~HERE~

Me, Vescho and Marto in fron of the Bachkovo monastery

The second part of our group was a little bit late (overslept ), so we waited for them to come and look around the monastery. While we were there we enjoyed the local views, the sound of the nearby river, etc.

Next object – the impressive Wonderful Bridges. Two rock phenomenas in Bulgaria that attract lots of visitors each year.

Wonderful bridges

We couldn’t miss the opportunity to buy some local cheese and eat a local pastry called ‘prepitenichka’ – kind of a dough pancake with cheese or jam in it.

Third for the day was Rojen observatory. We reached it just as it was about to start raining again. Waited about 15 minutes and got in for a guided tour.

Rojen observatory

Some interesting facts, a walk around, some wonderful views from the top of the tower and an hour later we took off from Rojen. And then it started raining – it was raining cats and dogs, as it’s said. The fourth object of our trip (Pamporovo) we missed because of the rain. Instead we headed on the line Shiroka Lyka – Trigrad to settle for the evening. In Shiroka Lyka we stopped for a meal. We waited for too long but finally we tried the rodopian specialty – Patatnik. Delicious!!! What was in front of us was a ride across the Trigrad gorge – beautiful river canyon. Tiny roads, but instead – what a beauty it was. A couple of hours wandering because we didn’t book anything for the evening – and we settled in Teshel: a small village, just standing between our targets for the third day.

Day 3 – May 4th

I’m getting kinda lazy to describe in details Instead I’ll just move on to the goals for the day:

Devils throat – there was the highest cave waterfall in Bulgaria: 60 m they say. We couldn’t exactly see it, but we heard it. Definitely!

Devils throat

In front of the we heard a Rodopi bagpipe. Native!

Yagodinska cave – this one was very impressive. Its length (the guided part) is 1.1 km and the guides were very professional – they mixed interesting facts for the cave with humor/jokes. It’s a fun way to learn something and to stay focused during the whole tour of 45 minutes.

Perperikon – Perperikon was the final for our trip. We got late for it and went there just after 5.30 pm. No problem, all the visitors were gone, so we could enjoy it with only a bunch of crazy people like us . Ancient thracian city with well preserved ruins. Interesting place, has some sort of nice vibe in it.

Parts of Perperikon

After all of this it was already about 6:30 pm and we had about 450 km trip back to Rousse. Exhausting, but still – about 2:30 am in the next morning we were back. After about 1200 km road trip, many wonderful sights, three nice days of adventures.

More photos from the trip can be seen in my Picasa Web Albums.

Let’s start with a meeting from the previous day. We got to a friend to have some beers. Yeah, we got them – till 11 PM. And I had to get up at 2:30 AM. I got home, but somehow I couldn’t get any sleep. My mood was some kind of adrenaline-ous. So when the alarm clock started I only had an hour sleep. Never mind, I told to myself. Shower, final luggage preparation and at 4 AM off we go to the trip. I took my part of the group and drove the following route – Rousse-Veliko Tarnovo-Gabrovo-Shipka where we waited the other part of the group (they left the previous day, to extend their trip with a walk around Gabrovo). The Shipka pass welcomed us with a thick fog. We waited about an hours till the other part came and we were ready to leave for our first goal – Asenovgrad and the famous fortress. At about 10:30 -11 AM we were there.

After a lunch in Asenovgrad we headed to Oreshec and Mostovo villages. Mostovo welcomed us with the most beautiful Rodopian sight:

From then on we went to Krystova gora (The forest of the cross) peak and the cross on the peak. Actually I didn’t go there because the route didn’t exactly fit my knee’s mood . So me, Vesko and Milena waited for the others in the village.

After that was the final goal for the day – or so we thought. The Chotrova house near Belintash. The road to there was similar to… nothing – there was no road. Just dust and lost of small muddy lakes. And to finish the deal there was about 500-600 m downhill which made our cars overheat. A small break there to find out that there are no places available – and off we go back to the now uphill:

You can see the beast resting after the torture of the uphill.

So this is basically our first day. We went back to Asenovgrad and hired 4 rooms in a small hotel. We just needed rest already

The main goal of this trip for me – Belintash, was off the list. We couldn’t reach it because we didn’t reserve places to sleep nearby.

More pictures from the whole trip – in my PicasaWeb Albums

I made it the whole time… with slight help of painkillers on our way back.

I’m posting a link to my Picasa Gallery – ~LINK~

Saturday morning. 7:30 AM – the GPS tells us where to go. It’s settled for Brasov, as first goal. We crossed the Danube bridge without any complications and through Giurgiu move north to Bucharest and on. Compared to Bulgaria, these people have great roads – always improving and not a single hole, even at the mountains. That impressed me. The car stood perfect on the asphalt at all speeds.

Anyways, we reached passed Sinaia, Brasov and headed to the Bran castle – or as they call it “Dracula castle”. To tell you honestly – there was nothing Draculese about it. Simple castle with lots of historic objects in it. But the bazar in front of it – all Draculese. Bran citizens exploit the Dracula myth and try to squeeze what they can from it. And they do it good – we had fun at the bazar, at the haunted Dracula dungeon (or whatever it was called). In the evening we went to a big pub on a hill next to Bran, called Vila Bran… nice place.

Sunday morning we said goodbye to our hostess and left for Sibiu. Across the mountains again we watched the frozen land (it was -7 degrees Celsius) with the melting frost on it. Like a fairy tale. Beautiful.

