World Adventure

Hi All,

A market story. We liked the  fruit market in Sofia. The fruit was cheap and some of the nicest we have had on the trip. It was a bit of fun getting the goods with the language barrier and the head shaking being opposite to the rest of the world. They nod when they say no and a shake their head means no so at times it is a little confusing .We were trying to buy olives at a window and I had indicated with a hand jesture how much we would like and the server  put the amount on the scales and looked at me. I tried to say more and nodded with encouragement. She took some out. I shook my head and said no. She looked confused. I indicated more with my hands and she added more and the amount was about right so I smiled, nodded an english no and said yes. She rolled her eyes and laughed as she understood. I handed the money over and slinked off with the goods. It was fun.

Train trip from Sofia, Bulgaria to Belgrade, Serbia. We had to pay for ourselves and our packs on the tram to the station. Lucky we bought tickets and tried to validated them as a secret ticket inspector materialized from nowhere  and helped us. Reading the train board is a real mystery as the names are in Cyrillic. We opted just to look at the time which led us platform 6 not to platform 5 as the ticket seller had written on the tickets with certainty the previous day when we bought the tickets. Waiting for us at the platform were 3 decrepit looking carriages without an engine all which looked unlikely for an international train. I asked whether it was the Belgrade train and got a Da and on a closer look we found the carriage number and loaded up. The train was divided into 6 seat compartments and we had just loaded our bags onto the luggage racks above the seats when a family turned up with lots more baggage for our compartment. Luckily they were in the wrong compartment and the only other person to arrive was Paul an english speaking backpacker from Poland on his way home. We got our engine and headed off. It was quite hot and the only air conditioning was pulling the windows down on the train! It was a delightful journey with many highlights including passing through some amazing gorge country in Bulgaria, fields of apples and houses with drying peppers on their balconies and  wild deer in the fields. Our tickets got checked  a ridiculus  number of times during the trip as we had different  conductors for each sector of the journey and then ticket inspectors who were checking to see that the conductors had done their jobs . The border crossing was easy and we were stamped through on the train without any effort and without even stopping the train.Seamless!

There was a retired Danish couple in the next compartment who had a pampered white dog (substitute child). We got talking with her and it turned out that they had driven down to Turkey to their apartment on the coast for a meeting of the body corporate with the intention of getting the husband onto the board. It was a success and he had been elected. They were driving their BMW X3 series back and stopped at a hotel along the way.At one point in the evening a staff member from the hotel came and knocked on their door and told them that there was a problem with their car.They thought that maybe it had been damaged by another car but this wasn´t the problem the problem was that the car was gone. They had parked their expensive car in the hotel´s secure carpark but it turned out that the security guard decided to slip  off to the casino rather than watch the carpark at the time. Apparently the guard was sacked about 2 weeks later. Why not on the spot? anyway. So they had their car stolen in Sofia. The dogs food, golfclubs and their clothes were gone. what to do? No winter clothes. Oh no. Vanessa asked why they couldn´t just purchase some winter clothing from one of the cities that they were going to pass through but apparently this was not possible.Didn´t seems to be logical as even Eastern Europe has expensive ´brand´ labels these days.So they were on the way home to pick some up but were undecided whether they would return. The dog was slightly over the maximum weight for a carry on pet for flying. Disaster. There was no way the dog was going into the cargo hold. What to do? catch the train with the commoners. A new experience so it appeared. She told us that the train was quite old and dirty. We told her it was not too bad actually being veterans of crappy trains. She spoke with a strong english accent and carried the dog around most of the time. Apparently he was suffering from the  heat so she held him up near the open window  .We wondered whether the dog ever got the chance to walk but it did eventually get a chance when the train stopped at a station and the husband was let out to take it for a run and a toilet break on the platform. Well at least a little girl from the carriage on the other side was feeding it pretzels. The couple had no children so the dog as you could imagine was spoilt. Well the whole experience must have been quite traumatic. They survived but I don´t think that they will be back on the train in a hurry and are headed back to safe Denmark.

