Gay vampires in Transylvania

Campulung - Laza. Click to enlarge

With the daylight it came the calm. But when I got outside and thought the last night’s tight spot, I discarded that it was a bear. For the trajectory of the beast, when it touched my little tent had surely passed under the guy rope, so it couldn’t be that big. And as Romania is the country of the vagabond dogs, I supposed it was one of them.

Adrian was my first lift of the day. He was a quads mechanic and 4×4 mountain races driver on his free time. He was pretending to be angry because I wasn’t making so many photos of the landscape, which he considered very stunning – and it actually was. Finally he stopped his car in the top of a mountain pass where I was obliged to make some shots. Here you have one of them:

Around Fundata, between Campulung and Brasov

Cabin of the concrete lorry, full of decorative souvenirs

Then we went to his business, a house full of quads, paintball stuff and 4×4 cars, all made to attract tourists on summertime, he explained me something about all the show and gave me a jar of delicious marmalade. From there I jumped into a funny concrete lorry with souvenirs from all over Europe decorating the cabin. The driver had been to the Vatican and was very proud of it, but it was the only thing we could exchange: he didn’t speak any language but Romanian and was incredibly bad in understanding the body language. He even couldn’t understand what my name was. But for some strange reason – maybe instinct – he dropped me in the exact place I wanted to go: the Bran Castle.

The Bran Castle is part of the Dracula industry in Romania. Even thought there’s no historical evidence that Vlad Tepes had been in the castle, its walls are covered with Dracula’s illustrations, genealogical trees of his family and other stuff about him. But why not? It’s a beautiful castle in the middle of Transylvania, so even it’s too modern for a middle ages castle, let’s believe Dracula lived there, make many photos and say “hey, I set the foot on the same floor Dracula did!”

Bran Castle dominating the village

From there, a surgeon brought me right to the center of Brasov. I decided to look for a hostel, it wasn’t hard to find.

I spent two days in the city . With a center full of colors like many other Central European cities, Brasov has a small center that is rapidly seen. Then some tour on the nearby mountains and it’s done. And comes the time to join the every night party in the hostel, drink many beers and meet new friends. That night it was the World Cup 2010, playing England against Australia. There were many Australians and English in the hostel, so it was not difficult to find a subject to talk about. The Koreans were more quiet, and a French girl told me stories of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, where she had been to and I was heading for. But I stopped the conversation afraid of getting ti know too many things, because it’s always better to discover them by yourself.

Brasov

Brasov

Brasov

Brasov

Brasov

Brasov

After two nights, on a rainy morning, I was next to Otniel as he was driving me some towns away from Brasov, where Daniel picked me up. He was a dentist going to Hasi to make an exam to reaffirm himself as a good doctor, and he decided to take me until Bacau (that is quite a long ride). He was complaining about his country. He was not agree about the measures to be implemented by the Romanian Government against the upcoming crisis, that was going to cut the public employees salaries by 20%.

“And nobody protests in the streets! We don’t know how to fight for our rights!”

Then he complained about the Romanian drivers, telling that people drive too dangerously in his country, criticizing all the cars that were overtaking us… until he made a mistake and we nearly had a small crash. He said shyly “sorry”.

But despite this, it was a very nice ride, maybe the best I had until the moment. We talked a lot about the revolution against Ceaucescu – killed by Romanian people -, the Franco dictatorship in Spain, and other political facts. In one moment, he revealed himself as gay, so I gave him the advice to come to Sitges, a famous gay destination near my town, and he got happy when I told him gays could get married in Spain.

“You are an advanced country!”, he said. But I didn’t know what to answer.

Once in Bacau, I got a lift with Radu, who had become father some days ago and was very happy. He was still a student, and now was going to spend some days in his family cottage in the town of Ivanesti. There he had a vegetable garden, some livestock and bees that made exquisite honey. He said he liked more to work in the field than the engineering he was studying, but there was no future there.

