The Balkan Adventure

So, I just got back from my big adventure around Eastern Europe last week, and I had a fantastic time. There is so much about it I would love to tell, but to be honest I could never give the experience true justice writing about it on a blog. This wont surprise most of you, but I think so much of what made it such an awesome trip was all the little things that cant be explained to others. 'Had to be there,' kind of thing. That being said, I will try to explain where I went, and what I did as best I can - sort of a travelogue I guess.

I began the whole adventure with a night in Sofia with Kristen (capital of Bulgaria); going out to dinner for real American burgers (first time in 10 months!) and a movie at the theater. Then took care of some passport issues I was having (our friends at homeland security attacked my personal passport with a hole punch and now I need a new one) and boarded a bus for our first destination, Skopje, Macedonia. The bus ride was pleasant enough, but the weather outside was drenching rain. weather was not the best to us on this trip. Fortunately, by the time we arrived in Skopje it has stopped raining an warmed up. We couch surfed with some Peace Corps volunteers that lived in Skopje and they took us around the center and to some cool, hard to find, local bars. It was here in Macedonia that I decided I wanted to go on a Balkan beer tour, and try every local beer from every country that we visited (a manageable task given that these countries only have around 2 to 4 different beers in each of them, and we were gone two full weeks).

We spent the next day walking around the old town, seeing the old fortress ruins and having a traditional lunch at a small cafe in the center of town. Skopje is a real pretty town with lots of cool shops, but not all that many big things to see. It was nice and relaxing though, and we had plenty of time to see everything that we wanted to. We made it out to the bus station just as the weather turned nasty again, and boarded our night bus out to Tirana, Albania. I did discovered that Bulgarian is actually a very useful language all over the Balkans. It is very similar to both Macedonian and Serbian, and got us through most of the countries that we saw. It also enabled us to read the bus schedule that was written only in Cyrillic. This trip would be a bit more difficult for someone that couldn't read it.

Turns out though, that our night bus stopped first in Durres, that town that we were actually trying to get to. Unfortunately, it stopped there around 4 in the morning, when nothing was open. We were saved though when one of the other women on the bus offered to help us find our hotel (which we couldn't stay at until it opened anyway) and so we caught a cab and drove around town in vain searching for this place (We found out later that it had closed down). We then picked a different hotel and they dropped us off and she even offered to pay for our cab, since we still hadn't found an ATM yet. People in Albania are super nice. We ended up finding a cafe open where we could sit and wait till the sun came up and the town came alive.

Durres is an interesting town with nice beaches, old roman ruins, and fantastic food. We spent the day just wandering around seeing some of the old sites; ancient fortified walls, a roman amphitheater, the town center, ect. We also got to try some fresh Albanian sea food, which was delicious. The weather was nice for walking around town, but not quite warm enough for us to go swimming at the beaches.

From Durres we took a train out the capital, Tirana. Tirana is not really the prettiest city, and running through the traffic that passes through the town square might have been the most dangerous thing that i have ever done. It was downright scary. But the food is good, and the people friendly and I enjoyed my time there. We walked around the town and got a feel for where everything was and saw some sites the first day we got in, and on the second day we did a day trip out to a small mountain town called Kruje.

Kruje is a beautiful little town set on the side of a mountain not to far from Tirana, and is the site where the Albanian hero Skanderbeg lead the Albanians to fight back the Ottoman empire to retain their independence. There is a really cool museum now that is built to look like a fortified keep in the ruins of the old original castle, and the view from the area is amazing. Of all the towns that we visited in Albania, Kruje was by far the coolest and most interesting.

Finished with our sightseeing in Kruje, Kristen and I headed back to Tirana and met up with our friends Tyler and Emma, who had just flown in from Bulgaria and would travel the rest of the way with us. Once our traveling group was complete, we headed out to dinner at the 'sky resturant', a nice restaurant located on the terrace of one of the tallest buildings in the city. We had awesome service with a head waiter and assistant waiters, and had a real nice Italian dinner. I had brushetta for an appetizer, cheese tortellini as a main and a cold drink to wash it all down, and my whole meal, including tax and tip, came to about 8 dollars. That's right, full service fancy dinner on the roof of the tallest building for only 8 bucks. Gotta love countries with a low cost of living.

