Dani’s bike while Zita enjoyed the Kindle.

Camping Church garden**

We finished the day in Podkrepa. When we left the nr. 8 road we spotted a church in the middle of a village. We found it’s yard and got permission after we showed our Bulgarian travel certificate (thank you Magdi and Petya for it). We had a lagre group of kids who we got rid of by the help of some local adults, then we cooked dinner: spaghetti carbonara, with local goat cheese and wine, then we had shower; this was the first time we used our 10l Oertlieb water carrier with the shower head. It was brilliant, Dani even decided to get the 4l version for himself. We spent a bit more than planned, 3683HUF, but that included the lunch and dinner. We could send less if we paid attention at the shopping. It happened a few times that we bought too much goat cheese (300HUF/kg) and had to throw out cause it’s gone out. Or some other cheap food came along we couldn’t resist. Also we carry lot of food for hundreds of kilometers. We figured we should only buy veggies at a grocery store and not in a supermarket. To sum it up, we have to improve our Food Management.
It was interesting when I torn my shorts – as always – and thought about what to do. Should I throw it away and buy a new one that costs time and money, or sew it, but then had the winning thought. Tear it. It looks funny but still the best solution. If this wasn’t a road trip but a normal every day with work, it would not look well. :)

In the next post you’ll know how we got to Turkey.

Dani woke us up at Svetla’s around 8 in the morning saying the breakfast is ready. This felt embarrassing. They were too kind with us. George, who helped us yesterday was here too, told us how he has 3 heart attack and a surgery too, but he still smokes, drinks. It was great to see the way he was smiling, and enjoying life. I will have really good memories of Gorno Varshilo, thanks to his joy for life. He spoke simple English, Every 5 minutes he said I’m happy, or I’m very happy, and my friends, also Love. :) He really liked us and we saw this on his face. I remembered those who we welcomed in Budapest, Henry and Jamie, who are in South East Asia now, or Előd and Lehel who have travelled across the entire Europe since. We tried to help them and make their time at Budapest be as good as possible, which made us happy too. We saw something similar on George’s face, that made the farewell better. It’s difficult to accept such love from a stranger, but it was easier as I remembered myself being hosts for other strangers.
We really enjoyed the undulating road on the next 10kms. Later we stopped twice to get some food and when it started to rain. While under cover we finished the remaining pies, and had a photo taken by a local girl. When she saw us firs she ran away, we’re thinking how ugly we might look, but she just ran back for her camera. We also tried to give her a flier of the 360°bringa expedition, but it wasn’t easy due to a massive ditch in the middle of the road. She was on the other side. They were building the sewerage system.
Later it started to rain again, at first we ran under cover. At one of the stops I took time to modify my bike a bit. I had trouble getting off the bike, I only managed to get off it safely when the road was flat. We put a string on the bike stand and now I can open it while sitting. From now on I don’t have to worry about the bike falling cause of my balancing act. I still have to get use to the new invention, I keep forgetting it’s there. The next stop was Pazardzhik, this town was half way to Plovdiv. We stopped at the main square for a coffee/beer. The bikes were extremely popular. Lot of kids jumped on the recumbents to get a photo. We also give them fliers, therefore the second most like on Facebook is from Bulgaria. :) On the way out we stopped to buy some cherries, take photos, and I handled the curious people. It’s great they don’t touch our stuff, the respect out things, hopefully it will stay like this for long time. We had a great tailwind after Pazardzhik, so we arrived to Plovdiv in just over an hour. We followed the GPS in the town that turned out to be quite funny, first a pedestrian overpass, then an underpass. On the way back we chose the normal roads for cars. There’s always something good in the bad, we found a really nice square next to a walking street where we started to cook. Meanwhile a Kurd gentleman noticed us, Ahmet who invited us to his table for a beer/coffee. He really liked our story, although his story was something too: once the Turkish police took all his belongings, has shot at his ribs, cut off his 3 fingers, and so on. Today he lives in Germany for 15 years, has 3 sons and 3 daughters, a politician for 3 years and represents the Kurds in Europe – if we understood well. What’s interesting and may be good for us is that one of his sons lives in Erzurumb, so it’s possible that he can help us when we’re there. Lot of people told us to avoid Kurdistan, the Kurd region as their people live under massive oppression. How lucky we ran into a Kurd politician. He was a really cool guy, he gave his e-mail address, we will contact him for sure, if for nothing but to translate our 10 important sentences about us, who we are what we’re doing there.
After eating and finished talking to Ahmet, we moved north to Trud, to Petya who’s a friend of Magdi. He translated us the 10 sentences to Bulgarian that we still use. So we’re under cover again, and I’m the only person awake. We agreed to talk in the morning as all of us were really tired. Petya possibly knew in the morning what kind of day he’ll have unlike us, who kept stumbling into more and more interesting people, adventures. We also had some trouble to find this house, so it wasn’t a boring day. If we have boring days in the future, we’ll probably make it fun too. :)
As I wrote before we had trouble to find this address. We should learn from this. There was a given address. The GPS doesn’t recognize it, and we don’t have map. We asked in a little shop, who showed the street after talking for a while in Bulgarian.

