Romania, Bulgaria, Romania, Bulgaria and Romania: “When I’m 64” days 34 -39

With the sweet cakes we purchased in Brasov through a glass window cubby-hole , we were safe in the knowledge we had a bit of padkos (road food). 

An early start led us away in glorious sunshine down a 2 lane highway with hard shoulders, where alarmingly all 4 lanes were used. This highway soon gave way to a ‘bucking-bronco’ back road, which is not so comfortable but far more interesting. The ladies in the towns wore full length traditional swishy-swirling skirts and scarves, not for the tourist, just their normal day wear. It was like riding backwards through 100years. The fields are full of labourers wielding their scythes, and horses and carts carrying mountains of hay. Looking to the other side of the road we see a different timeline where there are fields and fields of oil derricks. The road takes us through villages and we note that the houses are fenced in with high corrugated iron fences, with beautifully carved wooden gates and arches. Outside each house there is a bench, mostly occupied by elderly people, watching the world go by. There is usually a working water well with chain and bucket alongside.  We assume there is no water mains only well-water. We stop at a bus shelter for shade and lunch and chat to a waiting passenger. This delightful Romanian girl of about 25years spoke at least 6 languages and had come home to be with her new baby and parents, while her husband stayed in Paris to earn a living.  It’s a poor part of Romania, despite the oil industry.
The country side soon gives way to delicious smelling and stunningly bright purple lavender fields.

Romania is part of the EU, uses the Leu as their currency, with an exchange rate of 4.6 leu to 1 euro. We are averaging at this point about 250kms per day, with fuel costing 8-10 euros. The camping is about 10 euros and food about 10 euros, we are well within our budget, which we have set at max 50 euros per day.  We can afford the 2 euro ferry across to the Danube Delta, and to our surprise and mild panic don’t land up in the Ukraine, but dock on the Romanian side. Ahead of our budget, we agree to splash out on the 50 euro charge for a personalised river ride in the morning. We find Captain Dan and his charming family- run campsite, pitch tent and after a mosquito bitten evening stroll cuddle up and sleep early, because it’s a 5.30 am start. We creep out of our tent so as not to disturb the other campers of which the lovely French couple from Poitiers in their amazing Mercedes4x4 super-duper G-class all singing dancing, bells and whistles, with a custom body, Paris-Dakar dessert touring overlander modifications, lent us their binoculars. We had been advised to dress very warmly and quite right too, it was chilly on the water as we watched the sun rise. We have a magical 3 hours on the Delta in a little boat with Dan, he speaks no English, and we speak no Romanian. It’s just a map, pointing, silence and the wildlife. Let the photos do the talking.

We return by 9am and creep back into the tent to carry on sleeping. “Was that a dream? Or did we just go on the Delta?” We ask ourselves when we emerge refreshed at noon. We have a jolly evening with our new French friends around a fire and sizzling sausages. That night brings huge rumblings, cracking thunder and blitzing lightening, but the rain passed over. We plan a route to Constanta along the western edge of the Black Sea, then inland again  so that we can tick the capital Bucharest off our list. The sandy cliffs are full of holes and we watch multi-coloured Bee-Eaters dart in and out, impossible to capture on camera so there are a lot of photos of holes. We feel fulfilled with our wildlife stopover and use up the last of our Leu on a huge mixed grill for two, 11 euros.

Still in Romania, we get to the Black Sea, ride through Constanta and it is decidedly Soviet-era like. Grey. The harbour was littered with rusty horrible bits of iron, AKA Soviet war ships. The 1^st campsite is so steep not even a 4 x 4 could make it , the grass was overgrown and brambling, and the old furniture around the reception was a bit- off-putting. No thanks. The 2^nd campsite was also past its sell-by-date and greeting by a ferocious horse-sized dog barking and straining at the chain ready to gobble visitors up was a bit off-putting. No thanks. Riding South down the edge of the Black Sea we stop for fuel and ask about camping.

