Day 51/52 - Sofia to Plovdiv - Errors of judgement

Friday 22nd March - Error 1

Plovdiv is 156 km from Sofia. There is a stiff NW tailwind so I reckon I might be a hero and do it in a day. There are flurries of snow as I leave Sofia at around 0800.

Compare and contrast: Same rack packs/both difficult to pick up if they fall over: I think the similarity ends there.

Preparing to leave Sofia. Miguel heads west back to Portugal - I head east. He sits and slowly freezes (despite heated handlebars) - I pedal and sweat. Miguel has been all over Africa and up through the Middle East.

 About an hour later my GPS track looked like it was taking me around a town on the bypass. I depart from the track so that I can see the town centre and maybe save a bit of distance.I assume that there will be a road out of town that will eventually join up with my pre-planned track.

Maybe I should explain that my bike GPS just has the useless base map supplied by Garmin. My track is pre-prepared and downloaded from the laptop, just appearing as a line to follow on the GPS screen.

The road I was on out of town didn't rejoin my track. In fact it diverged off up another valley and into the back of beyond. I came to a T junction. One way was a road running parallel to my original course but it looked like it might turn into a dirt track.  I take the other option which was back into the NW gale and taking me back in the direction of Sofia. After 6km I gave up fighting the wind and decided to turn back and take the other option. It never became a dirt road but was hilly, and in a really bad state of repair with potholes everywhere. At 1600 I'm only about 60km from Sofia and the weather has deteriorated. I'm at 900m and the snow is drifiting and ice is forming on the road. I'm just hoping the road will lead down into a valley soon so I can pitch the tent out of this wind. It does.

Late afternoon at 900m, the wind is strong and gusty and the road is starting to freeze. I want to get down and find some where sheltered.

On the way down, in a remote forest valley, a car pulls up just in front of me. Two men get out wearing suits and ties. Very odd. I stop and my heartbeat increases a little. The passenger shouts something unintelligible. "English" I say. Driver and passenger swap seats and they drive off. Whew!

Error number 2

I found a nice sheltered spot in a layby with a water spring. The snow was still falling but melting  below 300m. I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the roar of the gusts in the treetops.

Usually if I wake and I see the pre-sunrise dawn light through the tent, I normally start packing away to get an early start. Internals first........get dressed, pack the sleeping bag and the air mattress, pack and seal the panniers.This takes a while. Just before getting out of the tent to start breakfast I realise that the dawn light hasn't got any brighter. I stick my head out to find that it's the moon that has appeared as the weather clears. I switch on my phone to check the time. It's 0115. Mmmm. I decide, stupidly in hindsight, that I don't want to unpack everything again, so will get going much earlier than anticipated and make up for my lost time the day before. I get going at 3am

Oops!

Running water - proper washing up!

.

The wind has brought down lots of trees during the night

The road was treacherous, especially downhill. The crunching ice sounded like Chinese firecrackers. The winter tyres were really good and I managed to stay upright

A gritter truck - Bulgarian style. A man in the back shovels like mad.

Watching the sunrise

Sunrise

Catching some early morning sun and looking forward to catching up on some sleep

Tailwind to Plovdiv

The Roman ampitheatre in Plovdiv

Day 49/50 - Sofia

Day 49 

St. Alexander Nevsky Bulgarian Orthodox Cathedral. Currently the largest in the Balkans until Belgrade finish building their new one. Apparently, size is important here.

I've had an enjoyable guided tour of Sofia this morning. I'm leaving tomorrow morning, a day earlier than planned but I just want to get going again. It's 633km to Istanbul with 5,300m of climb. The forecast says it will be cold and dry with a strong NW tailwind. Cool! (this word is used a lot in hostels)

I've made some great friends here, especially Carolina and Alfredo from Costa Rica and Miguel from Portugal.........all with amazing travel stories to tell.

I will be in Plovdiv on Saturday night and Istanbul on Thursday 28 Mar............ if my back holds up : /

Day 48 - Tue 19th Mar - Sojourn in Sofia @ 4,000km

I'm in Sofia at the Hostel Mostel for 4 nights. I'm in need of a spot of R&R after 4,000 km and this is a great place to unwind (beer 1 euro a litre!). My latest plan is to make my way to Larnaca in Cyprus, leave the bike there and fly MEA to Beirut on 23rd April. I've done a quick 'howgozit' and I've got plenty of time to do the remaining 2,000 km, hopefully in more Spring-like weather.

