In which I start to tell you about the land of the Bulgars

(Sofia, Bulgaria, about 3.5 weeks ago) - Landed in Sofia, coming from Geneve via Paris no problem and was welcomed by a suspicious passport control lady as well as immediately being struck by the Cyrillic lettering on everything. The Cyrillic would turn out to be pretty exhuasting in the end and although I would love Bulgaria, I would happy to be heading to Turkey. Although you quickly learn to translate various characters, in these Slavic countries one cannot even count on coming up with ones accepted misprounciation of place names. You just have to memorize shapes.

We were met at the airport by an excitable and very enthusiastic kid who would take us to the hotel. He wanted to know if they really have "hundreds and hundreds of cheese in Switzerland." I told him, "yes probably thousands even." Our hotel that first night was our first in a series of immpecabley clean, newly remodled, and very cheap hotels that we had found via the web. As with many things, this was indicative of the dichotomy that exists in Bulgaria between the old and the new, between those preparing for EU membership and those - unfortunately - probably getting left behind.

Sofia can be seen mostly in a day. We hit most of the major sites in fact that afternoon and early evening ... various Orthodox churches, the HUGE monument to the Soviet 'Liberators'. These kind of monuments are all over Bulgaria, with many local communities wanting to remove these reminders of ugly times, but not having the funds to do so. I rather like them and so we took pictures of them all over the country. They usually have a 'workers unite' theme with strong jawed men laborer welcoming similarly strong jawed soldiers with hugs and sometimes even ...

... more. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I really liked them, although many Bulgarians we spoke with couldn't understand what there was to like. I understand that I guess, but still it is living history... in the same way that I love the fascist inspired archetecture of the Milano train station. These were structures built to awe and impress.

The next day having hit most of the major sites, we decided to get out of town a bit. If I could plan the trip again, I would have had us spend a day in the mtns. of the southwest. The best we could do under the circumstances, was to so some hiking on the big Mt. Vitosha south of town. This mt. rises almost 8000 ft and even showed a patch of snow near its summit. I thought to take a bus out there, but the concierge at the hotel talked me into taking a taxi. Normally this would be too pricey of an option, but in the end the 45 min ride way way out on a cobblestone mtn road was only the equivalent of about $4. This road, btw was amazing. It went out for more than 50km out into the mtns and was perfect rainbow pattered cobblestones the whole way and wide enough to drive 4 semis side by side on. I was told later than it had been paid for my the Nazis in WWII, but put in by local craftsmen. Why they didn't just gravel it, I cannot fathom, but it was impressive.

We spend the next 4 hours hiking up parts of Mt. Vitosha. We saw some beautiful woods and got some great views of the city below us. Sofia looks weird from high up. It is on a great flat plain between two mtn. ranges and the city looks to be a mix of old town areas and where the central planning authorities just aribritrarily put up buildings. There are large tracks of land with big project apt. buildings and then 1km of meadow and then more city again... It is a weird look for a capital city.

Sofia from the mtns.

The area we hiked is a ski area in the winter and we walked along the most wonderfully decrepit ski lift part of the time. It works in the winter, but it looks like circa 1960. Kinda cool, but I am sure the locals would appreciate a high speed quad.

Looking kinda lost at a trail junction, a guy offered in very good english to help us find out way. We were fine, but ended walking with him for awhile. He was evidently some kind of medical device entreprener and bemoaned the lack of opportunities in the country. He hoped for a better life for his son in 20 years, and then glumly noted that his father had hoped the same for him... meaning that things don't change. We wished him luck at their turn off and continued back down our hill.

We caught our taxi back into sofia (our cab driver having agreed to meet us there 6 hours after she dropped us off at the trail head), picked up our bags and the hotel and made it to our bus to get to Koprivshtisa.