“Only in Bulgaria” is the reply. So we cross the border, ride on to Varna and another 50kms more to a place called Kamchia. An odd bygone era regulatory campsite on the Black Sea, with magnificent Leisure facilities for organised School trips but not sure about ‘Free-Lance’ campers. As the rain comes down we drive up into an abandoned site full of little turquoise cabins. A friendly man nods, closes the gate and, “yes, we can camp. Here is the key to one of the cabins to use the shower and toilet.  5 euros please”. We don’t see him again. We leave the key in the door when we ride off in the morning.  We get badly bitten around our ankles by invisible sand fleas and the storm crescendo’d with the tarp poles falling down in the middle of the night. As we are the only campers it didn’t matter that B lashed the ropes down to the ground and made us safe again in his birthday suit. At least there were no wet clothes to dry. It was our most dramatic, ghostly weird sort of camping place.

We take the highway North West up to Bucharest, still on the Bulgarian side until we get toTatakran where the border ferry is no longer running and ride along the Danube River/border to Ruse.

Crossing back into Romania, it’s a short ride into the Capital Bucharest, where very conveniently there is a city-centre luxurious campsite and we catch up with Dutch friends we met at Captain Dan. They had all driven directly to Bucharest in their campervans; we took the Round Way round. There was a lovely assortment of travellers and included a chap from Korea, on his way home from London on a Honda XR 250 cc , a UK couple from Whitby on a BMW 1200,

and a flamboyant Italian with a Colombian gap-year student in their campervan. What a jolly bunch.
 Our next destination is Belgrade, Capital of Serbia. We set the GPS and after riding around Bucharest, stopping for lunch at a café, where the bike gets photographed by a passing journalist, we seek out the infamous palace of a thousand rooms. And there the bike stops. No go. I try and push the bike. Because the bike is a big single cylinder bike, it is not easy to push start, in fact almost impossible for a nearly 64yrs, 64kgs girl! Normal push- starting can be successful in 2^nd gear, downhill, but as we are

on the level, B chose 3^rd , which means the engine can turn over without locking the back wheel, needing more speed. Help arrived in the form of a hefty young chap and it got fired up after a few metres. With engine running we searched for the nearest BMW dealer, fortunately only 4 kms away down the highway, back past the campsite! We keep missing the off ramp due to roadworks and crossroads, etc and 21kms later we park up outside BMW Service centre.

 They took the bike in for a Diagnostics Test, even though we told them it was the battery. After two hours and a bit of nagging at reception they told us that it was the battery and we need to buy a new one.  But they did not have one in stock; it would take a week to arrive. B threw a wobbly, explaining that this was not the service he expected from BMW and he expected them to do something better, “Even if they had to take a battery out of a bike in the showroom”. They suddenly found a battery, but when he removed the old battery, he discovered that it was dry, devoid of liquid. The situation then developed that B asked for distilled water, of which they had none. Another wobbly was thrown. Somebody leapt on a spare bike and rushed off to buy one from somewhere. B filled the old battery with distilled water, re-connected all the bits and pieces and bingo, the bike fired up first time.
At the Friday afternoon end- of-week-coffee-bar-smoke-filled –counter-team-brief, B had a few strong words to say to the BMW Bucharest Manager before we waved ourselves away with a cheery good-bye. Its 18h30 and we are 4 kms from the previous night’s campsite.  A straight road south to another town named after Alexandra the Great, Alexandria, seems more appealing, so even in the face of very dark clouds we chance the 100kms and head off south west.

Fortunately being almost mid-summer, 16^th June, the days are just about at their longest and the light is good until beyond 22h30. We find a dodgy hotel in town, which we reject as there is only outside bike parking and then find a charming country hotel where the bike is securely locked in the maintenance man/security guard storeroom, up a ramp and under lock and key. B can sleep easy now. We had used up our last remaining leu for lunch on the Black Sea mixed grill, but handy Credit Card saved the day.

The radar shows a big purple band of destruction moving from west to east right where we are, but luckily the morning started clear and sunny until 11 am. We rode past a dry sandy ploughed field, where a large black piggy was clearly enjoying the warmth and was leaping and running with gay abandon. Perhaps he had just escaped the butcher?

 We cross out of Bulgaria, over the bridge into Romania, again, and find a hotel in Vidin as the rain comes down.

Tomorrow is my 64^th birthday.