Bomb threats in Bulgaria

Overnight trains are rarely any fun. Unlike buses where you can be confident of the security of your possessions in the luggage underbelly, the train offers no such security. Moreover, it is inevitably the case that as soon as you begin to get comfortable and doze fitfully off, you hit a border and have to hand your passport to an impatient customs official. But overnight transport offers any stingy traveler the chance to save on a night’s accommodation, and so it was inevitable that this would be the means for the Potato and I to travel from Bucharest to Veliko Tarnovo.

Greasy and exhausted, we arrived at a deserted train station in the wee hours of the morn. There were no taxis outside and the free taxi call stand, when I attempted to function it, spouted only terse Bulgarian before hanging up. The Potato had more luck, and we had a taxi en route soon enough.

Forting with Potato Mike

It is not a good start to your stay at a hostel when the person manning the front desk is unaware that you are arriving. Particularly when you are arriving at 5am in the morning. After we woke him up by calling from a payphone at the train station to give him a small heads up and taxi’d over, we were lucky that he was kind enough to allow us to go and crash in the room, despite check-in being at midday. Less kind were his recommendations for the evening.

Having been informed that Monday is student night, the Potato and I fortified ourselves appropriately with a 4 euro bottle of vodka as the other denizens of the hostel looked on with barely concealed distaste. This might also have been due to the fact that at the free hostel dinner the Potato and I had quietly removed ourselves due to the tediousness of their conversation with our own barely concealed distaste. 

The view from Arbanasi (Yes, I just learned how to panorama)

With high hopes of excitement and boozy festivities, we began the 10 minute walk into town, at each turn reassuring each other we were bound to see people soon, after all, it was student night. We eventually made it to the club we’d been told was the best, Spider Club, but a cursory examination revealed it to be closed. We were directed across the street, where the bouncer greeted us by asking, “Why don’t you speak Bulgarian?” before ushering us in.

I had hoped that now, out of the Balkans, the clubs would no longer be of the Balkan style, with people clustered around tables and not really moving from them as they drank and danced with their pre-assembled crew. Sadly, I was wrong.

Potato Mike eyeing 2/3 of our lunch

Our time here was also quite surreal, as at some preordained moment out of nowhere the DJ randomly cranking the beats up to ear-shattering and scantily clad serving women started dancing in front of him, while those patrons around their tables started getting down. At one stage, every bartender stood on the bar and started throwing shredded toilet paper into the air, much to the delight of all. Throughout this, the Potato and I, sitting at the bar and the only two in the place drinking beer, gazed incredulously at each other periodically.

An intriguing eventide experience, the day had started in more standard eastern European style: with a fort. Not just any fort, however, as the fort at Velicko Tarnovo is pretty imposing and well preserved, and given the splendidness of the day it was a pleasure to scale it and eat peanuts as we enjoyed the panorama.

Exploring abandoned factories

Afterwards we sauntered to a strange sort of viewing platform on the edge of a promontory around which winds a river on which is a large obelisk surrounded by four horsemen. Curious, to be sure.

The next day Aaron arrived to join us, and as he slept the Potato and I went on a hike to Arbanasi, via an abandoned factory. The abandoned factory was at the bottom of the hill from Veliko Tarnovo and had evidently been home to more than a few itinerants, but also had some cool graffiti as well as relics from a communist time past. 

Preparing the barbeque

Slightly hung over, the hike was rough and sweaty, but the view from the top worthy of our efforts.

We celebrated that night by having a barbeque, grilling every vegetable they sold at the supermarket, along with some stuffed peppers, mystery sausage and pork chops. Some local Bulgarians appeared at our barbeque, obviously realising that this was where the party was at, and decided to hunker down and join us. Eventually they had to go, but invited us out afterwards with them.

Stone forest

Apparently tonight was really student night, so we again headed to Spider Club in the hope of a rollicking good time. Yet this time as we got there, everyone began departing en masse as there had been a bomb threat called in. So we retired to a proximal bar to continue drinking with our local friends in a not entirely unfortunate twist of events.

Aaron and I killed another day in Veliko Tarnovo moseying around and cooking shakshuka before heading to Varna where the Potato had headed 24 hours earlier.

The hostel here was pretty cool, run by a guy with a penchant for music and animals such that every night he’d head off to a different gig, and during the day a rabbit could be seen on the couches, eating and pooing, fish swimming in various tanks, and the dog Ziggy roaming around.

Watch out.

 There was also a restaurant under the hostel that catered for those who ran it and the guests where you could sample the owner’s dad’s rakia, and eat for cheap—provided you liked meat. Aaron had some difficulty ordering here on their stripped down menu, ending up repeatedly eating Bulgarian salad (a Greek salad with Bulgarian fetta instead of Greek fetta), fried cheese and soup, while Potato Mike and I could enjoy any number of meaty dishes including porky stews and grilled duck hearts.

Aaron and the bunny

We rented bikes to go and see the stone forest on a whim, the 40km cycle along highways quite exhausting when done on pretty useless bikes that were undersized and didn’t hit half of their gears. Thankfully the forest itself was pretty cool, and worth the effort.

More stone forest

 But really Bulgaria was a stepping stone, a portal on the same cross country pilgrimage so many travellers I have run into have been following, the path to Constantinople. So we boarded the bus at long last from Varna to Istanbul—which, it should be noted, in contrast to Balkan buses was of Sybaritic delight—with lofty dreams and fancy notions, braced for some wonderment and awe.

Hostel cookery at its finest