Walking down

The Bivuak in morning light.

This park has lots of Orhids but i did not earch enough and saw only those flowers by the path.

Muuuu
Imagine a little bit of snow here.

The sun is shining again, and i finaly get to the valley were Deni will pick me up!

End of the Ridge

Finaly, the end of that other very long day, loads of pictures...

Still walking the ridge, sun is setting slowly, luckily for us... and we can see the end of that ridge


Something like the blue mountains next to sydney....

The path up, sometimes steep, rarely shaded like here

Looking down, evening wind blowing up.

Looking all the way back... the right is not even were we started.

Taking a break on the ridge, behind us, it goes down down down.

Finaly it is fresh and we know that after about 10 h walking, we are getting realy close!

5 minuits to the bivuak!!! sitting down, checking out the view!

Group picture!

The sun is setting now...

and i can hold it in my hand :)

One final view down on the valley before we get down to the hut on the other side for a rich dinner, lots of laughter and a good (so we hoped) night of sleep!

Meeting Andrei and Alex

Later that day, in the evening, i am still writting up more in my jurnal, catching up a bit. Two young guy enter the hut, have dinner and buy a map. As they study the map, i ask them about their plans for tomorrow, we have same plans and will walk together. We want to make it to the last refuge on the ridge and walk down the next day and then get to Bucarest.

After making plans we start to talk and again i meet those kind of people you fell you have known for ever. So nice and with similar ideas, dreams and stories. We talk about ideal jobs, sports, climbing, walking, traveling, politics, emos, their stupid useless blogs (hehe) and much more.

The view up from the hut, tomorrows direction.
The view down, at sunset.

Pietra Craiului national Park

On the next day, Deni kindly drives me and i get to the start of my treck in the Pietra Craiului national Park. It is a famous national park of Romania.

Somewhere between Rasnov and the start of the treck.

Begining of the treck, a small group of loud teenager are having a picknik, laughing and listening to music on their mobile phone, the type of teens anoying us "old" people on the tram. The have little food, a large 2L bottle of beer and one of coke and a tiny water bottle (or is it Rakija ?:)?). The are making kokes, spitting around and ask me where i am from. France i answer and one of them starts in perfect French, with a sligth "Racaille" accent :) using polit "vous" when speaking to me.

His mother went to France some 3 years ago and married a French man there. He tells me it was hard integrating in the begining but now he has loads of Friends and also tells me "la France a un gros problem en ce moment, ca va pas bien hein" speaking about french economy (parents words comming out there??). But then also tells me how much better it is than in Romania, how he loves it in France. He tells me about "Psy 4 de la rime" and other french hip hop bands but wants to know nothing about "IAM"... Some other influence speaking out there, he never listened to it...

On the way up we came across a herd of sheep, a bunch of yapping sheperd dogs. All of them have sticks hanging down from there neck. I imagine this is to protect them from bears. So they cant get their neck so easily and let them bleed to death... The dogs dont look to nice... A couple meters later, the Park Guard holding a chain saw and a sheperd are standing there with a horse and a dead donky. Both the horse and the donkey have sticks around their neck. It didnt save the donkey, a bear destroyed his back and you can see all the insides. The look on the face of the donkey is quite stupid and desperat... Its head bounces very comicaly from rock to rock as the horse pulls him avay... Despite the tragic event we all have to laught at this...

I still regret today i didnt take pictures of the teenagers or the donkey, horse, guard and sheperd...

After leaving the young to their ascention, i continue to the hut i will spend the night in... Out of question i sleep outside! this is an other sheperds house on the way there.

One of the two dogs (what a cute couple) at the hut. Much nicer then the sheperds dogs...

I take a hudge break once at the Hut, the two weeks in Belgrade and the way to Romania were exhausting. I sleep a lot, eat something, drink hot chocolate, check the map, write up in my journal, i m about 2 weeks late, and read a bit.

Writting up some more...

Brasov

The next day, Deni takes me all around Brasov, the nextdoor town. Not only have an excelent host, but also an excelent guide. I get to know everything about local history and see all the monuments, the city wall etc... Better than a hundret words, some pictures:

Old town center.

Same place, other angle, old defending towner in the back (one of several)

Church, forgot the history about this one, sorry Deni, its been a long time... Can you refresh my memory?

Beautifull view from up on the road.

The Black Catherdral, remember the little anecdote about this one :) Merchants going from the far East to Europe had to pass trough a dangerous forest full of robers just before getting to Brasov, where the "safe" part of the journey started. So They old stoped in this church to thank God and offered something, mostly Carpets from the east. Also it is named Black because it burned a couple times.

A first stunnig walk, Day I

So after unpacking some stuff, eating something and packing a single light bag with cloths, food and basic nescesaries (thanks Judith for the survival blanket, did not heve to use it yet furtunatly) we make our way for what seems to be a 3h walk on some vertical edges around the circus we are in. As we realized, here when they indicate 3 hours, if you can walk fast then it will be 3 hours otherwise more, unlike in france where you can almost deivide the time by 2 sometimes... So we make out way, steep walking, 3 summits along a cliff... here are some pictures, better than words!

Diming light and light beams on the Bobotov Kuk(the highest, tomorrows objectiv) and Minin Bogaz(left)

Fist pass, happy climbers, ivresse des montagne :)

Alain walking along and edge, the valley in the background

The Black lake, from the top.

Alain in some steep action !

I m the king of those mountains :)

Getting back to the camp in the begining of darkness.

We had a very good timing with the light, starting at the end of the day and getting back to the huts at night fall. This and the early moring are realy the best times for mountains... The end of the night, we have some nice cooked dinner and a chat with the hudge sheperd who is staying right next to us.
Exhausted, we wont fall asleep as fast as we wish to, a mouse starts to look trought our plastic bags, searching for food... we hang everything up high and finaly get some sleep!