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.