There I took the last ride of the day. As I was planning to reach Moldova the next morning, I didn’t exchange more money. And the driver of the next car wanted a bit, the first of the whole trip who asked me for this. I told him I had not enough, to stop the car so I would wait another, but he was not stopping. Finally he agreed to take my little money and threw me out of the car after the next curve.

But sometimes fortune smiles to someone, and as I looked around, I discovered I was in a wonderful place near a lake, not far from the town of  Laza.

Near the lake in Laza

Romanian Beauty II

Jiet - Campulung. Click to enlarge

I woke up in that lonely road of Jiet, but it wasn’t difficult to have a lift. After a few minutes a big truck appeared and I got in. It was driven by Ivi, a happy driver who used to drive all over Europe and now was cheerfully driving his own truck through those unasphaulted roads. And it was hard for his double wagon trailer to make itself a path between those wooden bridges and narrow trees. But he was a master of it. As he was showing me photos of that place in winter time, he told me I was crazy to sleep there: bears and wolves inhabited those forests. Then, he realized our ways were different, and when a van appeared right behind us, he used his radio to call them. After a while, he was turning up to another mountain as I got out and jumped into the van.

Little friends in Lacu Vidra

It was some kind of minibus, or a van with lots of seats, with two adults and six children, karts drivers that were going on a competition in some circuit between those mountains. The older one was Alexandru, and he was the one who talked the most, as he was the only who knew some words in English. We had a nice ride until the Vidra Lake, were they turned to a road leading to some resort. And I got out and waited for a car. There I could admire the beauty of those mountains and the lake, as there alone I was insecurelly thinking in wolves and bears living around there. After a while (and always incredibly fast thinking in the loneliness of those roads) a sort of gentleman appeared. Clean, perfectly combed and elegantly dressed, with a new 4×4 car with the wheel in the wrong side as it was bought in England. His name was Gheorghe and he was a farmer. He was driving so fast, making myself scared for my luck, but maybe because of this he stopped in a bus stop in the next town.

Lacu Vidra

Lacu Vidra

Lacu Vidra

Furtherv I was driven by Florin. He had to stop at a bank to make some formalities. He gave me the keys of the car and told me, “Hey, wait here for me, and watch over the car”. There, with the keys in my hands, unethical things passed through my head, but, I’m not that bad. He told me goodbye in Brezoi, where I bought some food and I walked to a park and ate with tho old ladies looking at me. “Where are you from?”, one asked to me in Romanian. “Barcelona, in Spain”. “Oh, you come walking from there?” “Yes!” And they were congratulating me a few time as I was laughing inside…

Caciulata monastery

Some drivers told me I should stop in Caciulata, and I did so. A woman with her daughter brought me to the beautiful old monastery, built in the 14th century, the walls full of orthodox icons paintings and a pleasant calmed atmosphere all around. A nun came to me, told me something I didn’t understand and showed me her teeth made of gold. And yeah, I was happy and hitched again to Ramnicu Valcea inside a car with a trailer. The guy was angry at the beginning, and when I asked what he had in the trailer, he answered “nothing!”. But then we talked more and more and he got happy and finally said “Peanuts, I have many peanuts there! Do you want some?”

I’ve made it to Valcea and there I was picked up by a big old man. He was a mechanic with big and dirty hands. He told me he needed to carry something and we went somewhere by secondary roads. Then he stopped at a big house and said: “Come with me”

Inside the fence it was full of chickens here and there. An old woman with a shawl gave me some grain and made the gesture to  feed the hens, so it was what I did. Then it was the turn for the pump. I helped Adrianu to carry that heavy pump inside his car, and we left right to Curtea de Arges.

After a couple of car rides, I was with Madalin, a sim card and Orbit chewing gum seller who also wanted some help. We were driving through tracks to small villages bars, trying to sell the goods. He didn’t know English and every time we couldn’t understand each other, he was calling his cousin, who tried to say the same in English or Italian. And it was getting late, but that was more exciting, paths full of cows and hens, bars full of dirty drunk men and everything was fast and interesting and nice.