We were looking for house 32. We found the 26 and 46, but the rest doesn’t have a number on them. We knocked into a few houses but they didn’t know where it was. I was angry, why don’t the know it, don’t they live in this village? If someone came into my street I’d know where he wanted to go even if he talks urdu or was a deaf. Then Zita lost the plot too, a biker came, who told us to follow. We went a km away from there where he put down his bike and invited us in. Ok. He’s very kind – Dani was right – but where’s the address? We had to wait an English speaking guy who was in the shower, when he arrived he just said „I don’t know”. We should be somewhere else and no one knows where that place is. Then I realized it! Shame on you Arpad! The reason people didn’t get what we wanted and didn’t know the address, cause it was written in latin rather than in cyril… We haven’t thought they don’t use latin letters here, we’ve seen so many words written in latin. And I even know the cyril alphabet but I lost my cool before thinking… I feel bad that we thought they are the stupid, but we were. It was a good lesson. We should keep the followings in mind: 1. Never loose your temper. 2. If everyone seems silly around you doesn’t mean they are the silly, but you! At least in that circumstance. The end of the story: While we were waiting for the guy in the shower, Petya sent us a text which made me even angrier, so we left and went back to the previous place to meet Petya’s dad who took us to a totally different location that we wouldn’t find without them. But now we’re here.

PS. It’s unlikely there will be a post every day. It would be great to finish writing the previous stage.

We break the space-time continuum in our posts! First we publish the “yesterday’s” stage, and then at some point we’ll finish writing the Bulgarian border – Sofia stage. Till then here’s this goat’s story:

In Sofia we didn’t wake up early, Zita snoozed the alarm as many times as possible. Our breakfast was the pastries we bought the previous day, and then we started to pack. It was a big job because the tent was hanging on the balcony to dry out. Zita and Dani put some music on to the Youtube which I didn’t mind first, but then a „Let’s find Stacey” sentence almost freaked me out, that this is it, but I counted till 10 and let them have fun, we won’t gain much with those few minutes, plus my argument wouldn’t do much good either. So everyone packed in their own pace. My bags were ready on the corridor first. Dani asked another 15 minutes, but looking at his stuff it was obvious he needs 2 more hours. Unfortunately I mentioned him this, so he decided to pack for 2 hours. Meanwhile I had other things to do too, after Dani and I moved the bikes out I started to adjust Zita’s pedal, she asked me to do for a while. It was a good idea I didn’t do it somewhere on the road, because I had a major problem with the chain as I lacked of the routine and the appropriate tools. I had to extend the chain so I could push the boom forward. After putting the chain back together with Dani’s help and washing off the oil, I noticed something funny on the bike. The chain was twisted… I can’t be this stupid! :( I was fuming, was so angry with myself, I had to restart the whole thing. This time I was quite quick but got oil all over myself. While doing this Milos, our host had arrived, that was the first time we met. As soon as he exited the lift, he bumped into me fixing the bike. He had a real look at the bikes, then started to talk all three of us. Who knows how long it would have lasted if he hadn’t had to go to work by noon. While he had a shower we carried all our things to the ground floor. We took a jumping photo that wasn’t great for the 6th time either, but still was fun. I imagined us form the outside. Three crazy Hungarians spends 2 days in a Slovenian guy’s flat who they only meet for 1 hour, then at the meeting they dance and jump for joy for the camera. Total nuts. However, none of us felt it was awkward, on the contrary it was so natural, and we had a great time. Hopefully we meet next time, somewhere else…
We only did 200m when a Billa (shop) came along, where we had to buy food. While Zita and Dani were shopping, I fixed Zita’s battery charger and now we can use both rather than charging via the Bike2USB. We only need one more USB charger for the camera then we won’t have to worry about where we can charge the flat batteries. Today we had a quite monotone day, and this turned out to be good as we cycled 86kms with an afternoon departure, I think we did well. The previous day I drew a map form the gpsies.com into my notebook, so we knew exactly when we’re going to have the uphills and how steep they will be.

