But this time, I was a bit wary. In the previous edition of Lonely Planet they list the Bottom 10 things in Eastern Europe (the new edition doesn’t have this list). Number 8 is “Most of Bulgaria.”

That’s pretty sad. Especially when you see that the rest of the list consists of specific places like some country's National Museum of History. It kinda sucks when experts simply say that your entire country stinks.

A RUDE AWAKENING

Bulgaria certainly didn't give me a good intro. It wins the award for the bumpiest ride I've taken in Eastern Europe (Albania is a close second). It was an overnight bus from Skopje, Macedonia. I felt I was trying to sleep on a jackhammer.

SOFIA DOESN'T SUCK

Sofia has a million people, is at the foot of the cool Vitosha mountain range, and is the highest capital in Europe (545 meters / 1600 feet). Although I raced through Bulgaria's capital, I was impressed with it.

http://george.syn.net/bulgaria/picviewer.asp?i=17

There are a couple of monuments (Church and Roman Ruin) that the city has built around.

The highlight is an enormous church dedicated to the 200,000 Russians who died fighting the Turks to help give Bulgaria its freedom.

It helps to follow the map for the rest of my journey.

RILA MONASTERY

From Sofia I headed south to Rila Monastery. UNESCO Protected, it's an amazing site. It's nestled in the magical and inviting Rila Mountains.

BACKPACKING IN THE RILA MOUNTAINS

Audrey, my host in Skopje, lamented that she doesn't get to go backpacking because the Macedonians aren't into it. For example, one Macedonian guy she was with wanted to hike up a mountain on the paved road with the cars instead of the steeper dirt trail. Who are these guys? Do they get pedicures too?

I flashed Audrey my Appalachian Trail credentials and we headed up the Rila Mountains. It was quite cold. We camped right where the tree line ended because I feared morning dew. We woke up with frost on the tarp. Little did I know that would be the last time I would sleep under my treasured tarp.

LOSING THE TARP

We climbed up to the 7 lakes, despite warns that the trail was treacherous and that the huts were closed. It was magnificent. Click on the photos under Rila or Seven Lakes.

I had the bright idea to do some cross country trekking. That was fine until we took a break. I pulled out the tarp to get to the food.

Audrey's knee was swollen so I told her to get moving while I packed up. She probably would have noticed that I left the tarp behind. My beloved tarp. The one I used throughout the Appalachian Trail. Now gone forever. Lost on a lonely mountain, off trail, near a pile of snow. Snow will bury it soon. I suppose that for a tarp it's a good way to go.

I will miss my tarp.

TRAIL MAGIC

Although my backpack was quite light after the break, I just figured it was because we consumed food and water. I didn't realize my tarp's absence was the other cause.

On the way down, we met two friendly Bulgarian geologists. They offered to drive us 10kms out of their way to get us to a town south of Rila. We made an invisible camp in the city and it was there that I realized that my tarp wasn't around. I was very sad. :-(

It's strange, I've broken my camcorder and lost nearly half my luggage, but losing my tarp bummed me out the most.

ALMOST PILFERED IN PLOVDIV

We took a 6AM bus to Plovdiv and soon after we arrived, a well dressed woman tried to pick pocket Audrey's backpack. Although a bit distraught, we shrugged it off.

About 30 minutes later, two 12-year old girls also tried.

Audrey's been ripped off before in Bulgaria. Not sure why they don't target me. Maybe I look poor. I'm certainly not alert. I'm still not sure if my cell phone was swiped or if it just fell off.

In retrospect I should have leveled all these women, but I was too dumbfounded by the experience. Maybe I was too chicken. The 12 year old might have a mean left hook....

Ignoring the pilfering women, Plovdiv was a nice town. The old town is packed with 18th and 19th century homes. It also has a coolest Roman ruin in the country. Nevertheless, Plovdiv is nothing spectacular, but still worth a stop if it's on your way to some place cooler.

Audrey had to go back to work, so I bid her farewell and then studied Bulgarian history.

SOME REAL OLD HISTORY

I get so tired of hearing Europeans sniff at the short history of America. Most of the civilized history in Europe is around 1,200 years old. Big deal. America is about 500 years. Both of us are toddlers compared to the Egyptians and Persians.

