BULGARIA RIDE – CLIMB TO THE FAIRYTALE LAND OF THE HIGH BALKANS
Threatening clouds but no rain as we climb into the High Balkans.
Breakfast was delayed by feverish sorting and packing. For the next three days we’d be in the High Balkans where we’d stay in ‘huts’ – hostels accessible only by hiking, horseback, or (if you were the hut keeper) 4-wheel drive over very rough logging roads. There were six client riders, our tour guide, the mountain guide, and nine horses. All our gear was meant to travel on the pack frame of a single horse. Sadly, the previous day’s 7-hour ride with an empty pack frame had left Lisko with a nasty sore on his belly. We clients had huddled and agreed that putting the pack frame back on the poor beast was unthinkable; all our gear would either have to be carried on our own backs or tied to our saddles. But what to bring? Snacks, rain gear, shower shoes, power banks – these made the cut. Books, multiple changes of clothes, anything but the most essential toiletries – these did not.
Collecting at the outdoor dining table in the guesthouse garden, we looked at the fog hugging the flanks of the mountains. It’d be a cold, sunless climb done quickly in hopes of beating the expected rain to the first hut. Things were getting real.
When through a series of translations, we told our mountain guide the decision we’d made regarding the bags, he looked at us with a mix of bewilderment and gratitude. Clearly, he’d been ready to put the pack frame back on his sore horse. But, he was clearly relieved this group of crazy women was insisting he not.
Over the past days, he’d seen our eyes brim with tears as he hobbled our horses. He’d watched us come down from the saddle to lead our horses up and down particularly steep or rocky parts of the trail. It was obvious he thought we were daft, but curry combs had suddenly appeared and he’d joined us in filling our saddle bags with fallen fruit to feed to the horses.
Now, our meager baggage sorted, we climbed steeply into ancient forest. The guide signaled we should be quiet and we heard the bugling of red deer in rut. Occasionally, we’d spot the stags moving through the oak trees, their massive antlers like the branches among which they browsed.
Found this when I snuck off into the woods to pee. Little creepy.
After hours in the shadows, a nice canter across an alpine meadow brought us above the tree line. Clouds still enveloped us, but the rain thankfully was holding off.
W traversed the rocky slope and I marveled at the skill with which Whiskey and the other little horses negotiated the terrain. Winding between clumps of low, alpine brush; like mountain goats, they’d occasionally clamber over boulders too large to circumnavigate.
Welcoming committee at our first ‘hut.’
After hours in and out the saddle, we finally turned onto a faint trail that led us down again to the tree line We were welcomed by the homey clang of cow bells and the ‘hut’ that appeared in the mist looked like a 4-star resort. The hut-keeper -- a handsome older man in soccer shorts and a tee-shirt -- beckoned to us from the veranda. “Chai (tea), Pivo (beer),” called out this benevolent overlord of the tundra.
Sophie, Jackie and I dropped our gear in monasticly-simple rooms then ventured out for a little hike before dinner. As we walked among the ancient beech trees, wild horses appeared in the mist. We held silent watched as they approached us then moved up the slope. We watched in silence as they slipped away then walked back to the inn
Gate 53A may have been a portal to another realm, but apparently somewhere during today’s rough ride I’d passed through the wardrobe into Narnia.
Wild horses in the beech forests hugging the sides of a high valley.