Smilyan, Bulgaria

What a buggar of a trip!   33 hours of travel including, driving 2 hours, ferry trip 1.45hrs, and the rest on four different buses with short stopovers in between, 30 minute stop at the border crossing for the guy to figure out what page of our passport to put his stamp on!  oh and then a taxi to the house.  We did not intend to do the trip like this, however we got on a bit of a roll with connections so just went with it.  We were shattered the next day and gave each other a bit of much needed breathing space.

Peloponesse northern coastline near Korinth

Rocky peaks everywhere

The Korinth Canal

Athens port

Central Bulgaria

Pompovoro ski village near Smolyan in southern Bulgaria

I am sitting here at the breakfast table looking out the window to an awakening Bulgarian village.  Smoke puffing from chimneys, people rushing about getting wood to take inside, elderly gentleman coming outside to have a stretch in the sun, birds desperately finding twigs to add to their nests.  It’s the start to another busy village day.

Smilyan is a small village of around 2500 residents in southern Bulgaria.  Very old people, little babies, and there seems to be many children around 8 to 14 years.   There is a school in the village that goes up to year 7 and then the children need to travel into Smolyan about 25mins away.  It is quite a spread out village in a narrow valley surrounded by hills with pine trees.  They had 2.5m of snow early this winter – it must have been freezing!  But with saying that the village seems to get the sun as soon as it gets up to very late in the afternoon.  There is a lot to be said about the SUN.  It seems to change everyone’s mood, including my own.  When we arrived here, it was freezing cold, very bleak and misty and we had a couple of days of rain.  Let’s just say it wasn’t much fun and was a bit boring after the collection of dvd’s had run out.  But as soon as it stopped people were out in their gardens preparing with the horse and plough, planting out and gathering in the streets for a chat with their neighbours.  People are very friendly, nobody speaks English – or at least very few, but all smile and say zdra-vey-te (hello) and are eager to carry on but know that they can’t.  We have learnt quickly that the Bulgarians have an unusual visual for yes and no.  To say yes they shake their head from side to side and to say no they nod!  Yep it confusing alright, and they know it.  We have found one boy in the village who must be around 15 who speaks reasonably good English; he is the son of a local veggie market owner.  He has been very helpful with the bus timetable.   His parents have a very nice local veggie shop.  There are about 7 or so mini markets in the village, all competing against each other, we do not know how they survive as everything is so cheap and there are not many people here.  Also the meals at the tavern are exceptionally cheap.  Two gins costs 1.80lv which is around $3.  Meals range from 2lv to 8lv.  We have had some delicious new foods, delicious big beans, a grated potato dish and bread crumbed tongue just to mention a few.  A common mode of transport for the villages is horse and cart of which there are many.

Sharing a "beera" Bulgarian style at 10am with neighbor - the local border police man Ruman
no english was spoken  communication only through the phrase book

Went for a walk around the village and saw the local sights and Murray found a place to buy and renovate – NOT!  Also caught up with some local people that look after the house we are staying in.  They are really nice,  Slavdah does not speak a word of English, but is delightful and always smiling and Stillion did, so he was busy translating all night and ordering Rakea or Grape Brandy. OMG let’s just say it was powerful stuff and we suffered the next day.  We enjoyed a great night with our new Bulgarian friends with some delicious local foods.   Stillion was working away from the village and was not due back until Saturday so we were invited to his house when he got back for drinks, bread and sausage, we had been planning to leave Smilyan on Saturday though.

Family's mode of transport

Logging machine made in Romania - upgrade from the donkey

Another neighbor - Tiny, 90 year old lady sitting in the sun keeping warm.
She waved out to us every morning as we past.

Starting our hike

We headed off on a ‘beer hunt” one morning, as there wild bears in Bulgaria.  However never saw so much as a paw print.  We climbed a medium size hill and looked down on the village below.  It took around an hour I suppose and it was nice to be out in the bush again.   Not sure what was going on with their pine trees but many of them had been attacked and big hunks chiselled away from them, it was quite odd, of course we couldn’t ask anyone because nobody speaks English so it will be a mystery to us forever.  There were wild polyanthus growing everywhere, they were really pretty.   From up on the hill we tried a couple of spots for the internet as it was difficult to get any down in the village and too our amazement we found some.  So here we are sitting in the wilderness typing away on our laptop - desperate or what?  Managed to even skype and Jade was on but it wasn’t that good.

Murray tries for internet connection

Laxing out - enjoying delicious oranges

The village of Smilyan 

The decision was made to start to move on to Greece on Saturday as planned.  So we went around to tell Slavdah when we were leaving.  After a quick phone call to Stillion,  we were ushered in and before we knew it we had an abundance of food, grape juice, coffee  Obviously she had already been preparing for our proposed visit on Saturday upon Stillions return.  We felt terrible, that our visit was going to be such a big deal.  We were enjoying the ‘new to us’ treats and then the gifts began – very unexpected, and embarrassing.  A beautiful pair of felt slippers that Slavdahs mother had made, two plates, a bottle of Rakea and a silk scarf luckily I thought quick enough and took the one I was wearing off and gave to her.  That made us feel a little better, but still a bit stink – all this from a non English speaking lady whom we had only met twice before.  Another two phone calls were made to Stillion and an unsuccessful skype session, before we finally left. 

5am – the alarm goes off and the groans start from the person in bed next to me.  Yep, it’s time to get up.  We have only about a 10 minute walk to the bus which is coming at 6am but we got to make beds have breakfast and do last minute tidying up stuff.  We have to meet this one, so that it links with the next to Sofia and then the next to Thessaloniki in Greece.  We got it no problems there were only four of us on it – there is after all only a certain few idots that catch buses by choice at 6am.  The trip was uneventful except for the many potholes on the road, the roads are really bad.