Hey friends, I jumped back on the road last week after an early goodbye to Rodo. I took a minibus to Veliko Turnovo, then boarded a slightly bigger bus en route to Plovdiv. The bus ride was long- about four and a half hours, but bearable. For some reason I was craving a Snickers bar before I got on the bus. I stopped by a snack window, looked at my options, and decided to go for something more local- a MOPEHU bar, which had the necessary peanut and chocolate requirement. So that was my breakfast.
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| Quick stop on the way to Stara Zagora |
Halfway to Plovdiv I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me (neither of us spoke Bulgarian and had no idea if we were supposed to stay on the bus during a stop in Stara Zagora). He spoke okay English, but was from Venezuela, so I attempted to dust off my high school Spanish to converse with him. Turns out he’s an acrobat and illusionist working for a Bulgarian circus, and has been working at circuses across Europe for 10 years. He spent part of the rest of the ride entertaining me with rubber band magic tricks. It was a lot of fun. He also told me to Google him, so if you're needing some YouTube entertainment you can dig around Martin Quintero's videos :)
My Couchsurfing host, Ignatius, met me at the bus station. We were about a half hour late, which didn’t bother me too much, but Ignatius remarked, “you should have hitchhiked.” I’ve never seriously considered hitchhiking during my trip, being a SFT (solo female traveler) and not knowing the language. Turns out, Ignatius hitchhikes as a hobby, so after lunch it was decided that the next day we would hitchhike to his hometown so he could go to a dentist appointment.
Ignatius is 21 and a linguistics student in Plovdiv. He spoke perfect English; I remarked that he had a trace of a Californian accent even. We spent a good amount of time talking about pronunciations and meanings of words. He's a very curious person, and every few minutes would ask a new question. It was really fun to talk to him. Ignatius is a superhost on Couchsurfing as well- an hour into meeting him he handed me a stack of pictures he had taken with all of his guests, from so many countries. It was clear that Couchsurfing was a big passion for him, so it was really cool to meet him and hear about his experiences with others.
Ignatius is 21 and a linguistics student in Plovdiv. He spoke perfect English; I remarked that he had a trace of a Californian accent even. We spent a good amount of time talking about pronunciations and meanings of words. He's a very curious person, and every few minutes would ask a new question. It was really fun to talk to him. Ignatius is a superhost on Couchsurfing as well- an hour into meeting him he handed me a stack of pictures he had taken with all of his guests, from so many countries. It was clear that Couchsurfing was a big passion for him, so it was really cool to meet him and hear about his experiences with others.
That night, we stopped by Decathlon so I could pick up some cold weather gear- a thermal undershirt, leggings, and a sweatshirt- about $16 total (have I mentioned how much I love Decathlon?). Afterwards we made pancakes using my Dad’s recipe. Ignatius was suspicious of the need for baking soda and buttermilk (which doesn’t exist in Bulgaria, I substituted with milk and lemon juice). We made the pancakes on his balcony, where his burner is (no stove in the apartment), and ate them with peanut butter and homemade plum jam. It wasn’t maple syrup, but still pretty damn good.
The next morning we woke up early and took a bus outside of the city limits, near the highway. We walked about 15 minutes until we got to a good spot, where a car could pull over. Three minutes later, a red van pulled up, and we were on our way. I wasn’t sure what they were saying, but when the guy pulled over again at an onramp I knew that this wasn’t going to be a piece of cake. Ignatius’s hometown, Haskovo, is not a straight shot from Plovdiv, so we were bound to be taking multiple cars. We were dropped off at a slightly confusing intersection, but still had space for a car to pull over, so we continued to stick out our thumbs at all who passed by...and continued to pass by. Ignatius considered this to take way too long. Cars continued to pass. I tried smiling a few times to show that yes, we’re friendly hitchhikers! but to no avail. At one point a shepherd started guiding his sheep across the exit ramp. I believe that this point Ignatius remarked, “that is so Balkan.” I made sure to snap a picture.
After a good hour of hanging out on the side of the road, we were picked up by two guys in military camo and were driven to another exit ramp, where after only a few minutes we were picked up again. We finally made it to the outskirts of Haskovo, and ended up taking a city bus into the center. It was quite the adventure, and I didn’t mind all the waiting, as it was my first time trying this out. I can’t say I’ll ever hitchhike alone, but it was fun to do it with an expert!
The rest of my time in Plovdiv was well spent. Ignatius took me to a Couchsurfing meetup to hang out with some other Bulgarians. The next day, we went to Aysenograd to visit a fortress. We walked up the mountain to where the fortress and old church stood. It was a pretty great view.
Later that day I wandered through Plovdiv’s old town to take in the tourist sights, including the ancient Roman theater, which was excavated in 1970s after a landslide uncovered some of the pieces. They did their best to put it back together, and it’s now considered one of the best preserved ancient theaters in the world.
The next morning, I woke up to catch my train, a trip I was very much looking forward to, and which I’ll talk about in my next post!
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