We got near Belgrade and started to get ready. Paul stuck his head  out the window of the train and asked a lady that had just alighted from the train whether the station was Belgrade and she nodded  so we got the packs on and started heading out the door when the train took off. Turns out it wasn´t Belgrade and that Paul had forgotten that the lady may have  just come from Bulgaria and  that  the nod was probably  NO this is not Belgrade . Arrived at the correct station soon after but an hour late  and headed off in a rush without saying goodbye to Paul. 10 hrs on a train was enough and we were tired. We got to the hostel on the 6th floor of an apartment block and a lively party was going on. British girls. Groan. The hostel offers free drinks. The dorm was dark and when we turned on the lights we saw a couple in a bed together. Groan. At least they had clothes on. We headed out to find some food and bumped into Paul from the train who was also looking for food. We went to a likely looking bar but they had no food but the beer was cheap and Paul amused us with his stories and brain teasers. The party was still raging on when we got back to the hostel. A quick check of email and into bed. Actually the people who came into the dorm were quite considerate apart from the staff who came in and turned on the light then put on the air-conditioner.

Next day. Woke up  dehydrated from the air con and grumpy from broken sleep. We headed into town and it was hot early. The fortress in quite impressive and being restored. We had a good look around then found the wall of the zoo which had some Roman style mosaics of animals. Really good. Followed signs into the bohemian quarters and found nothing but at least turned up in the town centre which also led to an information place. Not particularly helpful but we ended up with a map. Headed to the national museum which was under renovation and not expecting to be open for 10 years? true. Decided it was just too hot so had a bit of a look around before heading back to the hostel to laze around, surf the net and watch a movie. First two were good but most of the movies were missing. Some others were also just hanging around and turned out to be uni students from Australia. They were well mannered and played chess during the afternoon. There was a person who claimed to be Swiss who was still awake from the night before and drinking for a while before his batteries ran out and he passed out on the couch next to us. That is face down on the couch kneeling on the floor. Over the duration of the afternoon he slept in various uncomfortable positions which was quite amusing and he made a fine photo subject for us. We went and booked bus tickets for Montenegro from across the road. The unhelpful staff reluctantly sold us tickets to the bus for the morning the next day. Luckily the party crowd were gone and the hostel was quiet. We went out for pizza and beer at a nearby hotel. Cheap. Really cheap. A 0.5l beer, full sized pizza and a small bottle of wine only cost us about AUD$10.     

Next day. I was not looking forward to 9 hrs on the bus. We got to the station and yes the bus was crappy. The seat I was sitting in was broken and something fell off the bus window before we left. We couldn't find our seats so just sat anywhere which was fine as the locals also had the same problem. The bus got going and the language presented problems again. We had gotten rid of most of our Serbian money and discovered that you need to pay a handling fee for luggage.The ticket conductor spoke no English and gestured 10 with his hands so Vanessa  handed him the 20 dinar that she  had and he just shook his head.He then proceed to open his wallet and showed a 100Dinar note and our hearts sank we didn´t have any other dinar so Vanessa attempted to give him a 10 euro note to which he again shook his head and then held up one finger (not his middle finger either) We worked out that he only wanted one Euro. Lucky he was honest. It looked like it was going to be a hot trip as there was no air coming from the vents but we were fortunate as there was some cool air drifting from somewhere on the bus. There were a couple of girls in the seat behind me and I guessed that they spoke some English and I asked whether the bus had stopped for a lunch break. My lucky day. I was the first native english speaker that the older girl, Boyanna, had met and we spoke about her life, hopes and dreams for the next 3 hrs. She asked me to guess her age. I said 14 but it was well off the mark as she was 18! Boyanna thought I was 40. The younger girl was Yellana who was 11 but she was shy and didn´t talk. Boyanna wanted to be a singer but lived in a small village and had not been able to get training but was keen to sing for us. When the bus stopped for a break she sung us a classical engish song. Her voice was beautiful and rich. She really could have been a singer. I told her that her voice will break mens hearts. Next year she hopes she will go to college in Belgrade and I hope that she does well. There are the normal doubts about her future and she has the conflict of following her dreams vs settling for the normal, get married, children etc. She was genuinely sad to leave the bus after talking with us. We gave her our email address so maybe there will be a new blog reader in the near future.

