Day 38
Sleeping location: By a babbling brook at 1600m, a few km east of the 7 Rila Lakes Lift, Bulgaria
Distance (km today/total): 63 / 3792
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1600 / 31400
The main chunk of the climb up here: 800m in 12km
Day in three words: Rila high up*
*Pun works best in a Yorkshire accent
Firstly, an important update on the egg situation from yesterday. It turned out 6 (SIX) of them had broken, so breakfast was scaled down to bread and cheese as I was in no mood for eggs by now. I broke camp in a leisurely fashion again, perhaps too leisurely as it was 10.30 by the time I finally set off. On the way back to the road I had a really funny incident with a herd of goats/sheep and their shepherd*. He was trying to get them to follow him but when they saw me coming along the track they all froze. He kept whistling and I kept trying to hide but they refused to move for a few minutes. Eventually I decided to move forward in the hope that it would “push” them towards him, but instead they bolted and all scattered across a field in totally the wrong direction. The man was not very happy about this.
After this I headed over rolling hills through some beautiful rugged forest until the next town, which was 30km away. During this bit I had a magical moment when a huge eagle flew alongside me for about 20 seconds as I went down the side of a ridgeline. It was a majestic bird and I’m quite glad it didn’t try to eat me. In town I went to the supermarket to stock up, and went to get some figs from the fruit section (I love figs). As I was collecting my figs a man returned a big bag of his own figs to the fig box, and said something to me in Bulgarian, which of course I didn't understand. It turned out that he was saying there was no fig button on the weighing machine, but I really wanted some figs, so I put them through as plums instead as they are both purple, which seemed to be accepted at the checkout. Silly man.
After this was a long long climb up into the Rila Mountains. The first 15km was gradual, but once the switchbacks started it was a relentless grind for a couple of hours. Thankfully the views were amazing, with endless green walls of forest in every direction as the road climbed up the side of a river valley. I reached the Lift to the 7 Lakes** about 5.30 but it was closed, and I decided to push on rather than wait for it to open in the morning. I wouldn’t have been able to hike them properly and it’s an excuse to come back to Bulgaria and to Rila.
The next bit was some tactical mountain dirt track. I know I should have learnt my lesson after Albania but this section allowed me to close a loop which was mostly tarmac, so it should be worth the hassle. The few km I’ve done so far has been fine, although it was very still which made the forest feel eerily quiet whenever I stopped. I planned to do another 15-20km today but found an absolutely fantastic camp spot which was too good to pass up. Flat ground, rocks to sit/cook on, next to a river for washing, the whole thing nicely hidden on a very quiet track. Definitely the best one of the trip so far.
*I know a sheep herder is a shepherd and a goat herder is a goatherd, but what do you call someone who has both? I will go with shepherd because there were more sheep than goats.
**The 7 Lakes are a famously beautiful collection of mountain lakes, all at well above 2000m. You can hike to them or take a rickety old chairlift up there.
Distance (km today/total): 63 / 3792
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1600 / 31400
The main chunk of the climb up here: 800m in 12km
Day in three words: Rila high up*
*Pun works best in a Yorkshire accent
Firstly, an important update on the egg situation from yesterday. It turned out 6 (SIX) of them had broken, so breakfast was scaled down to bread and cheese as I was in no mood for eggs by now. I broke camp in a leisurely fashion again, perhaps too leisurely as it was 10.30 by the time I finally set off. On the way back to the road I had a really funny incident with a herd of goats/sheep and their shepherd*. He was trying to get them to follow him but when they saw me coming along the track they all froze. He kept whistling and I kept trying to hide but they refused to move for a few minutes. Eventually I decided to move forward in the hope that it would “push” them towards him, but instead they bolted and all scattered across a field in totally the wrong direction. The man was not very happy about this.
After this I headed over rolling hills through some beautiful rugged forest until the next town, which was 30km away. During this bit I had a magical moment when a huge eagle flew alongside me for about 20 seconds as I went down the side of a ridgeline. It was a majestic bird and I’m quite glad it didn’t try to eat me. In town I went to the supermarket to stock up, and went to get some figs from the fruit section (I love figs). As I was collecting my figs a man returned a big bag of his own figs to the fig box, and said something to me in Bulgarian, which of course I didn't understand. It turned out that he was saying there was no fig button on the weighing machine, but I really wanted some figs, so I put them through as plums instead as they are both purple, which seemed to be accepted at the checkout. Silly man.
After this was a long long climb up into the Rila Mountains. The first 15km was gradual, but once the switchbacks started it was a relentless grind for a couple of hours. Thankfully the views were amazing, with endless green walls of forest in every direction as the road climbed up the side of a river valley. I reached the Lift to the 7 Lakes** about 5.30 but it was closed, and I decided to push on rather than wait for it to open in the morning. I wouldn’t have been able to hike them properly and it’s an excuse to come back to Bulgaria and to Rila.
The next bit was some tactical mountain dirt track. I know I should have learnt my lesson after Albania but this section allowed me to close a loop which was mostly tarmac, so it should be worth the hassle. The few km I’ve done so far has been fine, although it was very still which made the forest feel eerily quiet whenever I stopped. I planned to do another 15-20km today but found an absolutely fantastic camp spot which was too good to pass up. Flat ground, rocks to sit/cook on, next to a river for washing, the whole thing nicely hidden on a very quiet track. Definitely the best one of the trip so far.
*I know a sheep herder is a shepherd and a goat herder is a goatherd, but what do you call someone who has both? I will go with shepherd because there were more sheep than goats.
**The 7 Lakes are a famously beautiful collection of mountain lakes, all at well above 2000m. You can hike to them or take a rickety old chairlift up there.
Near Rila Monastery I guess??
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