The blog format is also going to change. You may be relieved to hear that I'm just going to cover 'highlights since I last posted'. I've taken 339 photographs since then so some serious editing is required! So here goes........

Day 42 - 48        Serbian border to Sofia (Bulgaria) 519 km 

I passed through border control into Serbia on a very minor pot-holed road. The uniformed smoking occupants of the control booth appeared to be suffering from terminal boredom and moved as if permanently attached to their swivel seats. Not so; as I pulled away into Serbia for the first time I heard gasping and shouting behind me. The big lady (note: not her male colleague) was lumbering after me with my Portuguese residency card in hand........this having fallen out of my passport onto her desk. I was extremely grateful.

A killer profile - climbing into a Serbian National Park. The gashes  are valleys of Danube tributaries.

Hospitality in Serbia - 1

The road seemed to heading into the backwoods, not even a village (I realised the next day I'd entered a remote national park): and I had no water for the night. At dusk I resorted to asking for water from a farmer-type pushing a wheel-barrow. "Of course, follow me" he said, in near-perfect English. Life is full of surprises.

To cut a long story short, he plied me with 5 shots of his homebrew schnapps, invited me to stay for dinner (which I turned down again!!) and sent me on my way with a 5 litre flagon of supermarket mineral water - "because the well water is not good to drink". I didn't bother to explain that most of it would be used for washing.

Schnapps and an overdose of fresh air is a potent mix!

The monastery - Serbia is full of them

My new-found friend had directed me to a monastery 2 km down the road where I could camp, so I took off into the dusk, weary legs but glowing with alcohol. Picking up the monastery sign in my headlight I turned off down a VERY steep hair-pinned track. The monastery, not a ruin as I presumed, nestled in a small valley. Barking dogs announced my arrival. A Lady Guinevere-type appeared at an upstairs window. Here goes, confidently - in English again, "Excuse me, but a gentleman down the road said I would be able to camp here tonight"......

And a reply in plain English........"I'm sorry I can't help you". Sod it!
The climb back up that hill was one of the toughest of the trip, the bike wobbly, top heavy with water. If I lost my balance and stopped I would never get going again. I'm not sure whether the alcohol was a help or a hindrance. I camped in the forest right opposite the sign.

The next morning, while admiring the beauty of the national park, of which I appear to be the sole occupant, I find I'm off course on the GPS. "Funny, I didn't see any junction". Back-tracking 2km I find that the GPS wants to take me off-road on a dirt track more suited to a mountain bike.

National Park

I'm guessing this was a fitness trail through the woods

Rougher and steeper than it looks, it was shake, rattle and roll downhill for about 2 km

Hospitality in Serbia - 2

I stop in a cafe for a coffee. When I get up to leave and pay the barman tells me that the guys on the next table (who I didn't speak to and have already left) have paid for it.

The weather turns cold again..........I press on into the dark to reach a medium- sized town in the expectation of finding a hotel. I waste an hour looking; the only one was closed. I pass a closed army barracks full of tanks during my search. As I top up with supplies for a nights camping I chat with a young woman shop assistant, keen to practice her English. I mention the deserted army base and she sadly "Yes, that's all that's left".

Time to pack away. I've stoped on the outskirts of town, sheltered from the bitter NW wind by a derelict house.

Hospitality in Serbia - 3

I'm standing outside a bakery munching a pasty when Goran (in white) beckons me into a cosy wooden hut with not much else inside it except a woodstove, a table, benches........and a bottle of his homebrew plum 'schnapps'. It's very warm in there. He has a farm, owns the supermarket; and is very proud that he exports plums to Germany. Serbia is famous for its plums and their prunes are superb. Goran is an excellent host and warms my pasty on top of the woodstove. I don't want to leave.

This stuff blows your socks off! Good medecine too!

Headwinds:I always thought my bike had a large frontal area..............

 Footnote to the above:  Leaving Belgrade I was bending down and twisting to get my rain pants on over my boots when my back seized up. A trapped nerve, whatever, it hurt. I needed to find a high curb to get my leg over the crossbar. This has been a bit of a worry in case the muscles lock up completely. I've been dosed up on ibuprofen ever since. The only time I felt total relief was on leaving that wooden hut. Unfortunately the lower back pain has returned.

until I spotted this..........

