June 19th, to 23th June 2013

Leaving Turkey and hello Bulgaria.

After saying our goodbyes to Clyde and Anna we headed north to the Bulgarian border. It was a pleasant drive through the rolling countryside and we arrived at the border optimistic about a quick check through and hoping we could be sitting in the campsite having a cool drink before too long.

How wrong we were.

After an unpleasant encounter with a Customs official, and a vehicle x-ray we finally made it out of Turkey an hour and half later, through the Bulgarian border, and headed for the nearest campsite at Sakar Hills. The first impression of driving in to the small village was one of derelict houses and potholes everywhere. We were pleasantly surprised to find the campsite well maintained, with lush grass to camp on, a clean, new facilities building and a very friendly young Englishman owner who made us welcome and gave us lots of information about this new (to us) country.

We decided to stay for a day in the campsite to do some washing and sort out some things in the camper. Being on the road, it gets very dusty and things seem to get jumbled about with the rough roads, so a regular re-sort seems to be required. Apart from a walk into the village we had a quiet day and felt ready to tackle this new territory.

Our next destination was a campsite called “Piece of Heaven winery and Camping”, this looked like a good prospect and being close to Plovdiv we thought it would be ideal for a stop which would give us a chance to visit the old town. Driving to the directions given to us by Anna we arrived in a small town and couldn’t find any sign of a campsite, driving through we drove on a bit and then turned around thinking we may have missed it on the other road. So back and through we went and finally stopped at a Petrol station, hoping to find someone who we could ask. Stopping in their car park I quickly was able to connect to their wifi and googled the campsite, found their web page and saw that we were in the right town and recognised a landmark quite close to where we were. Ewout got out and with limited understanding of English a man was able to understand what we wanted but he didn’t know of any campsite close by. When I showed him the website he got on his phone and called the number, to be told it was no longer running. I then tried googling for more campsites in the area and found none. Meanwhile the man called his daughter and as she spoke good English she asked what we wanted and then went on to explain there were no campsites close by and that we could park anywhere anyway with no problem. It was getting late by now and we were hot and bothered so we drove on through Plovdiv without caring about seeing it now and  decided we would head in the direction of another campsite by a lake and see if we could find somewhere to stay a night.

Driving along we passed a small town and on the outskirts a river with a large open flat area next to it with tracks leading down. We did a quick u-turn and went down the bumpy track and found ourselves a spot a little way up the river, far enough from the road so that the noise wouldn’t bother us. By this time it was about 7pm and it was still quite hot, the river looked cool and clean so we decided to have a swim to refresh ourselves, it was a bit tricky getting down and then out but it was wonderful to feel clean and cool again.

Our next destination we planned was Rila Monastery in the south west of Bulgaria. We have been following a blog by an English Couple, Julie and Jason who have been travelling full time in Europe for about 20 months and had noticed that they were also in Bulgaria. A couple of days earlier Ewout had sent them off a note saying we were also travelling in Bulgaria and heading in the direction towards them, saying that if they saw us to wave. We stopped for petrol and decided to check our emails with their free wifi, I noticed an email from Julie and Jason saying they had stopped for a night at a carpark to Rila Seven Lakes chairlift and that if our paths crossed could we stop for a beer? and a chat. We hadn’t yet decided where we were going to stop the night and after a bit of discussion thought that it would be a nice place to have a look at and with the option of staying the night it would suit our needs.

Driving at first on the motorway which was pretty good we left to head south on the smaller roads which got increasingly worse until we found huge gaping potholes that even the trucks coming in the opposite direction found difficult. We negotiated our way around them trying to avoid the worse ones and pulling over for the trucks when the road narrowed and by 11am we were ready to stop for a break. We found some shade under a tree by some abandoned buildings and I put the kettle on, Ewout went for a walk around the buildings and when he came back we were pondering the chance of an encounter with Julie and Jason. We were beginning to think the chance of meeting with them was pretty remote when a few minutes later a motorhome coming towards us pulled over and stopped in front. Amazing!

After a quick introduction we then went on to exchange information and stories for about an hour;  we have come to appreciate the willingness of travellers to help each other with finding safe and pleasant places to visit and stay as it is not always easy to find places to park up with such large vehicles.

After parting with Julie and Jason, we drove on to the Rila Seven lakes chairlift and found the going up to be at first quite steep and narrow, but we were rewarded with a lovely spot to stay and a very enjoyable 20 min chairlift ride up the mountain to the Alpine meadows.

We had a quiet night sleeping in the mountains after the day trippers had left and felt grateful for the others who had shared this information with us.