Travel: Driving through the mountain roud in Bulgaria.
Driving through the mountain road.
Into the wilderness.
Google suggested that it will be approx. 5h drive, right, well it didn’t count in few stops to admire the view and take photos, other stops for having a lunch/buying food, other stops for necessary human needs in the forest, and some few more were about “oh, no, are we lost?”
The views and scenery were so much better than my crappy photography skills with my nearly 9 years old canon. But I hope you get the feeling, atmosphere, the vibe through some of these photos and will be inspired and encouraged to visit Bulgarian countryside on your future travels as well.
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| Google screenshot. |
There were several small and very tiny villages through the road or on the off roads (which some of them looked liked death roads). Our host to who we met at our destination, said that some villages have 200 inhabitants, but some perhaps 500 houses, but only 10 people, so, it’s diverse. To us - we thought it’s amazing that these small places with that many people are surviving as that is not happening in Sweden where the small towns are becoming emptier and harder to live outside from a city. Our host or our new friend thought it’s not so much like that (I agree), here people either move away or have no other options, but there are no jobs much around in these places. Some of the villages do survive on tourism business - mountain escape, healing waters, skiing, hiking, etc escape. When we were in Oreshaka , we were a bit surprised how this one long street village has 5 hostels/bnb and even 3 restaurants! and a bar with oh gosh no music a person should hear.
People who still live in these villages they are very down to earth, simple, kind and close to nature who do not thrive to get the newest iPhone or amazing kitchen gear! They do a lot by themselves, some might live very poorly, some poor comparing to for example of Swedish small village with 2000inhabitants - hardly to imagine that many people would be fine with no car, no tv, no wifi, and no much more extras but only what they got and trading with other villagers. Local said its poor living, but yet they live more what we westerners call now - organic, ecological, homemade, homegrown, zero waste, sustainable etc
The last 12km. That road seemed that we are in trouble! Somehow we managed to push our little car that 10km, but somewhere between 10th and 11th km we understood that is a no! Called up to our host in the middle of nowhere in a place he calls “Forest Utopia” to come to rescue us. He arrived with a big jeep “Yup, that’s the car we need for these roads!”. We all laughed a bit but he was more surprised that we somehow got that far!
Funny fact that Iphone's map was misleading us to take an old forbidden and fallen apart road which used to be a shortcut through the wilderness…and maybe would get at our destination 2h earlier … if that road existed. Now it was hiking path. Android GPS worked better(even I didn't have any access to mobile network or wifi)! As we were not really introduced to Bulgarian roads, for a while we were discussing if that off-road really is the way to take, because back in head our typical stereotype worked on us thinking something from “well, eastern Europe has bad roads”. We didn't risk, we took which seemed a detour, but turned out to be the exact road with driving really high up in mountains, breathing fresh air, taking foggy photos and passing a small village Manistir which I can't find on google or information, which seemed to be like the highest built village in these mountains. So, always double or triple check your Bulgarian roadmap! The host said it was really high over the sea level, I remember hearing the four-digit number, but on google, it doesn't show up. I can only find nearest “village” Banite which is 681m over sea level, population around 1000 inhabitants.
Anyway, these are just photos which I took from straight through passengers seat’s window from the car.
https://www.flickr.com/phot…/eleinx/albums/72157674932405736