We stopped for lunch in a village center. There was a military plane in the middle of a junction hung up at 5m high. The wind was blowing its wings hard and there were goats tied up to the poles that hold the plane. This seemed absurd and we liked it very much so quickly sat down on the benches under the plane to eat.

We had a nice pace and suddenly we passed the 50km mark, of course this was very heartwarming for me. :) I always knew this group can go if there’s a less exciting landscape, and we don’t stop at every corner. Today was like this. We actually made the day exciting by missing a turn. Dani was on fire and he kept surging ahead, when I missed the turn he was way ahead. I tried to honk or shout but he couldn’t hear me. I told Zita to wait at the crossing we missed and I went after Dani, it took a while to catch him on the downhill and thankfully he also noticed something was fishy. We lost 100m elevation by the mistake, so both of us pushed hard to get back to Zita. These recumbents can go pretty fast if you push enough; we lost about 20 minutes with this. First I was angry with Dani then myself too, but a few hours later I put all behind.

We quickly found the right path which welcomed us with a 150m uphill. In the pass it was cool again as we reached 800m above sea level, not the first time on the day. We found a castle ruin along the way we had a quik look as it was getting dark. We switched the light on than carried on downhill. It reminded me of my childhood videogames, where I had to go around the potholes, but this was so much better, the resolution is perfect, and any mistake can be fatal. We put on some long leggings because we had to carry on due to the lack of water and the nearest village was about 10kms away beyond a 100m uphill. There was a dirt road on the right where we stopped to check the GPS. I planned the route that way but that time of the day it wasn’t suitable. However the tarmac road takes us to the village even if it’s a detour. But it’s worth it because it’s almost completely dark. It was a 3 house farm rather than a village plus there was no water available so we moved on to the next place, to Gorno Varshilo. Due to the darkness we didn’t want to look for a campsite, so we knocked on someone’s door if we could camp in their garden. We tried to explain the owner that the driveway would do too, he just shouted across to his neighbour who spoke little English. He made a call then disappeared. Then he returned and waved to follow him. Finally, we’ll have a garden! We were happy. We went to a yard that seemed great. We were pointing at the ground saying “palanki, palanki (tent)”, but they said no, let’s go in the house. Ok, maybe we have to drink snaps. But no, they told we have to sleep there! Wow, that’s more than great. The sister of the gentleman, Svetla is a Lutheran minister, who owns that house. As a thank you we offered some Unicum, then started to unpack our food, when he waved and said „my house”, pointing at Svetla who’s preparing dinner for us. Few minutes later we got poached eggs with, home made goat cheese, nuts, and salad. We tried to communicate every way possible, then helped to clean up the table and started to make our bed on the floor in the room. Cause it was around midnight that time. And again he said no-no, Svetla was making our beds upstairs, „this is my house”, here you won’t sleep on the floor. Well, thank you, what else we could do?! :) Dani befriended him, and we were really glad for it, because we were really tired plus he was a heavy smoker what we forgave because what he did for us. Here we are under a roof, again. I almost set up my tent in the middle of the village because of the tiredness. Being patient paid off again. Zita and Dani are already asleep, so it’s time for me to rest too. I try to write every day from now, maybe it will be easier, and maybe the end product will be better too. The problem is I have to catch up with the last 5-6 days between the Serb-Bulgarian borders to Sofia. :) This should be our biggest problem. Also we pledged we will wake up early cause it’s not fun riding in the dark.