Bulgaria: Country with the weird alphabet but fantastic food

We’ve now spent a couple days in Veliko Tarnovo, a quaint little town in the heart of Bulgaria located on the steep banks of the meandering Yantra River. The region is fantastic for day trips, hikes and rock climbing, but all these activities are weather dependant and unfortunately for us, our luck for sunshine has run out.

We are being hosted by three young and incredibly energetic guys who took us out for some delicious Bulgarian food and drinks. Today we spent the day wandering the town and hiking the local mountains while trying to hide from the rain and wind. However, with the weather not cooperating, there is not much to do and as such we will be bidding VT and Bulgaria goodbye and heading to Bucharest tomorrow morning.

It’s unfortunate since it does seem like a fantastic and picturesque country plus the food is absolutely delicious and dirt cheap. Our dinner last night, including an incredibly filling traditional Bulgarian dish, a large bottle of beer and some shots of the local Bulgarian liquor (Rakia) came out to an amazing $7CAD per person. You can get most main courses for anywhere between 4 and 10 lev ($3 – 7).

On a slight side note, we are still getting used to how quite Bulgaria is in comparison to Turkey and especially Istanbul. It is often advantageous to travel in the off season as you avoid the crowds, generally have cheaper prices and never have to worry about tracking down accommodations. The downside of it is that most places you visit are like ghost towns. The hike we did today was one such example. It took us to a nearby picturesque village filled with cafés, restaurants and hotels. This would have been quite pleasant if they had been opened, but when they’re closed, all we could do was walk around and come back home (hitchhiking with the very first car that passed us).

Other than that, there is not much to add. We will write again when we have our next internet connection.

PS: When trying to get hold of our Couchsurfing host and having no luck with the local pay phone I approached a girl sitting at the station seeing that she had a cell. I asked if she spoke English, she nodded her head so I proceeded to explain my predicament and was absolutely stunned when I got completely ignored with absolutely no response. Only later did it sink in that the up-down nod in Bulgaria is a "NO" whereas the side-to-side shake is a "YES". Take my word for it, it takes some getting used to. Our hosts did the same a number of times, each time resulting in the same confused expressions on our part.

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Sozopol: Our first true European stop

We arrived yesterday in Sozopol, a little coast town on the Black Sea, absolutely exhausted. It was the perfect place to rest up and relax and an ideal first stop in a new chapter of this journey. The Middle East and Turkey, as fascinating and enjoyable as they were, have now been left behind. I breathed another sigh of relief, welcoming the more familiar and less exotic scenery.

Sozopol, according to our guidebook, is a little town with a population of 4650 located on a jutting peninsula in the south of Bulgaria. In the early morning hours of our arrival, the population seemed to have been closer to 100 than nearly 5000. Having wandered through the entire town I could have counted on my fingers the amount of people I came across. The absolute quietness gave this cobblestoned town with its century old wooden houses an eerie yet peaceful feel and if not for needing to find some form of accommodations, the quietness would have been a welcome change after Istanbul.

Even in the afternoon the town did not become much livelier. We stumbled on a handful of tourists around some corners; there would be the elderly grandpa doing some gardening in front of his home; a grandma heading back with a small bag of groceries from the corner store; some kids playing in the streets or some men repairing the boats in the small port. But there were no crowds. Most of the stores remained closed, most bars and cafes were empty and the beaches were virtually desolate.

The town was nevertheless pleasant. It would have made a great summer retreat and we suspect that most of the population total is comprised of families who simply have summer apartments in the town but in reality live elsewhere.

In all respects, there could not have been a starker contrast between our previous days: the crowds were gone, the five time daily call to prayer was no longer to be heard; the skyline was free of all minarets; there were no bazaars; there was no hassling or haggling; communication was virtually limited to Bulgarian and not the plethora of languages spoken by most in Istanbul; the alphabet had reverted not to the indecipherable Arabic squiggles, but nevertheless to an equally indecipherable Cyrillic; and most importantly the feel had changed: the town was truly European as was the countryside.

We spent the day soaking all this in with the intentions of catching a 6am bus to Veliko Tarnovo. Unfortunately it proved impossible to get the girls out of bed on time and we opted for the later 1:30am connection.

Now at 2pm I’m sitting in the bus, looking out over gentle rolling green hills occasionally dotted with orchards and pastures. White fluffy clouds dot the crystal clear blue sky throwing moving shadows over the hills. Julita said that the town reminded her of Poland, and in a way she’s right. Both the towns and the countryside have that Eastern European feel to them. They are little villages where life’s requirements are simply the necessities of life. It is not to say that time has stood still here contrary to the impression I got in Cappadocia, but anyone who has lived in Poland or traveled through these little Eastern European towns, will immediately know the character which I’m now trying and failing to describe. Although France and Germany might have such little towns and similar countryside, there is something a bit different about them.

Funnily enough Julita says she doesn’t like it, I, on the other hand, feel at home. Even the Bulgarian is at times sounding an awful lot like Polish. Now if only I could master their alphabet, I might choose to stay here longer.

PS: On an odd note, at dinner in Sozopol we watched the sun set over the water. In the morning I sat on the beach in Sozopol watching the sun rise over the Black Sea. Go figure.

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