Today was spent mostly looking at houses in the area around Palamartsa, before taking a leisurely drive into the hills around Sliven area. We had no particular idea of where we were headed, just that we fancied seeing a bit of really remote countryside and villages, to see what life could be like far away from anything.
The highlight of the drive was the pretty hillside village of Zheravna (Българска файсбук страница) where we bought two coffees for 1 lev, about 60p and I got mistaken for a German tourist by the waitress. I was speaking Bulgarian to her, but my accent must have been so appalling that she was convinced I was German. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong, so I pretended to be German for her benefit, replying to her ‘Danke’ with a German ‘Bitte’, and saying ‘aufwiedersehen’ when we left. She seemed so pleased that she’d guessed right 🙂
We ended up high in the hills outside Rakovo, a tiny village, miles from anywhere. We made our camp at the start of a donkey track leading off across the open grassland, but decided not to pitch the tent as were worried about a massive wild dog we’d seen earlier, lolloping off across a nearby field. We sat in the car and ate a salad and drank beer as the sun went down, marvelling at the fact that we could see for miles, but there was no sign of civilisation, in any direction.
Very interesting post. Bulgaria is such a change from the UK – the antithesis, in many ways. At the moment my wife and I are still in China, but we will be returning to Bulgaria next summer. After trying to learn Mandarin, Bulgarian will be much easier! You can read about our misadventures on http://www.bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot,com