My First hitch-hiking experience - travel notes
on a hitch hiker trip from Dobrich to Pomorie Monastery
I've been 28 years old and for good or bad never travelled
hitch
hiking. Today however with a friend of mine
Kimba thx
God I lived to experience what it is like to stay on the road
"begging" people to take you on their way to somewhere.
I always wanted to hitch-hike as a youngster but my restrictive
controlling parents was too vigilant not to let me have my personal
freedom and try hitch hiking. Now as I've grown "old" I have the
freedom to do it and I'm glad I could. For sure it is better to do
something you always wanted later than never :)
We took the "STOP" from a place few meters away from the
"scratching sign" indicating the end of Dobrich city area - located
about 4 / 5 km from Dobrich center. To come to the well known
hitch-hiker's (which my friend Kimba) knew pretty well since he
travelled probably more than 20 times hitch-hiking.
To reach the hitch-hiker place we walked about 1 hour which in the
early morning (07:50 to 09:00) came to be quite refreshing.
About 09:00 we started doing the well know hitch hiker gesture to
beg traveller to take us :)
It felt quite unconfortable and a bit like begging to be on the
road waiting for somebody to pick you up on the other hand it felt
very challenging as it seemed to be a good "exercice" to raise up
self-confidence. We were lucky and we didn't met any drivers to
mock us with gestures or car beep. Besides that we only had to wait
less than 20 minutes (probably 18 mins) until a car stop and ask
her for our direction.
The driver seemed had to travel close to Aksakovo (a small village
like town 1 km far from beginning of Varna and just few km away
from the city center). He pick us up and as we go he happened to be
a familiar person which I've seen many times in the (International
College Albena) where I previously studied. The guy happened to be
a merried for the librarian of the college. We had a nice chat in
his car about Bulgaria before in communism and now and who is doing
what (which I guess is quite normal) for hitch-hikers. As he drived
a very funny scene appeared as we saw a donkey leading a cart full
of wood running on the road. Now you might wonder what would be
funny of a rural donkey with a cart full of wood, well the cart
didn't have any person leading it. It seemed the donkey run away
scared by a truck or a noise so the person leading the cart either
fall somewhere on the road or the donkey had untight itself and
took the direction to its home place :)
... Our hitch-hiking plan was to travel from Dobrich to Varna (if
possible or the closest village or suburb), then we aimed to take a
bus from Varna or somewhere nearby to the city center and from the
city center to Travel to the so called (
Asparuh's bridge /
(Asparuhovia Most) - which is a common hitch-hike waiting and
pick-up destination).
As we were left in Aksakovo by the driver, we were lucky to have a
close bus stop near us. We went to the bus stop and we only had to
wait about 8 minutes until the next bus driving to Varna city
center arrived. We pick up a bus number
207 and travelled
'safely' to the city center (on the price of 1 lv per ticket). So
our overall travelling for both of us instead of 10 lv (5 lv per
person bus tick) costed only 2 lv
Along with
the low price for travelling the hitch-hiking was also very healthy
as we had a long walk to the place to depart from and after that
had a small walk to pick up the bus to Varna. We made a mistake to
not go out of the 207 bus near Varna city center Cathedral but two
stops earlier, so we also had a small 15 minutes walking to the
Cathedral. As we were not sure which bus we need to take to go to
Asparuhov's bridge, we asked few people on the city center.
We were told we need to pick bus number 2 or 17 (IIRC). Eventually
as we're waiting near the bus station where the bus-es leading to
Asparuhovo stopped, we came to meet a taxi driver driving people to
Asparuhovo on the price of a bus ticket (1 lv). In 5 minutes time,
again obviously by God's might intervention the driver was able to
collect 2 more people so he offered that we all immediately travel.
The taxi-st left us on a place a bit after Asparuhovo's bridge
which was the common place for hitch-hikers. We had to climb a
little hill like place and walk a bit on the highway on (the car
damage and wreck area). Very near us was a police car waiting to
catch violators of speed limits. I didn't know about this very
moment that
Hitch-Hiking in Bulgaria is considered illegal!,
happily I found this sad fact not by the police man but from
Kliment (Kimba). The policeman did not stop us as we found a way to
walk through a place which is bit far from them. Kimba choose a
place and we started doing the hitch-hiker "PLEASE STOP AND TAKE
US" gesture once again (actually the as Kimba was a professional in
hitch-hiking he was mostly doing the hitch-hike sign.
There we had to wait about 40 minutes or so until, a good man with
a small bus carrying some paper palettes stop and took us.
Thanks God he had to travel to Jambol to deliver the palettes so
his travel route passed by near Bourgas (and respectively Pomorie).
We had a an intimaditing chat with the person by which I found out
he seem to be having many money issues and a lot of debts (just
like many of the people in BG nowdays). Unfortunately he shared
that just like a lot of us the common people in Bulgaria he is
underpaid and often even though he works extra in Saturdays and
Sundays it is almost impossible for him to pay his rent, food and
family expenss .....
As the conversation progressed, he asked us where are we going if
we're going to find a work and I told him we're going to be
guests and pilgrims to
Pomorie Monastery and in the mean time help the monks if there
is work to be done....
It was a pleasure for me to meet such an honest bulgarian middle
aged man, which also was good enough to pick us up. The time passed
quite quickly as we shared some of common living joys and griefs.
The bus quickly approached pomorie so we left us and we split. As I
was thankful to the guy and felt pity for his bad life misfortunes
and I wished in my mind that God bless, help him and return him for
the good deed he done to pick us up.
We were now only 2 km from
Pomorie entrance so to the
monastery we had to walk only about 4 or 5 more kilometers. On the
gas (oil) station, where we were left a fun story happaned as the
computers counting the gasoline stopped working. People who filled
the car tanks with Gasoline had to wait until someone comes and
fixes the computer, neither nobody can purchase anything from the
station (a snacks, a coffee, even a bottle of water) was impossible
to buy. We stayed on this little station (Petrol) located just 2 km
from Pomorie for 20 or 25 minutes and in this time this people who
couldn't pay for the gasoline had to just hang up there loosing
their time waiting for someone to fix the
BUGGED PC
,,,
This scene has once again confirmed my theory that computerization
is not always necessery a good think and the over-computerization
of everything as the trend is nowdays could create a lot of time
lags in many places and often create a great havoc if systems
somehow reject working as planned ....
Anyways to be sure which way to walk to
Pomorie Monastery we
had to consult few local people. Nicely the road leading to
Pomoriiski Manastir was easy we just had to walk straight
and then turn right. Actually the monastery bell tower is visible
on the way so it is not likely that anyone walking straight will
not notice the tower which is taller than other one or two stage
housed highed buildings.
We came to the monastery and by Gods grace as we asked previously
the abbot for a blessing to come to the monastery, they were
expecting us.
Immediately one of the persons serving in the monastery gave us a
room. I asked for the abbot and we found him in his Abbot place and
gave us a blessing. That's the over of my first and hopefully not
last
great hitch-hiking adventere. The moral from my trip
is:
- hitch-hiking is a great must experience in a life-time
thing;
- Obviously we were lucky and it is always a great think to
travel with an Abbot blessing
- Hitch-hiking in Bulgaria is illegal, so there is thrill in
doing it :)
- hitch-hiking could be a very healthy initiative
- Hitch-hiking is a great raise up and experience new random
people self-confidence exercise :)
To sum it up, if you never tried stopping on a highway give it a
try! :)