Mateias Mausoleum near Campulung

Finally we arrived to Campulung. He showed me a pension, I gave thanks to him, and when he was away, I walked following the road looking for a place to plant my tent. After 10 minutes walking, Madalin appeared again.

“What are you doing?” He said.

I improvised something about the pension prices, and he decided to bring me to another pension, right in the path to Brasov. We stopped near Mateias Mausoleum, and he showed me a resort not far from there. I asked him about planting the tent around there.

“Noooo! Bears!”

But I didn’t pay attention to him.

Late at night, I was reading torch on head when I heard something  big went down the mountain slope, came to my tent and started shaking it. I was terrified. But as I was trying to find my knife, an empty water bottle was treaded on frightening the animal, and I could hear how it went to my food garbage that I smartly had placed some meters further my tent.

That was a long and hard day, but it was impossible to sleep.

The Bosnian experience

Bosnia is one of the last really genuine countries in Europe. There’s a great mix, but the difference between every of their cultures remains strong. A massive amount of mountains allows tiny roads that follows green valleys between the diversity of its people. And there are also the memories of the war, which are not funny, but interesting enough. Traveling is something we do mostly for fun, but there’s nothing bad in put a little bit of interest in the history, the circumstances, and the possibilities of the place we are visiting. And Bosnia have plenty of circumstances which can be interesting to know. Since the romans settlements to the slavicisation of the country and the Turks invasions, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria –the spark that set off World War I-, the other war and the communist times. And then happened what we already know. Me, I don’t like involving too much in the politics of each place. I mean I like to know, but I don’t like to discuss. I better let people talk and talk to me, and expose their visions. It’s by listening that we learn more; the more you listen, the more you’ll have an exact vision of the problems on locals eyes, that can be so different from the visions we get in our houses. And this is important. The less we discuss about politics, the more we’ll learn and more friends we’ll have. Politic talks are discussions if we give our opinion, but are interviews if we ask the people to explain their point of view to us. So my recommendation is to make more interviews than anything else. Everywhere, but specially in a country with a past like Bosnia.

I had some special rides in Bosnia. One of them was Mustafa and his friend. They gave me a lift one day, and next day I found them again on the road and took me for second time. But more amazing was to find myself inside a school bus with a teenagers’ classroom on a three-day trip, where I felt abused with questions about my girlfriends, spanish football and sex.

Banja Luka orthodox church

From Italy I had rain in all my days. Not all time, but all days some rain at all. I was hitchhiking with my waterproof when Namir and Goran stopped and took me to Banja Luka. I have a great memory of them. Namir was the driver. He was a tall ex-basketball player who went to play in Poland, but had to go back to his country for the war. At his side, Goran enjoyed to play blues on the tape. They invited me to drink a coffee on a road bar, and then I went with them to buy things for their house, to pay the electricity bill in the National Electric Company, and to the bank to pay the bill for the water. Then, we went to their house (and mysteriously some slivovica shots came to our hands), and finally we went to a bar. They made me a present, a Bosnian t-shirt which I promised to take into China – and I did. Then, their friends (Zoran, Goran and Zoran) came and the fun increased. They began to explain stories of the war, joking about it and made toasts as the beer was accidentally falling into my stomach. And I limited to listen to them, admire the male ex-soldiers party and drink and drink and drink.

I was drunk when I met Senka at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. She was my host I found on Hospitality Club. We stayed in the same house as her father, a man who passed all the time looking at the wall. I didn’t see him making anything else. Jokes apart, he seemed a tired man, a man who had lived enough to understand things. But I’m saying this judging only his eyes (dark profound eyes), ‘cause I didn’t exchange any word with him.

