past tense party

First day of the wild wilderness!! so please step up into a crappy bus that retains all heat and odors and allows no breeze. I'd say that was a crafty move in preparing us for a more inconvenient lifestyle. The bus is more than full and our master head chief leader Kiro, not my uncle Kiro, is standing in the front. Thats a solid 45 people journey, all on the bus. Most of our group is older, from mid 50's to possibly even 70's, with a few middle agers and then us. Hormonal, tough, good humored team of 3, my uncle Kiro, me, and our friend Rogova. Rogi for short. She is actually a fellow dentist like my uncle and a hilarious person to spend 4 days with. Long live team terror. We started with a sleepy 5 hours bus ride to the central mountain ranges. On the road I breezed through Hail to the Thief and Grace and wonder if their somber melodies got me thinking so critically of the Bulgarian countryside. The abandoned buildings and amount of pollution on the streets, and more devastatingly, in the waterways near cities and even villages points out the harsh reality of Bulgarian economics. Clothes, bottles, and plastics lay clumped to the sides of the road and cling to the branches of weak trees. It may not be as visible to the people who walk by everyday but it marks a striking difference in what I take for granted in my green, comparably spotless Bellingham.

Our first interesting break was at an old monastery in the mountains. It was beautiful and thousands of years old and I probably would have appreciated it much less if I'd known that we would be stopping at every single monastery within a 300 cubic kilometer range of our four day travel route. So without dwelling too much on individual places of worship, unless they stand out significantly like Shipka, I'd like to say this; the thousand year old religious icons that are all hand painted by monks throughout the ages will always fascinate me. Being in the presence of the daily services that for the most part are done in the presence of no one but God, one priest, and one old nun to repeat scriptures will always fascinate me. Praying and lighting candles for my family and friends and for Eric Wise will always fascinate me.

This first day filled me up and took the most out of me. We spend hours and hours traveling, steadily to the Gabrovski Balkan. We started with an easy 6 hours hike to get a glimpse of the snow capped peaks of Stara Planena which was a esthetically pleasing reward that made our effort seem much more difficult. Snow in May! Funny that we thought that was the closest we would get. After climbing back down we got on the bus for a mere 10 minutes before unloading once again to hike up to the hesha(hostel) where we would be spending our first night. I was altogether completely unprepared for the difficulty in getting to a place to sleep. We climbed over 500 meters in less than 45 minutes. Thats a trail so steep that even its windiness helped little. That day we had hiked for 6 hours to see some snow far off, now we were crawling up to it! My blood pressure was beating a hole through my stomach and the pain in my lower back, from my snowboarding incident, was almost crippling from my heavy pack. Even now I'm not sure how our entire group made it. I'm sure their health is plagued with problems with blood pressure and arthritis and this impossible trek just seemed to be meeting some limits. Even my uncle had to lay and raise his feet over his head. He sent me ahead though to win us a good room since we would be sharing with up to 8 other people. I'm extremely pleased with myself for A) pushing myself mentally and physically B) being one of the four people that reached the ridge first and within 45 minutes when it was estimated to take up to 2 hours C) not ditching any of my baggage. I cant soundly say I've been very active or healthy lately so either way I was impressed with my strength. With me was a sixty year old woman who became a easy going trail companion for the rest of the trip. Her name was Lubka and her son was a musician and ski instructor in the Swiss Alps. Anna, a middle aged fit-as-fuck yoga instructor who paints on the side who I think my dad should consider for a 3rd wife, and a creepy man who was desperately trying to screw her. He nearly died trying to keep up with us.
Reaching the top was an experience that would have shut all four of us up if we had had breath enough to talk. The ridge opened up to an almost secret green plain with horses running free all around us. The mountains around us rose high and we were surrounded on all sides by the snow that remained on them, yet we were scorching inside and our sweat burned off our skin in thick clouds. We had reached the top right at dusk and the moon had appeared right over the wooden cabins of the shepherds and off in the distance the hostel where we would be staying. The building was enormous, old, moldy, and festive. Travelers rushed to change their dirty, sweaty clothes and catch some hot water before the boilers ran out. Once fresh we made our way to he main dining room and when I opened the doors....!!! Travelers from all ends of the earth filled the entire space! Long wooden tables were covered with goodies like a castle from Camelot. Musicians, meats, cheeses, salads, and alcohol appeared out of nowhere for everybody to enjoy. AND MUSIC. music music and people forgetting their soreness rose to dance traditional Haro, and for hours and well into the night! One man who had something I wanted asked me where I was from and then loudly welcomed me to the land with nothing...absolutely nothing but cheer and celebration! The party got louder, and stayed that way even when we were trying to fall asleep with the sound of the drums beating in our exhausted heads.