Day 40 Mihaylovo to Pleven

In which Sid and Doris find nodding donkeys, some beasts which might be water buffalo, and unselfconscious folk dancing.

Day 40. We would be half way around the world with Phileas Fogg but we have managed more than 1/8th around the world as we are now at 24 degrees East. Part of that comes from today’s 98 kilometres and 673 metres of climb in about 35’C. This has been a passage making day using bigger roads lightly trafficked because it is Sunday.

This morning started with a full Scottish breakfast and hot tea. Bulgarians are afraid of hot drinks so this was very welcome.

Despite this excellent omen it would have taken the expertise of Sir Roderick Glossop to deal with Doris who had a funny turn and was grumpy until lunch time. There is more to this racket than just knees. Perhaps it was the sight of cheery sunflowers that improved the mood.

And we saw a stork flying. And prairie sized fields not managed by two lads with a scythe and a rake.  And the Bulgarian Oil Industry in full productive swing.

There have been some long climbs. Mostly road engineers try for a max of 1 in 10 and we did have a kilometre of just that. We are also on Fortune Tellers’ Roads. You can see the road for miles ahead and know just what your fortune holds for the next 40 minutes.

Our best bet for food here is the Mini Market (мини маркет). You can see what you are going to get and will not have to wait while someone does ‘Balkan cooking’. We get to sit on a shady bench where no one is smoking the local lung rot.  There are also Hyper Markets (cипер маркет), which are the same size as Mini Markets but maybe a bit more adventurous on their marketing.

Well before our last stop we had decided to have lollies and were vairy pleased to find Fabs, because they have sprinkles – Miftah Bat’s favourite.

On our way out of town we found a jet plane with a memorial. Who knows? We decided that we were going to stop taking/posting pictures of ratty old unexplained Cold War era planes, and then the next town we came to had a Mig21 so you haven’t got a photo of that to look at.

 

We will console you with this sighting of either a) normal cows which have chosen to coat themselves completely in grey mud in a wallowy area of their field or b) water buffalo.  We have no explanation or theory for this.

Coming into Pleven (a town of about 100,000) we used another road that has been supplanted by a motorway so were undaunted by running twelve kilometres on a dual carriageway (from which donkey carts were specifically prohibited).  All the traffic is generally very respectful of cyclists, giving us a friendly toot from a long way off, slowing down and giving us a wide berth.  All, except black Audi, VW and BMW estate/saloon cars who seem to be engaged in some sort of mission to clean up the countryside of smelly cyclists.

We are staying in the Hotel Rostov which is smart and clean, though it does have a casino. Bingo, wow.

Despite being a bit tired we went into town (after we had sorted the next couple of days’ route and stopovers).

 

We found a very engaging centre with big gardens and a paseo in full swing, dancing, a church defended with howitzers and restaurants with vitamins. Very necessary when so much of the calorie count has come from fizzy drinks, lollies and biscuits.

You may be pleased to see these two photos of spontaneous dancing to some recorded music that was playing.  In the first shot you can see everyone dancing together.  In the second shot a faster, more complex dance was played.  The agile bunch on the left of the picture are a breakaway group doing the fancy showoff steps, and the collection of older and younger people on the right are doing the Grandpa Version.

So we have a plan for crossing the the Beeg Eels. They are Beeg but we are not going to attempt them all in one day or alongside trucks. The route is based on ‘We dislike hills less than we dislike truck roads.’ That’s a bit negative but this journeying lark is not all sunflowers through here however much we look for pleasant diversion.  Let’s be more positive: we are going to enjoy the journey as well as the destination.