In which Sid and Doris meet the electric Bulgarian, see our first donkey and leave the Danube for The Highland Farm.
Sid’s day started with nameless dread. This is a non-specific fear which can come at any time to either of us, though on this occasion the fear was related to trucks. In fact over the years we have defused our episodes of Nameless Dread by calling it Fred. Fred the Dread. Sid’s mood was not really improved by our route out of Vidin running along a service road, parallel to the main road, where every factory was shut and the road surface was as seen by Mars Rover. Once on our Route 133 for the day the truck drivers were very nice and Fred went away. The mood was light.
At our first stop we met a Bulgarian who was on his way home to Kozloduy (not far from here) from Amsterdam on an electrically assisted bike, doing 200 kilometres a day – so home in 20 days. We agreed that each party has a head problem. His journey is epic.
We have had a few firsts today. The first donkey. Sid’s first sighting of a Moskwich in Bulgaria. The first squat loo. (Miftah Bat, it was too dark and niffy to wait around to take a picture.) The first horse and cart on an overpass, which was funny because we’d worried that it might not be possible even to take cycles on that overpass. As you can see there was little enough traffic that the cart driver was waving to us.
In other countries we have found water from church taps. Here in Bulgaria we’ve not seen many churches so were glad to find a roadside spring – while we were filling our water bottles, other cars came along to fill 5l water containers, presumably for home use. (Sid, find out where the churches are.)
We are passing a lot of abandoned homes and factories. Bulgaria has the fourth highest death rate per 100,000 of population in the world and about the 215th highest birth rate.
However, around here Brits are buying up farmhouses to live cheaply in the sun.
Tonight’s stopover is at The Highlanders Farm Bed and Breakfast in Mihaylovo. Our hosts are a Scottish/Australian couple (Charlie and Cat) who are making a new life here. Doris e-booked a room here but the owners wrote back hours later to say it was full. Doris called them, explained what this would mean to us in terms of plan 7(b)iii, and so they offered us a tent in the garden, which we took. They have made a lovely job of putting a little tent within a larger one to keep the mosquitoes out.
Now the other guests have arrived and offered to share one room between them. We are getting an upgrade into the house with ensuite (instead of the previously planned alternative). That is good.
This place is nowhere near a restaurant so we are being cooked for tonight. Our hosts have explained though that the village, although it seems to have no shops, changes character in the later afternoon when people put up little stalls outside their houses. But no restaurants.
We sit here looking over the kitchen garden with ducks, hens, dogs and cats. It is beyond The Good Life. Tomorrow we will be having a proper Scottish cooked breakfast. On the table now, beer and Pringles. For Sid and Doris this is the Good Life.