Dual Horizons

After we reach the Danube river on the border of Bulgaria we realise that there is no bridge crossing and are forced to pay for transport for the first time and take a ferry for 1 euro. So here we are in bulgaria again but this time we are on the hunt for a piece of land, we started our search around a small town called to pop ovo where we met a lady called kathy from newcastle who has emigrated to begin a new life in bulgaria. Shes has a small estate agency to help repopulate a small village. over 2 days we visited two different pieces of land 1 of which had 11,000 sq meters and many fruit trees and the other had a house and barns, they both had many good points but something was missing so we decided to continue our search as we were looking for more of a mountainous area to live in. we reached the central Balkan mountain range of Bulgaria and spent a few days visiting small villages and getting a feeling of the area .whilst on the road we heard from another hitch hiker about a festival called Uzana so we made our way there, put our tent up any stayed for 3 days in the mountains at 1400 meters. There we met many wonderful people and got many contacts for other places to visit in bulgaria. We helped out a little bit with the guys at the bread house who are doing workshops on building clay and brick bread ovens and teaching about sourdough. We have found ourselves in love with the south west part of the country, the area around Batak lake, the rila and pirin mountains, it seems to tick all the boxes for us but we're still yet to have any opportunities with land here so we'll continue looking. Next we head into the rodopi mountains and see about our luck there.

Love to you all.

Hello everyone!

Since we last blogged a lot has happened.  We arrived in the city of Szeged in Hungary and couchsurfed with the wonderful and infinitely helpful Zsofi. As you know we already had the idea to get a bicycle or small moped and in the end we decided on the Jawa Babetta 49cc scooters, both about as old as us and around 70 euros each, everything was working out fine. We must thank Alex the pantomime artist / mechanic who helped us a lot with fixing some problems on aurelie's bike and free of charge! Zsofi helped us with lots of translation and graciously let us stay an extra 3 days at her home. For such a small bike we had to fill out lots of papers and get insurance but we pushed through ans couldn't wait to hit the road like the balkan farmers, zinging down the road at 40kmh!
The plan initially was to head to Serbia and on to Bulgaria with the bikes however when we reached the border we were turned back because we didn't have number plates. so fate brought us to Romania instead and both of us didn't have high hopes as most people we spoke to had negative things to say about it such as "they all want your money" etc. As is common with travelling nothing could be further from the truth, after about a week here we have found the people to be very helpful and generous and the landscape and culture beautiful. Unfortunately after around 4 days with our bikes cruising to Haget aurelie's bike had an electrical problem and was 'kaput' and would cost too much to repair so we had to leave it there. Our little dream to ride them to bulgaria and beyond had failed so I proceeded to let people know how great my bike was and ask if anyone wanted to buy it. Before I know I have many keen buyers and attract a lot of attention,  20 mins later and I have 55 euros and we're back to hitchhiking again! It was sad to let them go but again I can appreciate the purity and excitement if hitchhiking.

After all it was a great short lived experience on the bikes and we learnt that it's a great way to travel but you should be careful where you buy and spend a bit more if you can afford it, also stay off big roads as it's not fun dodging trucks!!

We're now on the Romanian/Bulgarian border with full stomachs thanks to a Romanian family who invited us in there home. From here we head to popovo to begin looking for land.