In which Sid and Doris find a useful mile post and an emergency landing strip.
Today had its surprises though we had mostly seen the trip to Elhovo as just a way of breaking the journey in a town with a hotel and on quiet roads. Our distance today was 80 kilometres and 705 metres of climb. Sid wonders if we are more worn out than run in. In the last couple of days Sid has been dosed with both Paracetemol and Imodium. Miftah Bat thinks it very paradoxical that Sid is still going. Hee, hee, hee.
Our hotel was a non-breakfast place so we were back to the row of cafes. The deal here is you can buy the bakery goods and eat them at the cafe. We thought we had ordered coffee with hot milk. What we got was a mystery brown drink as explained on the glass [sorry I couldn’t get the contrast up to show the detail, but rest assured it says “Mystery Drinks” on the outside – Doris. Oh and I have also included the charming custom of Coffee Fortune Cookies that we have found round here, you get a little cylinder of paper with words like Love, Joy, Money, Prosperity.]
As we sat there we saw the signpost, showing London 2205 kilometres away (as the Bat flies – closer to 3000 for us) and Istanbul at 293. How did they know they were on The Sid and Doris Route?
Then it was out into the devastated villages. At Omarchevo our newly sensitive antennae (assisted afterwards by Google Translate for the green sign over the firmly-closed metal door) picked out a grocery shop at one end of an otherwise derelict building. But they had built a sweet little bandstand to sit with a drink and a fag. The nearby square with heroic monuments, dry fountain and benches was abandoned as too far from the Beer shop.
At Meshda we paused at a junction to check the route, to be asked by a Bulgarian in a Mk1 Golf for the route to Yambol. We were overheard by Sparky, an English lad whose parents have retired here, staying here while he gets himself fit enough to go back into the Marines. Apparently there is a bit of an English colony in Elhovo.
He told us to look out for the old runway built into the road down at Tundzha. And for the plane lover(s) here it is, four generous lanes wide with big hard shoulders and maybe three kilometres long, plus of course the normal road straight on at each end. You could probably get an Antonov off in that distance, in fact that is probably how the length of the tarmac was calculated.
Not much further we came across a concrete Henge which we think may be the remnants of a military ordnance depot with some underground elements. There are still a lot of army surplus trucks about, whether Soviet or Bulgarian we don’t know. This area was the most militarised, being close to the Turkey and NATO border.
We truly are in Bulgaria Profonde and here is the Troupeau du Jour. Goats this time.
The last miles into Elhovo seemed hard work despite a Fanta and ice cream stop. But from Sparky we had word of Mel’s English Supermarket which drove Sid on with fantasies of marmalade. Doris called the shop.
Actually they were closed but in looking for it in town we saw a better hotel than the Thracian Thrash (Darkness On The Edge Of Town) that we had booked. Wily Sid suggested we re-book and a few minutes of Doris work later we were in a modern hotel on the town square (with this Cadillac parked outside). Good swap, as moments later one of the forecast showers was tipping down.
Doris had asked Mel where to eat in Elhovo, so now we are in The Barrel (or Cask?). You can tell the English eat here. There is beef steak (the rest of the country is pork or chicken) and a curry on the menu. There is also Doris’ hamburger as you can see. We asked for a mixed salad, having groan bored of cucumber and tomato at every meal, we avoided the ubiquitous “salad shopska” which is cucumber and tomato with grated soft cheese on top and a token olive, so we got this instead. There may be steak on the menu. Being asked how I wanted it cooked was taken as a very good sign. OK, it was beef. Steak is not the same. The peppercorn sauce owed much to Bulgarian Bisto. Why are there not Bulgarian restaurants around the world? [Why are there not Indian and Chinese restaurants in small-town Bulgaria? because determined and hard-working migrants can find more profitable places to go… D]
This is our last night in Bulgaria. Tomorrow we go down to the Lesovo / Hamzabeyli border crossing but are unsure how much truck company we will have, though tomorrow is a Saturday. The phrase ‘We are where we are’ seems apposite. Once over the Turkish border we have some choices that could be more traffic free. Mezes, eh?
PS Sid says: Man with Captain Hyper Bar in luggage has no need of mechanical help:
Love the Cadillac's plate