Krupa na Vrbasu, Banja Luka, Bosnia

We went to the center, and Senka showed me an exposition made by her in the center of the city. There were many photo compositions, and some conceptual disposition of elements and furniture. It all made me feel her need to do new things, in opposition of his father. And made me think a little about the differences between two generations, one who had to carry a heavy load and now finds relief in the flippancy of the new times, and a young generation who wants to fulfill their empty bag with something not coming from their complex past.

I left Banja Luka with the feeling that I could have tried something with her. She was a beautiful girl and I was a free traveler, so there was nothing to fear. Maybe her father in the next room. But there, under the rain, I was a little bit tired for hitchhike. I went to the station and I got into a bus to Doboj.

Hitting the road

I left Catalonia with many doubts, but I had a plane ticket and I had no choice. Slowly, the flippancy of the travel invaded me. The plane took me to visit my cousin in the beautiful city of Bologna and then it came the night. It was fine in the young Bolognan nights, full of spanish students. The alcohol stopped in our hands for a while, and some music passed by. I didn’t get any girl those nights. But it’s fine. After 5 days I was on a train that took me to Bentivoglio and it was the beggining of it all.

Outside Bentivoglio there’s a hidden entrance to the highway, a hole in a fence that lets you get inside. I found it, and slept on the service area near the motorway. Next morning I began to hitchhike. Italia is not a good country for hitchhike, but a crowded highway heading to populated areas is always fine. It was early morning when the first car stopped. It was a Russian man, he let me into his car and we crossed the lowlands of the Po Basin until Venice. He was a tourist guide operator and he disliked his job, all the time bringing tourists to see the same monuments and all the time making the same jokes. Yes, the first ride was a nice ride, fast, funny and long, and my spirit was growing high.

After a couple of rides, in Udine, I met Giorgio, a gravedigger who was going on holiday to Croatia, up to my way. It was the first time I was inside a hearse. “Probably, next time I won’t be able to appreciate how it is”, I thought.

Despite his work, Giorgio was a funny and cheerful man. He talked about reggae music, about some joints he used to smoke when he was in Spain, and some other things I quickly forgot. I couldn’t stop looking at the hearse. It was real and I was inside there. There were two rails and a couple of lockers to keep the coffins fixed. Some green hills scattered by the road, but the fun was not there. The car, the leather seats, the curly haired man full of happiness and his heavy guffaws inside that sad envirointment completly impressed me.

Croatian shore in Senj

We crossed the border to Slovenia and then we made it to Croatia. I got down the car in Rijeka, and kindly gave thanks to Giorgio. It was a small win: it was still lunch-time and I had already covered almost 400 km.

I was walking through the town when it began to rain. That ugly rain… it followed me everyday until reach the Romanian lands. That’s why the 400km didn’t seem that much after some hours waiting for the sun, that made himself visible atop of the sky in the early evening.

The next car to give me a lift was a good one. While the father was shouting loud the names of some football players and talking by cellar phone,  his son was changing the gears. They were understanding each other perfectly: the father was taking the wheel and accelerating, and as soon as the car was starting to make sound, he pushed the clutch and the son changed the gear. It had a good result, the son enjoyed his job and the father could talk by mobile phone for a long time.

Mime and Alberich hitchhiking near the Bosnian border.

The shore in Croatia is a thin and steep thing, and there are not wide places to plant a tend, so I just extended my sleepnig bag between some bushes. There, looking alone at the sunset I could feel the satisfaction of the things well done. The experience of the first day just confirmed me something I already knew before: the variety of people I can meet in the cars is awesome. In the next few days followed deep christians, funny grannies with their grandsons, dirty bear hunters, bosnian muslims, old communist nostalgics, heavy metal fans and responsible people going to work. Everyone with their own history, everyone with a story to tell. And they got rougher when I got deep into Bosnia.