It seems whoever owned it was on a plastic recycling mission; plenty to go at along these roads

I finaly set up camp in the daylight; next to a rural railway station. Bizarrely, there is a radio stuffed under the eaves that plays a local station 24/7. I also have the luxury of a vintage outside hole-in-the-ground dunny.

It's so cold and windy in the morning I take over the waiting room for breakfast

.......and make a mental note of which trains carry bikes

I'm having a miserable day in the rain when this sign emerges out of the mist like a dream...........I'm going for it!
I'm on a main route for Turkish trucks heading in to the Balkans and all the cafes cater for them.

 In the rain I spot 3 touring bikes coming towards me. They are German, one guy and two women. and they are on there way back to Germany from Iran. They've been on the road for 12 months and they and their gear look pretty travel-weary. I felt like a novice.

Bulgaria

Another frontier - Serbia to Bulgaria

The signs are I'm getting closer

Rain is catching me up.........although I've got a headwind?

And now it overtakes me........but happily the wind switches  around

Life in the slow lane: I'm surprised by what the wheel nuts of a truck can do

Cheerful to be nearing Sofia - and getting dry again

Possibly the worst pavements and drains in Europe. 50% of the drain covers were missing and the remainder were set deep in the tarmac - mostly blocked and hidden by huge brown puddles. Hazardous!!

Day 41 Tue 12th March 80km Osijek into Serbia

 I am riding along on a minor road on the approach to Vukovar and when suddenly I notice the houses on either side of the road are all pock-marked by shrapnel and small arms fire. Some have been patched up, some have only been re-glazed. I remember the monstrous TV images of that war and I feel numb as I slowly ride on, imagining what the house-to house fighting must have been like.....already 20 years or so ago now. Vukovar was the scene of a devastating 3 month siege followed by one of the worst massacres of the war when it was finally over-run by Serb forces in 1991.

 

This water tower is now kept at as a war memorial. A much better photo here

Just visited the war graves on the outskirts of Vukovar.....and feeling washed out 

I just can't get my head around how neighbours, all fellow countrymen in the former Yugoslavia, could inflict this on one another. No holding the middle ground on the road from communism to nationalism.
To an outsider everything appears 'normalised' now, although the experience must be raw to so many.
I'm suddenly an EU convert, only because I optimistically believe that jointly it's members  have enough political and economic clout to curb any warmongering ideas of an individual member state...........hopefully.

A pyrrhic victory for Serbia 

Day 40 - Mon 11th March Virovitica to Osijek 124 km

Last night I pulled off along way down a farm track to camp (but still not out of dog hearing range). When I got up in the morning I discovered I'd camped right next to a cemetery. They don't seem to bother enclosing them in these parts and are often in the middle of nowhere.

I also had a new hazard on the road, thick freezing fog. I set about making myself and bike as hi-viz as possible.

I had set myself a target of reaching Belgrade midday on the 13th March so I needed to get some distance in today.

I enter the flat flood plain of the winding River Drava, which is the 4th largest tributary of the mighty Danube and here forms the border between Hungary and Croatia. It's like the fens in East Anglia, dark peaty soil and not a tree to be seen for miles. The fog lifts and I just put my head down and pedal.

Time passes slowly in this landscape

At least the traffic's not to bad

Rest days in Ljubjlana

Note: This post is out of order but I don't know how to fix it. I've basically rested. It's been raining so haven't been tempted to go sightseeing really. Technical bit - not offended if you skip this ; )

I looked at the bike charging system. The power regulator had blown up, probably due to water getting into the box (which had no seal). The regulator was shorting out the generator so the front light wouldn't work and had also damaged the battery pack. Since removing the regulator I now have a working generator and light. I spotted a 8500mAh Power Bank battery for sale on a Slovenian version of ebay which will keep all my gizmos topped up in between stops.. The seller lived in Ljubljana. I enlisted the help of Kaja on the front desk and she phoned the seller and he was round the hostel within 30 minutes - deal done.

This is the 3rd tour this system has been used on so it's not new but I'm disappointed that the regulator was not built to be weatherproof. I might post this to the company that sells them.



My route to Belgrade is here