These Feet Can Take Us Anywhere

We landed in Bulgaria around 8pm, received our backpacks intact and headed out to meet Sofia. Our couchsurfing host in Sofia, the lovely Desi, had armed us with very specific instructions about how to take a cab from the airport to her house. 1) only take a Supercab and don’t accept imitations, 2) the ride should cost no more than 7 leva. If we follow those two instructions carefully we should not get taken advantage of like so many travelers. We get into the airport, the air is hot and we’re immediately besieged by taxi drivers angling for business. We ignore them, we know what we’re looking for. We find the kiosk for Supercab and show the man the address, and he nicely walks us over to a cab. We get in and start going. We look at the sights we can see, trying to take in the city at night and the taxi driver keeps driving. We’ve been driving for about 20 minutes when the driver asks again for the address. I show it to him and he indicates that we’re on the right street, which is a major thoroughfare, but there is no number 33. He indicates that he’s confused. He pulls down a side street, rolls his window and asks something in Bulgarian to a passerby who shrugs. The taxi driver begins to get agitated as he is driving around and the meter is rising up, up, up. He goes down another side street and this time stops the car and gets out. We’re not about to get out of the car. He points to a hotel nearby and says “hotel! hotel!” We say “no hotel! house!” although he doesn’t understand. Back in the car, more driving, more dead end streets, more grumbling, more theatrics. We’re not so much scared as we are confused and we’re under the impression that this guy is really trying hard to get us to where we need to go. Twenty more minutes of driving in circles and miraculously we find number 33, geez it was right there all along, and the meter has skyrocketed past 7 leva to 14 leva. He demands 14 euros (which is about 30 leva). I indicate through sign language that he’s crazy and he had just been driving in circles and can’t charge us for not knowing where he’s going. He demanded 14 euros again and started to pound the steering wheel. We were tired, we were happy to be where we were and suddenly giving him 10 euros to get out of the situation seemed like a bargain. I suppose that’s what he was counting on. When our hostess let us in and heard of the escapade she sighed heavily and said, “god they do this all the time. I’m just going to have to call and complain”. In the end we paid 20 leva for a 7 leva ride just like every other tourist. Sigh, at least we got it out of the way.

But this small experience has not sullied the wonder of being in Bulgaria, it’s just a part of the whole and the kind of introduction to a country that is memorable. In a way getting ripped off by a taxi driver is a rite of passage, and literally everyone has a similar story.

Bulgaria. Officially the Republic of Bulgaria, forms part of the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. It borders five other countries: Romania to the north (mostly along the River Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea defines the extent of the country to the east.

We started off in Sofia, the capital, and had arranged with Dessi and Phillip to couchsurf with them for a few days which turned into almost a week as we all got along so well. Dessi and Phillip are university professors and this is their summer break so we got to spend some great time with them and ultimately they invited us along to Veliko Tarnivo with them which got us within an hour’s bus-ride to our final destination, Voditsa. Sofia is a great city to explore and, not surprisingly, tremendously different from the cities in Western Europe we’d been seeing.

We started out taking a bus from their apartment into the city center where we could see some of the amazing buildings and ancient churches that marked the city. This is Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Church, one of 13 churches named after the Russian saint in Eastern Europe but the one which has the distinction of being the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in the world.

The cathedral’s gold-plated dome is 45 meters high, with the bell tower reaching 50.52 meters. The temple has 12 bells with total weight of 23 tons, the heaviest weighing 12 tons and the lightest 10 kg. No pictures could be taken inside the cathedral, but take our word for it: it was impressive. And here is an areal photograph I found which gives a better idea how massive the cathedral is.

Outside the cathedral we experienced one of the most unique outdoor markets I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. Filled with antiques, each stall was a lesson in history offering everything from old photographs and memoribilia to amazing Nazi relics such as SS insignia compasses and paperweights of undeniable authenticity. There was an amazing mishmash of historical artifacts, timelining the Nazi occupation and the communist regime, and we were both simply fascinated.

We continued on our walk and encountered church after church, each different and beautiful in their own way and all reflecting a unique orthodox style. This one was the Russian church.

After all the walking we stopped for some lunch. Desi had told us about a secret vegetarian restaurant in Sofia and the vague but specific as possible directions of how to find it (down the second street, look for a small sign on the second floor, walk into a shop, look for a white metal door, go up the stairs, enter an unmarked door, that’s the restaurant). This is standard operating procedure in Bulgaria. A city that takes “unpretentious” to a new level there are hidden bars and secret shops and unmarked museums that you simply have to have people tell you about or you’d walk by them for years not knowing they’re there.

We found the white metal door…

…and climbed up a concrete stairwell and opened a second unmarked door only to find a most beautiful oasis of a restaurant, aptly named Dream House.

We were so happy to be there and enjoyed a deeeeelicious meal, well worth the 14 leva (7 euro) for us both to eat and eat and drink to our hearts content. But Sofia is a city of contrasts, and for every beautiful nook like this there were many abandoned and gutted post-communist buildings sitting in ruins and covered with stray dogs (a very large problem in Bulgaria).

It’s interesting to note that while stray dogs may be a “problem” there were very few homeless people. We thought this wasn’t so bad compared to the “problem” in America where we look the other way while the strays are put to sleep and wonder constantly what to “do” with the homeless people.

Our hosts inform us that Bulgaria is frustrating politically because the country is dominated by corruption, mafioso, and the black market. In a recent guide, the estimate was one quarter of the economy was under-the-table. Another upsetting development was that real wages are not keeping up with inflation and that EU economic sanctions are on the way due to the recent exposed corruption of the ruling powers (who will most likely face no repurcussions themselves). All of this combined with a general air of political apathy make for an unenviable situation for the average Bulgarian. In many ways, we remarked at the similarities in the USA and could sympathize quite easily with the frustrations of such elusive socio-economic progress.

Roaming around central Sofia, we had fun finding other “secret” gems such as this hostel with a bar in the basement. All the adorning pictures were graffiti photos from Barcelona and they only had two kinds of beer but they were cheap and the outdoor patio was cool.

On the following day, we found the once-public bath house to be under renovations.

We sat by this fountain in the middle of a square and watched all the people pass by (we only saw one woman who really knew how to walk in heels - Jonathan had never really paid much attention to this before and he was impressed).

At our unsuccessful trip to the Indian embassy (where we had hoped to obtain our visas), we stopped at a nearby park to recoup our sensibilities and plan our next moves.

Note the starkness and our continuing theme of “unpretentious.” When we arrived back at our hosts apartment, they announced their impending departure to Veliko Turnovo, home of Desi’s parents and asked if we’d like to join them. Of course we would!! While it was fun to take a road trip in Bulgaria, we departed after dark and the scenery was missed. It was interesting when Desi was pulled over for speeding. She explained that the paperwork for traffic offenses was lengthy and that the police was looking for a quick bribe - unfortunately, when he discovered that she was a teacher (one of the lowest paid professions in Bulgaria), he let her go with a warning.

Desi’s parents were equally accommodating and we slept soundly on their pullout couch (there were only three kinds made during communism and this one by far was the most comfortable - surpassing any we’ve tried in the States). Veliko Turnovo is a glorious city but this will have to wait until Bulgaria! Part II - coming soon!

Tags: August 2008, Tag Index

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