So I got excited when I learned about the Thracians who came out of the Bulgarian caves and created a real civilization from 6000 BC to 2000 BC. OK, so they were making cute bronze objects while the Egyptians were building pyramids, but at least the Bulgarians can go back that far for their culture.

HERE COME THOSE NATIONALISTS

Turks dominated Bulgaria so strongly that they nearly forgot their origins. But a monk wrote the first complete history of the Slav-Bulgarian people in 1762. Who knows how much he made up, but today Bulgarians take it as fact. Yes, winners write history. He traveled across Bulgaria reading the history to illiterate people and igniting a long-forgotten national identity.

In 1877 Russian finally beat the Turks. Turks ceded 60% of the Balkans to Bulgaria. But the western powers, in all their wisdom, decided to nullify that and redefined the Balkan borders. Those borders haunted the peninsula ever since: during the next 67 years each Balkan country fought up to six wars over border issues!

For example, to finally get rid of the Ottomans, they had the first Balkans War (1912). A year later the winners fought each other and Bulgaria lost.

Bulgaria tried to remain neutral during WWII, but Hitler forced them to join him. When the tide turned against the Germans, the Bulgarians tried to swap sides and join the Allies. No luck: Russia invaded Bulgaria and blessed them with communism.

In the first elections in 1990 Bulgaria had the dubious honor of being the first country in the former USSR to elect communists back to power.

Today Bulgaria is struggling. The EU rates it low on a variety of metrics. The most telling sign is that the population has actually fallen by 503,000 people since 1992. Ayn Rand predicted it: the engine of the economy has stopped after years of oppression.

Armed with that info, I entered the historical city of...

VELIKO TARNOVO

Veliko Târnovo, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1393), is laced with history. The Yantra River winds through a gorge in the centre of the city and picturesque houses cling to the cliffs.

The ruined Tsaravets Citadel, almost encircled by the river, was a vast fortress sacked by the Turks in 1393. The rebuilt Church of the Blessed Saviour at the top of the hill has the best wall paintings I have ever seen. It's very modern (done in 1980s) and quite cool.

You can look down on the foundations of the ruined Royal Palace, home to 22 successive tsars. Execution Rock is a daunting bluff directly to the north, where traitors were once pushed into the Yantra River.

Veliko Târnovo is the best town I saw in Bulgaria. Try to check it out during their summer light and sound shows.

HEADING TO THE BORDER

Although I wasn't the target of thieves, for once someone's warnings about the thieves in Bulgaria was true. They exist. OK, so they're not very good at their craft, but they're around.

Romania was the next country on my list. Logic told me that I should get as close as possible to the border. I went to Ruse, Bulgaria. The ruse of taxi drivers wasted my time. They told me there was a way to get through the border, but there isn't. You can't even walk across the border and there are no buses on the other side. I'll tell you what happened in my next email.

REVERSING MY SOUTHBOUND JOURNEY

In this trip, like my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, I have been steadily going south. Dublin, Finland, and Estonia were nice in June. Now they're freezing, while I was in shorts in the Balkans.

But the bad news is that I'm turning around and heading up north into Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. October here isn't like California. Temps are freezing at night and snow dusts the mountains. I'm looking forward to Turkey.

NEXTALE: ROAMING ROMANIA

Taking an early morning stroll in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
 

The ceiling of the Rila Monastery. Makes you want to be religious.

The setting of the Rila Monastery is truly magical! It's nestled in a pristine valley of the green Rila Mountains.

Veliko Târnovo's museum. It was closed when I was there. Sometimes it seemed that everyday was Monday (the days that most museums are closed).

In the center of Veliko Târnovo is an impressive group of statues representing the four men who helped liberate Bulgaria.

Veliko Târnovo is set at the confluence of two rivers and is surrounded by mountains. The colors were amazing.

Above Veliko Târnovo.

On October 5 I was laughing because there was a building that they went through the trouble of indicating that it was NOT A WATER CLOSET. Needless to say, people pissed and shit all around the building.