The next day we met up with another American and an Australian that were headed the same was as us and split a mini bus to help save some money. We traveled out of Tirana and up to Kotor, Montenegro, stopping on the way at Skroder, Albania for a bit, and along the main road along the coast of Montenegro to take some pictures and see the view. We arrived in Kotor in the late afternoon and quickly found decent lodging with a local woman for dirt cheap. I was able to carry on conversation fairly well with her, despite the fact that I was speaking Bulgarian and she was speaking Serbian. It was cool to be able to talk to the locals though, and once they realized that we can kind of speak their language, they warm up real quickly and are very friendly people. I think that one of the things that I enjoy most about traveling is meeting the people and getting a chance to hear their story. And I got plenty such opportunities to do so while in Montenegro.

I have to say here that Montenegro is by far the most beautiful country that I have ever been too. It is full of steep green mountains dropping right in to the clear water of the Adriatic, picturesque little towns and castles, and and some majestic views. The city of Kotor is no different, located on the edge of the deepest fjord in all of Eastern Europe. It is an old fortified town, complete with a moat, cobble stone alley ways, and an old castle that looms over the town from the cliff above. We spent most of our time there just wandering around the streets looking at the architecture and the mountains, chilling at cafes, and hiking up to the top of the castle to see the view of the whole fjord.

After our stay in Kotor we boarded a bus and headed North again to Dubrovnik, Croatia, another fortified maritime city, but this time much larger and much more touristy. I have to admit Dubrovnik is super impressive, but it also felt like it was overrun with foreigners. I don't know if that was just my impression after coming from countries that hardly anyone ever goes too (Macedonia, Albania, ect) or if this place really was flooded. All I know is that it didn't have that quaint small town feel that Kotor did, and most of the food and drinks were so high prices that we were forced to go out of the old town before we could afford anything for dinner. But overall I really enjoyed my time there and it is a beautiful place. I also hear it has some great beaches, but we spent all our time wandering around the town and never really got to go swimming. Actually, turns out that through this whole trip along the Adriatic, we never once got a chance to go swimming. Kind of a bummer, but since I live so close to the Black Sea, I wasn't too worried.

From Dubrovnik we headed East in to Bosnia & Herzegovina, to the town of Mostar. Mostar is probably most famous for an old Turkish bridge that crosses the main river in town and connects the Muslim and Christian sides of the city. The bridge was destroyed by Serbian attacks during the Bosnian war in the early 1990's, but recently was rebuilt exactly the same as a sign of progress and peace. In fact, scattered all over Mostar and Sarajevo are numerous reminders of the bloody conflict that took place there less than 15 years ago. Bombed out Buildings, bullet holes, and craters in the ground from artillery can be found all over that either haven't been fixed up yet, or were left as reminders. The weather there was less than perfect as well, which added to the "recovering war zone" feeling. That being said, Mostar is a rather nice town, and tons of cool little souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes have sprung up along the main boulevard by the reconstructed bridge. It was a very interesting city to visit, and unlike any other that I had been too.

After spending some time in Mostar we continued deeper into Bosnia and Herzegovina to the city of Sarajevo. Sarajevo is a cool town with tons of history. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated there in 1914, igniting World War I, it was host of the 1984 winter Olympics, and from 1992 to 1996 was under the longest siege in modern military history. It is also a very religiously diverse city, filled with catholic and Orthodox churches, mosques, and synagogues. We spent a lot of time wandering around the town seeing old buildings, churches and all that good old stuff. Our second day there we took a tour around the city and went to see the old Sarajevo tunnel that was dug during the siege to bring in food and guns and other supplies to keep the city alive during the 3 years. We also go to go through the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia & Herzegovina is split into 2 separate entities, the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the Republic of Srpska). It was weird though because everything changes when you cross in to Srpska. They have their own gov, police, and although they speak the same language, everything changes from being written in Latin to being written in Cyrillic. Talk about a divided country.

Side note; we also found a Mexican restaurant while wandering around Sarajevo that was actually pretty good, although not at all spicy or very Mexican. But I can now say that i have had Bosnian Mexican food, which is about as random as it gets.

After a couple of days in Sarajevo we boarded another night bus to head back to Croatia, but this time to the town of Split, where we had to catch our flight back to Bulgaria from. Unfortunately, since we spent so much time in Sarajevo, we weren't able to really do much more than wander around the old town of Split in the dawn hours before having to catch a bus out to the airport. Still, it ended up being enough time to see most of the buildings and sights and eat breakfast before we left.