We hit the border and got stamped out. Well at least I did. They forgot to put a stamp in Vanessa passport which is a little odd as there were only three foreigns on the bus and consequently only three passports to stamp. It didn´t matter as Montenegro officials stamped her in without any drama much to our relief. The bus ride got much more interesting in Montenegro. Rolling mountains, rustic huts and houses made of wood and huge haystacks with ladders on some of them. It wasn´t long before we were winding our way to the tara gorge, deepest in Europe and almost as deep at the grand canyon. Quite impressive and we passed over on an impressive bridge before heading further into the mountains. We arrived at our destination Zabljac and saw people looking in the windows keen to get our attention. Rooms for let people competing for our trade. We chose one and we to his house only to find that the room he was renting was also the walkway to the next room. Not exactly secure! So i declined  and we headed into the town centre and bumped into some British and Australian travellers at the information place. I asked where they were staying and they said they were staying in cute little cabins at the ecocamping site about 1km out of town and offered to take our backpacks in their red van as they were on the way. Why not? I got direction from the driver and off they went. I guess they could have stolen them but they didn´t seem the type. They didn´t have room for us so we walked. I was losing faith about 1.5km from town but we came upon a sign to camping and followed the turnoff and found the site, the red van and our packs. We negotiated the price on a cute cabin of our own for 6Euro each per night. The site had stunning forest, mountain views and was quiet.

next day. The reason for coming to Zabljac is the walking and the beautiful black (green) lake. It is in the Europe lonely planet and the picture is enough to get curious travellers to the place as I told the tourism person who wondered why so many Australian backpackers turned up each year. Actually not so many. Maybe 3 a week. We decided to walk to the ice cave, ledina pecina, which should have been a 3hr walk from Crno Jezero, black lake. To get to the lake it was  already 5km from the campsite so we knew it was going to be a long day. The lake wasn´t quite as spectacular as we expected but was still impressive with the forest and mountains behind it and we were off walking before long. It is essential to take a topographic map when walking. I was questioning whether it would be worth it but Vanessa said our safety for 4 Euro. True. It was worth it as the trails are confusing. We ended up walking a loop through spectacular mountains to the ice cave which was difficult and dangerous to enter. I scrambled down about half way to the entrance but didn´t enter. Storms were building, time was getting on in afternoon and we had a long walk back. It didn´t take long before the threatening weather started raining heavily making the rocks on the path very slippery making for very slow going. The rain stopped and the water off the rocks evaporated quickly. We eventually got back to the lake early evening and still had 5km back to the camping ground. It was dark by the time we go to the pizza place in town and ordered our tea. We met a french couple who wanted to walk to the ice cave on the next day so we gave them some information and had a bit of a chat before our pizza was ready and we headed off into the darkness to walk the last 2km. It was such a relief to get back after walking about 25km for the day but it was a beautiful walk. I was really sore and didn´t sleep well.

next day. The weather was supposed to be bad today. We woke to a glorious blue sky. Damn. Was looking forward to having a slack day after yesterdays walk. Decided to head into the mountains again heading towards the glacier, Debeli namet. I did some planning for the route but most of the paths are well marked. It was not a good start. Vanessa forgot her walking pole and had to return to camp and then I looked in my bag and the water was missing and also had to head back. Then I was getting really annoyed when we couldn't find the entry path to the route having walked and returned back towards the camp. We turned up a path towards anther camping ground and stumbled onto a marked path. Not the one we wanted but it was a start. The area was full of raspberries, wild strawberries and flowers and wooded with pine. Nice walking. Some GPS checks and I worked out where we were on the map and confirmed when we cut another path which was on the route we wanted. It was to be a tough walk with a 500m rise in 2km then a relatively easy walk to the glacier. We kept on finding raspberry patches and found the mother load at one stage. GPS marked it for  later after filling ourselves up. The forest is really quiet. A few birds but no animals that we have seen. We had seen a woodpecker on the previous day but noticed that if you stop and listen the whole forest is buzzing with bees in the tree tops. We discovered a solitary classic red and white mushroom in the forest. The weather started building up again similar to the previous day. Not particularly welcome when in the mountains and almost at 2000m. I was feeling the climb more than Vanessa and really struggled for the last 100m rise. We saw the glacier in the distance and a small hut in front of it. The glacier was disappointing and with the weather closing in with thunder on both sides of us we decided it was time to head down before the rain started. The weather held until we got well down then opened up but it didn´t hurry us on from picking more raspberries and strawberries. The strawberries are tiny at about 5mm diameter but so sweet. Lovely. We got back and just inside the cabin before the heavy rain started. Perfect timing! I was worn out and slept the rest of the afternoon whilst Vanessa selected the pictures for the blog.

Bye,
David and Vanessa