The Sun in my Forehead: the route

I always had the sensation that going to the east was something special. Probably this is caused for my location: Spain is in the very West of the Eurasian continent. My first idea – cross the land from Spain to Magadan – is one of the longest straight ways that can be made without crossing any sea, and this had something that made me dream. The same piece of land should be all the same, but it is not. Everything, the landscape, the people, the nature, the food… everything changes little by little, and in the end you look backward and nothing is like it began. Being an observer of this film was my fantasy for a long time and finally I decided to do it.

Whatever it was, I decided to go straight to the East, always stepping forward with the Sun lighting upon my forehead.

The Sun in my Forehead and other recent route

As I look back, the route is quite different as I planned before. But this is something that easily happens in long travels like this. Europe is easy to hitchhike, and arriving to Ukraine was an easy task. Then I had to cross the Black Sea by boat for made it to the crazy Caucasus lands. From there, I passed through Central Asia – probably the most interesting part of the trip – until the Chinese border, and by several means of transport I arrived to Southeast Asia. There I stayed for six months, a one-moth scape to India included. And still smarting from that Russian disappointment, I flew to the north of the country and crossed down until Ukraine.

After all, I came back home, with my backpack full of stories, tips and photographs to share with all of you.

The beginning of all and the Mighty Samarkand

It didn’t begin looking at the white sea-foam on a sunny afternoon, nor looking the horizon on a high peak dominating the plains. It was just a matter of time. Time by time, little by little, I realized that the crazy long travels I read on the books were not unachievable targets, they were not heroic deeds done by amazing people with lots of funds, it was only the decision of simple people who wanted to change a little bit their life. And they found somewhere the bravery to do it.

Despite all this, I was never sure to begin the adventure. It was just not easy to give up it all, leave everything and everyone and take a round over the world. Not everyone understands it, mostly the family or the father who always talks about work. Until one day I began to plan everything. Everything became clear, everything looked as easy targets, the impossible connections I thought before were little by little turning to reasonable objectives, the unknown countries didn’t seem that strange after getting some information. The forgotten paths, the visa issues, there’s nothing impossible for a person who really wants to do this.

But, anyway, I was still afraid. Maybe not afraid, but unsure of it. I had planned many things, but didn’t fixed a departure date. It was difficult for me to set a departure date. One thing is to dream, and another is to say “ok, I’m REALLY gonna do this”. Until one book came to my hands. It was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and it really changed my mind. Yes! There’s no need to be scared, that’s not the spirit you may take. Just go there, rise the thumb and hit the road. That’s all, there’s nothing more to think about. It’s not just a dream, it’s my dream and I can do it. And after some time it becomes a way of life.

Ulugh Beg Madrassa in Samarkand

Choosing the route was an easy thing. For years the ancient city of Samarkand was the point were all the wishes started and the thoughts were coming from. Samarkand the Great, Samarkand the Mighty, Samarkand the land of the Monster, Old and Elder Marakand. Once destroyed by Alexander the Great, then governed by Tamerlan, forsaken into the desert sands when the Silk Route fell down, now was an unknown place in the forgotten country of Uzbekistan. The beauty of its buildings, the legendary name of the place, the far it is from everywhere… everything made Samarkand a magic place, a place were I didn’t know what to find, a place of legend, the rule of communism, the turkish muslims and the Mongol facial features.

Well, it’s true, I had some point to shot my mind. And that’s a lot. My plans would go straight to Samarkand, crossing Europe, the Caucasus, the Kizilkum desert from the new sands of Aral since arrive to the old powerful town. After that, all the plans seemed so far, so long, like talk about fantasy or sci-fi. I did plan to go up to the north through the Kazakh steppe, cross to Russia and find the Kolyma Highway after Yakutsk. The plans then included Japan and America until the south… but it’s talking in vain. I changed all my plans after the Central Asia shake.

And what’s the point of all the speech? Well, probably there’s no point at all. Just to share what I took and what I owned. You can plan a big trip if you dream of that, you just need some stimulation, an objective, and a spear to make it all explode. And to find this things is quite an easy thing!

Go there and find it out!