Our flight took us up to Austria, where we had to catch a connecting flight back down to Sofia (not really that many direct flights from Croatia to Bulgaria) but the good news was that our 6 hour layover gave us plenty of time to catch a train in to Vienna to see the town and grab some lunch. Our time there was understandably rushed, but I did get to see the St. Stephens Cathedral, house of Mozart, grand opera house, and have a Viennese Bratwurst and wheat beer from a street vendor. Victory was mine. All too quickly our time was out and we headed back to Sofia to end our Eastern European vacation (since we technically didn't leave Bosnia until around 3 or 4 in the morning, I was in 4 different countries this day!).

It was a good time though and everything worked out surprisingly well. I also did the whole trip under my expected budget and spent no more than 400 Euros. Not bad for two weeks. Anyway, check out the pics and I will talk to you all later. Peace. http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge

My {offices} new camera

So one of the guys I work with gave me this sweet Canon EOS 400D digital camera to take some pics for him and I still have the camera in my office. So I have been taking it out with me on my hikes and stuff to see what I can do with it, so I thought I would post some of them up. None of the pics are spectacular, but im still learning how to use all the different settings on the camera. I will try to update this album as I take new pics as well.

http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge/MalkoTurnovo

my first bulgarian climb

Hey guys,

So finally after months of searching, questioning the locals, climbing my apartment walls and occasionally crying myself to sleep, I got a chance to climb on real rock. I couldn't believe it! Furthermore, this opportunity came when I least expected it and turned out to be a most peculiar story. For all of you non-climbers, some of this might not makes sense, but please bear with me.

It all started this beautiful Thursday afternoon, when I was in my office diligently translating my parks web page from Bulgarian to English. Out of nowhere a guy I occasionally work with on bat related projects rushes into my office and said, "Justin, what are you doing right now?"

"Um, working," is my tentative response.

"Forget about that now, go grab you climbing gear and meet me at the Tourist Information Center in 5 minutes. I found a climbing site," he fires back. I decided two things right then; one, I really wanted to go out climbing; two, that this translating wasn't really that important after all. Five minutes later I was geared up and we were on our way out to the crag.

Now, I have lived out here for over seven months and I have never seen a spot that was climbable, so I was understandably curious as to where we were going to climb. Before too long we pulled out on to an old deserted road, parked the car and hiked about 10 minutes to the base of our climb which was located in the middle of an old abandoned marble quarry.

I have climbed my fare share of different types of rock; granite, limestone, sandstone, even the occasional brick building, but I have to admit that this is the first time I have ever climbed on marble. It makes for some interesting climbing, mostly due to the fact that the sections that weren't polished smooth as a counter top were as chossy as it gets, like big, pull huge hand holds off the route every two moves type of chossy.

Anyway, we came to a section that looked do-able and fun, and had enough variation that we could climb it a few times without setting up our rope more than once. We tossed our gear down and hiked around to the top of the climb so that we could set up a top rope. Now, I knew he didn't have all the gear we would need to lead up the route, which was a moot point given the sheer chossy-ness of the route, but when I dumped his gear bag out on the ground to see what I had to build an anchor with, my mouth dropped a fraction of an inch.

It made me realize just how spoiled I had been when I used to build anchors out double sets of hexes, double sets of nuts, and double - triple sets of cams. However, this time I found myself with the following: 2 old dirty 10.4mm caving ropes used for sketchy underground repels, 1 locking carabineer, 4 petzl quick draws, 7 pieces of assorted webbing and one ratty bungee cord used to secure things to a car carrier. That was it. There was nothing else.

I'm not going to go into much detail about how I finally got the anchor working for fear of bringing back painful memories, but needless to say it wasn't equalized, didn't have 3 main points and didn't have backups. I can say that, being totally honest, I have probably made better looking anchors. Good news thought was that neither of us ever fell on the anchor, and I held every time we were lowered. So I did my job well.

As for the routes themselves, I think my overwhelming excitement to finally be on real rock again made what was otherwise boring routes in to sweet projects. Plus, it was like a guessing game since approximately half of the available holds wouldn't support my weight. I like to keep it interesting. Due to such unfavorable climbing conditions though, I think I may have well been the first person to ever attempt the routes that we went up, which means I finally got the coveted 'first ascent.' Good work, Justin!

It was a good time though and none of the routes were too difficult, which to be honest is probably a good thing since I have been on hiatus for so long, most averaging around a 5.ghetto or so.