About 10-11 AM we reached the city that was announced as European capital of culture for 2007. Amazing one, if I may describe it that way – stunning views, old buildings, towers, churches, etc. Loved it. We walked around for a couple of hours… and started our journey back.

LOL… that’s it – really short… really…

Some pictures – as always can be found at my Picasa Web Galery

OK, this journey has finished a few days ago, so I better describe it in a few words.

Left Sofia on August 23rd and got to Istanbul, Turkey the next day. We had some free time, so me and a few folks took a walk around the city. Our flight got re-scheduled for 20:00 so we had plenty of time for sightseeing. Istanbul is a great city – I should return for more….

Anyways – we took off from Istanbul at around 20:00 (with some delay due to the crowded airport). About 2 hours and 20 minutes later we landed at Nal’chik airport in Russia. With lots of waiting and writting at the Russian customs we were allowed to enter the country and headed to Terskol, where our base was. At about 3 AM in the morning everyone was at their beds.

The first day started late with a few introduction words at the kitchen, a walk around Cheget bazaar and lunch in one of the local restaurants.

During the afternoon me and few of the guys decided to go for a walk to Itkolbashi peak (3511 m). This was my first big mistake there – we headed up a steep slope and reached probably 2500 m. altitude. Then it started raining. On my way down I slipped and stretched my right knee. I can almost compare it to my stretched ankle – pain, unable to move, etc… After we got back to our camp I was instructed to have a rest the following day (the first aclimatizing one).

But I didn’t follow them exactly. Instead I decided I should be OK, got early with 3 other and successfuly got to Cheget peak (3461m) for aclimatization. The knee was a problem only during the first 10 walking minutes and at every longer stop.

The third day again I went with the group for aclimatization to Space Observatory (around 3000m) and peak Piket 105 (around 3400m). Had no problems and felt good anyways.

The fourth day was a rest one. We got the ski lift to the middle Cheget station (2700m) and had lunch there, enjoyed the view, took some shots. During the afternoon we had to sleep, to prepare ourselves for the big day.

So it came and we left for our high base. Took two ski lifts to 3500 m. and walked the distance to 4200 m. by foot. This included walking on ice after 3800m. altitude. After a couple of hours (probably 2) we got to Priut Maria (just above the famous Priut of Eleven). I felt OK, but this turned out to be a false feeling – about 2 hours later I felt a strong headache after trying to get 3 tubes of water to the hut. The headache got even stronger after a walk around to try out our crampons. Our leaded  Slava Skripko gave me some pills (Aspartam, Caffeine, something like that) which did a great job – I didn’t get any headache at 4200m. after that.

The second day at our high camp started with a fierce wind and some snow. We had to climb to Pastukhov rocks for training and aclimatization, so we headed there. Got to their upper end (around 4700m. altitude) but the wind was so strong, we could barely sit around without freezing. At the end of the 10th minute most of us were standing next to each other as penguins, protecting from chill. About 10-15 minutes later Slava (Skripko) decided we could go down. In the afternoon the storm got even stronger. It was sure that the weather was deteriorating.

The next day the storm didn’t calm down, so we stayed at our hut and ate and slept all day (I think we couldn’t sleep alot, so we probably ate more).

The fourth day of our stay at 4200 m. we got some good news that the weather might get better and our guides picked the following night (our last possible night) for summit night. The first group (including me) had to leave with the snowcat at 1:30 AM.

We got up at about midnight and started preparing – tea, pills, equipment, toilet, etc. We got some extra clothes on, because the wind was still fierce (though not the same as the second day), packed out backpacks and left at 01:30. The snowcat left us at the beginning of Pastukhov rocks (4500m). The following slope till 5000m altitude was extremely icy (it was like glass) from the previous 2-3 days storm. Anyways our group was approaching “Kosaya polka” (the traverse of the East Elbrus summit) at a good pace. This was the first place where I felt the headache. It wasn’t so strong, so I decided to keep up. About 5100 m. the headache got so strong, and I felt dizzy. I thought it was time to get down, but I was stopped from our leader at first, and from one of the guys in the group at second. The guy helped me by counting to 10 (for steps) with me, and announcing rest time after every 10. This however I think didn’t help enough as my condition got worse, and I decided I should get down immediately. I had enough strength to make it to the top – it was the way down that bothered me. So I headed down – and to keep it short, got down a couple of hours later barely walking, with the help of one of our guides who stayed at the hut. Then I followed a quick trip to 2200 m (base hut) to prevent any harm from altitude sickness. I got better and better as I was going to lower altitudes.

From our group of 15 people – 10 reached the summit, and 1 made the whole traverse of Elbrus.

That’s about it. I will skip the last 2 days. The important conclusion:

Elbrus goal is not done. I’m leaving it for next year, when I’ll try to organize it by myself, together with a few friends.

A short photo diary can be found at my Picasa Gallery

Thanks to all the guys at this trip: Slava Skripko (our Russian guide), Jak and Ivan (our Bulgarian guides), Mitko, Nixon, Rusan, George, Milena, Dancho, Kari, Sasho, Ivan, Uti, Bogdan and Mila – not necessarily in that order.

This was the last mountain trip till Elbrus trip. I’ll continue working out in Rousse with simple exercises.

Some photos from the mountain, arranged as a photo-diary – at my Picasa Web Albums

A short photo diary of the trip can be found at my Google Picasa Albums: HERE