Immediately following the end of the 2011-2012 school year in June, two of my best stateside friends flew to Romania for a visit, Jen from San Diego and Luke from Boston. On our agenda were the usual Romanian tourist destinations; Centrul Vechi in Bucharest, Piața Sfatului and Biserica Neagra in Brașov, the Mathias Rex statue in Cluj, and of course Nicu’s wine cellar in my village, Valea Călugărească. However, one major detour on this particular visit would take us out of Romania altogether to its southern neighbor, Bulgaria. As it so happens, Jen has a coworker whose family owns a hotel in the small Black Sea coastal town of Sozopol (Созопол). With an open invitation to visit, Bulgarian hospitality proved to be as generous as that which I have experienced in Romania. So, with a free place to stay and the nagging reality that none of us would likely be in a position to visit Bulgaria again, we booked the rental car and began learning Cyrillic.
Early on the morning of Tuesday, June 26th, we picked up our Sixt rental car in the luxurious lobby of the JW Marriot Bucharest Grand Hotel, resting comfortably in the shadow of the communist era Palace of the Parliament. Aside from the obviously good company, an added benefit to having friends visit from the States is the US dollars they bring with them; understandably, I never would have been able to afford a rental car on my monthly Peace Corps stipend. And without that rental car we never would have been able to make such a trip to the Bulgarian coast in the limited amount of time we had. With the paperwork signed we jumped into our chariot for the week, a brand new Opel Insignia stick shift. Luckily for us, Jen was all about driving, especially seeing as how Luke doesn’t know how to drive a manual transmission and how as a matter of policy I, as a Volunteer, am not permitted to drive anything with pistons in any country in which Peace Corps operates. The drive from Bucharest to Sozopol via the border town of Giurgiu/Ruse and then Shumen takes about six hours according to Google Maps. However there are two things that the geniuses at Google didn’t take into account, our uncanny ability to get lost in a country where we don’t speak the language and the terrible Bulgarian stretch of road from Shumen to Sozopol.
Needless to say, the first time estimate would turn out to be much longer. Regardless, we had a surprisingly good time, propelled by the initial excitement of a road trip, we were undaunted by the funny looking “letters” on street signs or later, the bumps in the road. More than bumps, these were cavernous potholes of corrupt road construction that could seemingly swallow a whole VW Bug without compromise. Unforgivingly, our “luxury” sedan, built with a go-kart’s suspension, trumpeted each pebble of the graveled road through our spinal cords to our chattering teeth. Fortunately, though, on the former point of language, Luke has an amazing penchant for foreign tongues and was able to teach himself the Cyrillic alphabet while we were in route. Although this doesn’t mean that we could actually read and understand anything, we were at least able to make sense of the street signs and compare them against the worthless map provided by our guidebook. With little to no Romanian printed anywhere and absolutely zero English, Luke’s talent came in quite handy as he gamified this part of our trip and saved us from extending the already long day, let alone from loosing our sanity.
Bulgaria itself was a stark mix of amazing beauty and surprising squalor. Even as we crossed the 1950s Danube Bridge from Romania into Bulgaria, an ominous sense surrounded us as we traversed the foreboding steel truss structure in the shadow of a thick grey sky. The border guards were no more welcoming, perceptibly bothered by our existence on this planet. Thankfully the weather improved and the decrepit communist era bloc apartments along the border ultimately gave way to serene countryside with seemingly endless seas of vibrant bright yellow sunflowers, undoubtedly visible from the International Space Station orbiting high above. Thoroughly rewarded after our long bumpy day of travel the diverse Bulgarian terrain opened up onto the Black Sea as we reached Burgas, just a few kilometers north of our destination. With the crystal blue water calling to us like the sirens of Greek mythology, we finished the final stretch of road and pulled into the resort town of Sozopol. With a few hours of daylight left we found the Hotel Verona, made our acquaintances with Jen’s friend’s family, dropped our things and went exploring through the historic center of town. We couldn’t think of a better way to get to know historic Sozopol than by bar hopping thru it. So it was that we sipped our way along the steep cliff faces, from one terraced restaurant to the next, over looking the foamy waves crashing on the boulder laced beach below, with just the right mix of a strong but pleasant breeze and sunshine washing over us. Unbeknownst to me, the Bulgarian people shake their heads side to side to indicate “yes” and up and down to mean “no,” which, perhaps fortunately, translated into an extra beer or two when really we were ready for the check.
We started off the next day with a brisk hike down and back along the coast, commenting on the 80s art deco hotels and the newly built modern condominiums. Plenty of construction was underway and even the older buildings were still in good repair; the town as a whole was under good upkeep. Once we got the blood flowing it was time to walk through the market where we enjoyed a couple rounds of Nescafe cappuccinos, shopped for souvenirs and then tried some whole, bite-size, street cart seafood. I found the creamy cappuccinos much more enjoyable than the bone crunching fish; Luke and Jen, however, might disagree. With this being our only full day in Sozopol we thought it appropriate to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach. So, after procuring a couple of beach towels from a local vendor we grabbed our books, and a couple cans of Bulgarian Wymehcko and set out for some sun. The beach was great, well taken care of, generally clean and not particularly over crowded. Though fair warning, it’s better to avert your eyes and to save yourself the unpleasant shock of when physically degraded nudists wander across your once pristine view of the ocean. Once we had our fill of sun, sand, and waves we made our way back into town, got cleaned up and headed out for dinner and drinks. The evening weather was close to perfect and almost made me forget the fact that we had to hit the road again the next day.
Our third and final day in Bulgaria was more of the same from the first day; long stretches of open road through the Balkans. This time we opted to bypass the hellaciously bad route from Burgas to Shumen and to head north through Varna. Coincidentally, Luke also has a coworker from Bulgaria, whose hometown of Kavarna was on our way back up along the coast to Romania, so we stopped off there for lunch and a photo-op.
This all too short detour the three of us made to Bulgaria could only have been better if we’d had a few more days to visit. It was an interesting opportunity for me to see Romania’s neighbor to the south and to compare the two former communist countries. It was also interesting to, again, be in a place where I’m more or less helpless for lack of understanding the local language, but where I can continue to rely on the friendliness and hospitality of others. We were able to try new foods, drink new beers, and explore a different culture. In the end it was sad to leave Bulgaria so quickly after arriving, but I was happy to have spent my short time there with two good friends.
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