We turned in the rental car, booked our overnight train to
Bucharest, and are waiting in the lobby of the Dedeman Princess Hotel. We have covered quite a bit of
Bulgaria, from the neglect of Sofia to the charm of Veliko Tarnovo and from the
forested snow-capped mountains of Bansko to the stormy Black Sea resort of Nesebur. We basked in bright sunshine, splashed
in torrential rain, and shivered through a surprise autumn snowstorm. We have driven past orchards and
vineyards heavy with ripe fruit, into valleys thick with morning fog and wood smoke, past decaying Soviet concrete apartment blocks and through seemingly endless fields of wheat and corn.
But
it is the visions of the people that will remain with me. A young girl skipping through puddles,
holding her mother’s hand / Old men smoking on a bench, recalling “couldas,”
“shouldas,” and “wouldas” / Young schoolgirls with their Hello Kitty backpapcks
/ A family crowded into a horse-drawn wagon on a Sunday morning / An old woman
with a load of firewood slung across her back / An old man with a long stick
and a mangy dog watching over a herd of goats / A tiny donkey hauling a wagon
load of leeks while his master walks alongside / A BMW speeding at us head-on, passing
on a blind curve / Old women selling onions and shallots along the roadside /
Men coasting downhill on bicycles loaded with firewood / Young women wearing
impossibly tight jeans and high-heeled boots shrouded with smoke from their
cigarettes / And hundreds of friendly, smiling faces.
