Home » Macedonia Bulgaria » Why women never cycle alone: Additional mails from Bulgaria & Macedonia

Who fears from the sunset? באחד משיריה היפים רונה ("איזה באסה שהיא לסבית") קינן שואלת: "מי מפחד מהזריחה?", ועונה: "את, אני ואתה." ובכן, רונה, יקירתי, יש לי חדשות בשבילך: לפחות במובן המילולי של הביטוי, קשה לומר שאני מפחד מהזריחה. רוב לילותי הם המתנה דרוכה וחסרת-סבלנות לבוקר, שיאפשר לי סופסוף למהר לעבודתי, שאותה אני מאוד אוהב. ומה שנכון ביומיום בארץ, נכון שבעתיים (seven-ging?) בזמן טיול. אלא שרונה התכוונה, כנראה, ל"פחד מהזריחה" כמטאפורה לפחד של כולנו מהעתיד, מהלא-נודע. וכאן אני נאלץ להודות, שיש משהו בדבריה: בניגוד לתדמית הטייל המנוסה והעשוי ללא חת (Made without ‘H’ ?) שאני מנסה להפגין, בדרך-כלל בלילה שלפני הטיסה אני מפחד פחד-מוות מהצפוי לי ברגע שאנחת ביעדים לא-מסבירי-פנים בעליל, כמו טיראנה, או גואטמלה סיטי.

Why women never cycle alone: Additional mails from Bulgaria & Macedonia

Itamar Cohen
2006-02-26 13:55:17

Displayed times (last time: )

again he climbed my bags, starting to cut him with his "weaves" (TFARIM). I tried to pleasantly ask him not to destroy my bags, but this cat probably spoke only Bulgarian (I can sware you that even his yell was "Miyau-ska"). Nothing helped.
The problem was that at this very place I planned to live my bags & bike, and go for a few hours' hike. and I understood that if I just hide the bags in the woods, I will probably find them copletely torn (by the cat) and wet (by the rain, which will surely come, sooner or later).
So finally I opened one of the hut's doors - which turned out to be the kitchen's door, , and left there my bike & bags. On the way, I checked out what's in this kitchen: it seemed to me a cool idea to sleep all alone in this hut (at another room, which I already visited, there were some beds and many blankets). So I must get some food. If nobody comes, I may take from the kitchen and leave the owners some money on the table. They will understand the meaning. As for shower, I may boil water in one of the pots. And as for the extreme night cold - I have got the blankets.
But the kitchen was totally empty. Only some pots and plates (I tried to use my investigating skills for estimating when lately there have been people in that place, but failed).
Well, finally I left there the bike (I didn't even lock there: a guy who is strong enough for taking the bike all the way down would surely be strong enough also for breaking the lock). And went out to the hike.
The trail took off high above the pines' range, to the area where the only plants are alpine-like low shrowberries. And then I got to the Sedemte Ezera (the seven lakes) circus.
In touristic postcards this place looks marvelous: I guess that the postcards' photographers took waited passiently to the about one day
Bike on little bridge Full Image
The downhill to Goce Delchev, Pirin, Bulgariaper year where this place is not full of clouds. Well, unfortunately this day wasn't today, so I saw nothing but an (beautiful for itself) end-of-the-world vision of the lakes' water, the fog and the sky get unified to one strage cluster of "nothing".
Between two of the lakes there was another hut. But, unlucky as I'm, again there was nobody there. And it was locked.
While back in the mountain hut in Lovna (the bike were still there. And the bags. And the fucking cat. And nobody else), I first made a more exhaustive search in the kitchen. I found some sugar, a tzintzenet of hot peppers, and another one, of "occupied cucumbers" (melafefonim kvushim). Nicha. Never am I very distinguisher (bareran) at food issues, especially not when I starve to death. I ate everything, and left on the table 3$.
Now there was only one problem: the hike is said to take about 5 hours. But a glance at the clock (something which I only very rarel do) told me, that I did it much faster. So it was now only 16:00, the gas for boiling my shower's water didn't seem to work, I had no any more food, and the
Goce Delchev's profile, Novo Delchevo, Bulgariawhole idea of sleeping all-alone in a mountain hut started to seemed quite stupid. After all, I can always sleep in a good hotel and tell everybody that I slept alone in a deserted mountain hut; anyway the connection of my stories to what happens in reality is quite amorphic.
So I just went on. And rode and rode and rode. I had luck. The next mountain hut I arrived to was inhabited. Not only that, but there were there some locals, who played cards, smoked and drank. So after my shower and meal, I joined them for a little. They shortly understand the clue, and gave me my last request for this great day: some Shnaps, for sleeping well, having a hot feeling in my throat.