So, my first Bulgarian climbing trip turned out to be a rather unorthodox one, but now I can add marble to my list of rock types climbed and quarry to my list of locales. All in all it was a good trip.

forest festival

so for the last few weeks my office has been in a frenzy getting ready for their big annual forest festival. every year for about the last six years they host this event over the course of two days, and for the last week it has been crunch time to make sure that everything is ready to go. i have been real busy working out in the forest gettting the individual sites ready and helping my colleagues with the last minute details. on friday i had my buddy tye come in from burgas and we hung out that night in malko turnovo so that we would be ready to help set up the festival early the next morning.
monday started way to early, and by 7:30 we were all on our way out to the main festival site at this place called petrova niva. its an old monunment symolizing bulgarian resistance to turkish occupation, and it sits on a very spectacular vista over the forested mountains. the place was all ready to go by 10 and then busses of people from around the region began showing up. there was traditional singing and dancing, and they had booths for all sorts of stuff, like traditional tea tasting, rakia tasting, food tasting, local activities, shopping vendors and donkey cart rides. the whole thing was pretty relaxing, and i spend a fair amount of time at they 'high adventure' booth, where they set up a small zip-line and a slack line. i was soo excited to finally have a slack line, and i probibly spent more time on it than anyone else (i was also pretty much the only one that could do it though).
after lunch we set off on a nice/jeep safari. the hike took us down the mountain and to a refreshing river crossing, then back up the other side to where there was a whole bunch of jeeps and soviet transports waiting to take us to the campsite for the night. i was lucky enough to get a spot in the old soviet van, which i can most accuratly describe as a cross between and old VW bus, and an armored troop transport. this thing was a beast.
there ended up being around 40-50 people that stayed the night for the campfire and festivites, and it was a blast. there was a huge campfire roaring all night, and they had a giant all-you-can-eat banquet set up for us as well. soon after that (or before, depending on who you ask) the moonshine rakia and beer started flowing and everyone started singing and dancing the horo (traditional bulgarian dance) around the fire. it was a pretty cool experience, sitting out there under the start listening to the band play and watching all the people dancing and having a good time. this ended up going on until well after midnight, when everyone began heading off to bed to rest for the next day.
sunday was less eventful, and i was pretty exhaused after the last two nights. we drove to another site in the park for a guided hike, and eventually made our way out to the coast, where they had a big lunch banquet set up. by that time i was pretty much ready to go home, show and do nothing that required energy, but turns out that one of my coworkers wanted me to go out with him that night and help set up some bat catching nets to that we could try to catch a specific bat. we eneded up staying out until just after 11, but we had no luck catching anything. thats how it goes sometimes i guess. now its back to work, although this week should be much more laid back. i will try to get some pictures of the festival, but i had forgotten my camera so i will have to get them from somewhere else, so no promises. anyway, catch you all later

pics and stuff

i finally got a chance to post up some pics from my spring break trip. i had to get it done tonight (friday night) because i just found out today that i have to go in to work tomorrow. apparently there is a group of school kids coming to the park tomorrow and i have to help run the zip-line for them. hopefully the weather is nice, because today was rainy.
also, i have to say that currently me and my computer are not on good terms. this thing is like my only link to the world outside of malko turnovo, and by virtue bulgaria, and it has been running just painfully slow. i have no idea what the heck is wrong with this thing, but it is interesting because it shows just how dependent on technology i have become in the last year. one year ago i didnt have cable, tv, internet or a computer capable of running internet and i was just fine. now if i lose my internet, i dont know what i will do. ugh, i hope that day never comes.
anyway, enough about the trials of living in the remote corners of europe, i hope you all enjoy the pics. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXgw

Spring break

Things are still going really well. work has been very busy lately because my counterpart had a big project he was working on. some german researchers came in to malko turnovo a few weeks ago to do a bat monitoring project and i got to help out. we went out every night around 7 pm and set up mist nets outside of a different cave entrance every night and captured bats. we then identified them, measured and weighed them, and a few of them we tagged before releasing them. i really enjoyed it and i learned a ton. the first two night we caught over 70 bats each!
they were long days though, and i usually didnt get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. now i have to help write a presentation for my counterpart to present at a bat symposium in romania in august. however, it hasnt just been hard work for me.
I just returned to malko turnovo and started work again yesterday after a short 'spring break' and easter holiday. orthodox easter was on april 27th this year and we had the monday following off (same as in the states). i was fortunate enough to spent a traditional easter with a bulgarian family this year, which was pretty cool. i was in razlog, a beautiful mountain town on the far side of bulgaria visiting my girlfriend Kristen for the weekend and we were invited out to celebrate in traditional festivities.
on saturday night at midnight (technically sunday morning) the entire town went out to the orthodox church and lit small candles from a large candle that the head priest was holding (the head priest in bulgarian orthodox churches is called the 'pope', very confusing at first. my host brother once told me 'look, theres the pope', and i got excited only to find thats not what he meant). however, lighting these candles is harder than it seems. since there is only one church in the whole town, everyone and there mom shows up for this lighting ceremony and all try to rush in through the main doors of the church to get these bad-boys lit. it was by far the most aggressive group of people i have ever seen try to enter a church to celebrate jesus. i was getting elbowed and passed by old hunchback grandmas 2 feet shorter than i was! plus half the people had fire. fortunately it didnt spiral down to chaos and there was no bon-fire that night.
once you get the candle lit and the midnight bells ring, then we had to try and get our candles all the way home without letting them go out. this is a rather difficult task when we had to walk across town with a breeze. i didnt do so hot at that one.
the next day we went over for the big easter feast and spent the day just talking and eating way too much good food. there were painted easter eggs and the egg contest, where everyone takes a hard boiled egg and taps them on each other to see whos egg is the strongest. its supposed to bring good luck for the whole year to the winner. our host even made an american desert for us, strawberry cheese cake. awesome. it was a fun time and interesting to see how similar some of our traditions are.
after easter it was a two day work week before the national spring break. technically its only tow holidays, one on thrusday and one on the preceding tuesday, but they just take off all the days in between and call it good. i sure didnt mind. i did a bit of traveling and visited plovdiv, and ended up in burgas, my usual hangout spot. i met up with friends and went out every night for pints and pool, not a bad way to spent vacation. i even got a day trip up to this town called nessebar, which is out on the coast (the old part of town which i visited is actually on an island 200 meters from shore) and used to be an old byzantine fortress. its a beautiful small island with old fortified walls, quaint little roads between two story original architecture houses and more 5th through 17th century churches than i have ever seen. one out of every like 10 buildings was an old Church. it was a good time though and im glad i got out there early in the season because i heard during summer the place is just a tourist death trap.
anyway, now its back to work and getting ready for summer. hope you all are doing well and i will write you later

spring is here!

hey guys. sorry its been a while since my last post, but i have found that while its fairly easy for me to write about sweet travel stories, it is rather difficult for me to update you on my day to day life when not much really goes on. the longer that i am here the less strange things seem to me and the less likely i am to write about them, even if they are about events that would seem rather odd to people that have not been to bulgaria before.
that being said, life here is still going good. i threw a rockin st patties day party right after my return from turkey, complete with an all you can eat mexican buffet (not very irish, i know, but if we are going to cook a huge feast, i would rather have tacos than Sheppard's pie, because mexican food is a rarity here). after the party, i was fairly busy at work helping my counterpart with a winter bat monitoring project he got funded. it was pretty cool, and consisted of going out to caves in the park and doing bat counts. none of the caves here are too big, but to get into many of them required a bit of subterranean climbing and squeezing through some tight spaces. good thing im still skinny.
since the caving project though, things here at work have slowed down a bit. i go bird monitoring everyday at this local marsh to collect data on the migration, which is fun, but doesnt occupy too much time. my park office is gearing up for a big spring festival in may though, and that should be interesting. starting next month though i think i will be getting busy again. with the nice weather coming tourism should increase to the area, so i will be helping with tour and research groups, in addition to park projects and such.
today also officially marks my first 6 months of service here in malko turnovo. the good news is that i have a feeling that the summer will pass by much faster than the winter did. its finally warm enough outside to go hiking again, and in a month or two all the beaches will open up and i can go hangout on the coast on the weekends.
on another note though, i have been getting much better at cooking things for myself with limited ingredients. i can make a bit of mexican food (i even got out some enchiladas once) and other interesting italian and american dishes. the tough part is that some of the key thing i need to make these dishes are rather hard to come by. like brown sugar. i have been trying to make chocolate chip cookies (ordinary easy thing to cook one would think) only to be thwarted by having no market in my town sell brown sugar. apparently chocolate chip cookies are not that popular here. my solution? sugar cookies with chocolate chips. hey, im doing the best i can here.
well, thats enough culinary rambling for now. take care and i will catch you all later. peace