Devetaki

The schedule for today is a bit backwards. Instead of doing the activity for the day in the morning, J.J. has scheduled it for the afternoon. It’s a hike to a lovely waterfall. The heavy morning dew will have burned off by noon, so the footing will be better in the afternoon rather than first thing in the morning.

To fill the morning time slot, J.J. did a talk about his life growing up behind the Iron Curtain. He is a native Bulgarian, born in 1984, so his early life was spent under the Communist Regime - all that ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, although it took time for capitalism to take hold. He told of the very restrictive selection of goods, of enforced employment (location and job type), the abysmal selection and availability of cars, the indoctrination of students in school, the lack of ability to travel or relocate to another town or city, and the suppression of religion. However, everyone had a job, had housing, had medical care and had food. Many of the older generation hanker after those times now that housing and food are so very expensive. It was a very interesting and informative talk, done with tact and humour.

Krushuna Falls is a series of waterfalls in Northern Bulgaria. They are famous with their picturesque landscape and are formed by many travertines.

The bus trip, over very bumpy roads, there was over 1.25 hours. The walk to the falls and back to the bus took about 15 minutes. The falls are not the roaring torrent that they usually are due to the prolonged drought. Underwhelming would describe the whole experience. At least it was a nice, sunny day. As we have come to expect, the washrooms were entirely forgettable. I'm going to dance with joy in our bathroom when I get home. Then we did 1.25 hours back on the bus. J.J. has tried very hard to find activities around here where we have had to moor for three days, but around here there just aren't a lot of good choices.

Tonight will be packing night. Tomorrow, we cross over the river to Romania and will drive to Bucharest. We will have a bus tour of Bucharest, and then spend the night at the Marriott. We fly home on Saturday - Bucharest to Frankfurt and then to Toronto. Looking forward to getting home. It's been a busy couple of weeks.Read more