“SOUTH WESTERN BULGARIA”
(Part 02)
This is the second part of day 5 of the “The Breakdown Ride”. Чернотa and I continued following the TET further through Western Bulgaria. We passed the capital Sofia and rode right into the mountains in the South West of the Country.
If you haven’t already seen part one of this day’s ride report, you will find it here: 🏞 THE BREAKDOWN RIDE-DAY 05-Part 1
After the short break …
at a forlorn factory property along the route …
our ride went over …
a unspectacular hill chain, which was separating ….
huge …
flat farming plains. The heat this summer was intense, therefore …
some fields needed regular irrigation. Bulgaria is a poor country, with many shortcomings in public facilities. In some places, …
the lack of a proper rubbish collection service was obvious. This was the biggest rubbish dump I’ve ever ridden.
On this day, I bought me another one of this …
delicious big chocolate croissants for lunch. Due to the power of the relentless summer sun combined with airtight sealed degasing yeast pastry, the foil bag of the croissant was nearly exploding.
I was munching the sweet snack on a bench located in the village Kostenets, directly at this little fountain with a “classy eastern view” in the background, when a local dude limped along the way.
Like most of the time, the uncommon appearance of Чернотa, combined with the origin of the number plate makes people curious about me/the journey and a small talk was quickly started.
The mid-aged man told me, that he is also a motorcyclist and has ridden his Suzuki Burgman 400 (a scooter) through Bulgaria and Romania for a few months and many miles. He enjoyed this trip years ago a lot and likes it very much to remember it. Especially now, because he can’t ride any more due to a heavy hip injury. He said that I’m a very lucky guy doing such a trip during my young and healthy days, and that he is envying me and my opportunities. I told him, that I’m very thankfully too, that life is providing such possibilities for me and that it’s a pity, that many people not even recognize how lucky that they are. He agreed and added that it’s sad, that such healthy people often didn’t try to make something special out of their life given chances. Instead, they were fading in their everyday days routine. I nodded and thought a while about this wisely spoken words. The palaver went on for a few minutes and after it, well strengthened from the sweet snack, I wished the man farewell and jumped back into Чернотas saddle.
The ride went now straight into the mountains and followed for many miles …
an old tarmac road with plenty of bends, the whole way up to …
a big Water-Dam. The …
The shoreline Reservoir Belmeken and the surrounding landscape was a beauty. Ruins …
of planned Lake-Side-Hotels showed, …
that someone planned something big for this beautiful area. But like often in life: plans are just plans and well worked out undertakings develop different … . 👨🎓
Just a few kilometers further along the shoreline …
Чернотa and I’ve been on our own again. It was a very nice …
ride along the edge of the lake to the …
dam-wall on the other side. (Yes, lake Belmeken has two of them)
The area now went more remote again,
… and followed surely for about …
90ty minutes some well-built gravel tracks through …
the Bulgarian …
woods. I stopped for having a closer look into these two open tunnels, despite trotting a few steps into them, I didn’t find out their purpose.
Next to a …
soft climb along the slant of the mountain …
the terrain …
flattened out again. Small …
shacks turned into bigger …
farms and finally I reached again …
civilization in the middle of Bulgaria’s green heart. Here in the village Yakoruda I stopped at a fuel station for buying some food and also found out, that the TET route is ending in a steep dead end, right at the …
“home” of these two little boys. They tried to convince me of riding the steep rocky slope behind their house, but the washed out trail there was no option for my rookie skills, combined with the loaded 690ty. So I rode back into the core of the village and …
found another trail leading again back into the …
forest. Now, instead of gravel, the riding surface was most of the time some sort of compressed sand, which has to be ridden carefully due to some softer/deeper sandy spots along the trail.
Not far away from this abandoned cemetery, …
somewhere within the …
spectacular landscape,
a nice place for shelter was found at a clearing in the forest directly along the TET Trail. With the fading daylight, I built up the camp.
Due to the hard pulling work along the last days following the ascents and descents of TET Bulgaria, it was time …
for some chain maintenance. After that, …
it was time for dinner.
Like most of the time along my adventures and despite my basic cooking skills, I prefer most of the simple food solutions instead of long waits/searches in/for a restaurant. Simple food grabbed along the journey will refill too, the burned calories and this way also precious adventure-riding time will be saved. In my opinion, there are way better opportunities for feasting delicious meals than along a motorcycle trip with adventure in focus.
So therefor the end of this great day of adventure riding was celebrated with a simple sandwich, a delicious oat bar and a …
big bottle of Kamenitza Beer.
Whilst munching the sandwich I inwardly celebrated the secret star of my undertakings: My black dirt princess Чернотa which was escorting me back then since more than 115.000 km or more than 71.000 mi. *Cheers* 🍻
With the incoming night, I gave myself a quick wash and went into the tent. Exhausted but satisfied, I dozed away swiftly. *zzz*zzZ*ZZZ* 😴
Total riding distance of day five: 305 km or 190 mi.
This was part 5 of “The Breakdown Ride”. Part 6 will arrive soon.
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