05-10-08
Once again it's taken me a bit of time to find my way back here & keep this blog up to scratch.
I'm actually back in NZ now, back to my normal life & it seems quite strange, as if I've never been away. Got back 3 days ago & feel like I've just slotted straight back into everyday life. Quite an odd sensation.
I'm trying to remember what happened since the last update... quite a lot & I will probably miss a lot of the detail here, but we will start with a trip down to the Rodopes which are a few hundred k's south near the Greek border.
Here's some pictures.
The photo to the far right is the main path to the house where we were staying. It was quite a hike from the car & is pretty much the norm...
This is Nickolai & his sister.Nickolai lives near Veliko Tarnovo & I drove him , his partner & daughter down to the Rodopes to stay with his sister. They put on a real feast for me. Dinner was an endless stream of home cooked cuisine from produce which is all grown on their village house / farm.
Those pancakes were divine, butter made from sheeps milk, pears, apples & preserved peaches! also if you look at the pic to the left you will see a (now empty) plate of macaroni with milk & sugar, yup that's right.
It's quite a common thing to eat here for breakfast! I s'pose it's the equivalent to porridge over here in the west. Still it was a little odd to be eating macaroni in the morning with sugar & milk.... tasted nice thou.
The veggie patch! full of cabbage & lettuce.
I just don't know how so much good food could have been prepared in such a short time for us. Dinner was casseroled lamb! amongst an abundance of other food. The cooking facilities are pretty basic, out side next to the front door was the cooking range, seemed strange but made sense, when the weather is hot you don't want a wood fired burner blazing away in the house. Dinner wont be the only thing stewing in there.
Washing facilities & toilet are very simple too, one tap inside for the kitchen & one out side for everything else... Quite funny when I went to have a bit of a wash before bed, I was keenly helped out by Nickolai's sister which was very kind of her but left me just a little uneasy as I wasn't sure exactly how far she was going to help! Needless to say I was happy to settle for a wash under the arm pits, face back & feet. It was later on through another Bulgarian friend that I found that it was the norm for someone to help with the bucket bath.
The people in the south of Bulgaria are quite different to those up where I am based. When I first entered the house Nickolais sister & another older lady were conversing to each other & Nickolai & I was thinking "Oh no! we have come at a bad time or something" because the conversation was quite aggressive & intense! I was half thinking that they were a bit crazy or something but after half an hour or so I realised that this was just normal convo going on here.
In the Rodopes are many small villages of Bulgarians of Turkish descent, & the Turks are much more vocal & can be very intense in conversation. Also the Rodopes have a large Muslim population.
This was the view out the bedroom window.
click on the images to get the full size picture, to come back to the blog click the back button.
These mounds are hay stacks, I can't figure why the cattle don't eat them! They wouldn't last a minute back in NZ.
The local sheep, waiting for their shepard to take them out to pasture.
The Rodopes would have to be my favorite part of Bulgaria, a warp back in time & mountainous landscape.
Nickolai took me to another small village where he grew up & showed me his house & we met with some of the neighbors.
Most people are elderly in the villages, I'm sure they would have some stories to tell of the past Communist era & the war. History seems to be etched into their faces & such kind & hospitable folk they are.
Above is a woman with pack horse, common sight in this area.
And on the right is Farmer Nickolai with a few of the locals.
So this is it! The Rodopes & my brief & third stay, very interesting & other worldly.
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