Romania came as a big change to our urban tourism in Prague and Budapest. We didn't go to any cities and spent the whole time mingling with the locals and trying our best to speak Romanian. In a bizarre twist of fate, we became representatives for Brazil in this country. When we spoke in Portuguese to one another, people would stop, stare at us, think for a moment and finally exclaim very dramatically: "Ah! Telenovela!"
In order to communicate we had to apply French, Portuguese, and whatever Latin roots we could remember to get ourselves through a menu. In the end we realized that we didn't need that much vocabulary for the food anyway, since the national cuisine basically consists of two staples: porkchops and french fries. With nothing else available that's all we ate, for days on end. We took our vitamins to insure getting some fruit and vegetable derivatives in our system.
We started out our Romanian days in the sleepy medieval town of Sighisoara in the Transylvanian mountains. This is where Vlad Tepes, also known as Count Dracula, was born in 1431. His house is now a restaurant where we feasted on porkchops and french fries.
In Sighisoara we boarded a bus (also from the year 1431) and prayed we wouldn't have an accident before arriving in Victoria at the foot of the Fagaras Mountains in the Southern Carpathians. In Victoria we saw many examples of our typical Romanian: Sporting an armless T-shirt, nylon Adidas shorts, several goldchains and a Rolex, he sits in a cafe with five empty pints of beer in front of him (at 11 o'clock in the morning) next to his black BMW with German plates blasting Eastern European light-weight house music at 150 dB while he talks to his neighbor, who just arrived on a cart full of hay pulled by a donkey. Many a times we thought we were trapped in a movie by Emir Kusturica.
We hiked up the almost vertical mountains, passing many gorgeous waterfalls, to arrive at the Cabana Turnuri (1520 m. altitude) seven hours later. Although our legs felt like noodles the next day we managed to retrace our steps down to the valley.
The following morning we joined the locals who wave their hands along the rural roads. Hitch-hiking is a very popular form of transportation in Romania and in one day we managed to catch five rides, transporting ourselves the 150 km from Victoria to Curtea de Arges. We climbed up the Trans-Fagarasan Highway (which is called highway because it winds up to 2500 m. height, not because it goes fast) and passed Dracula's castle in Poienari before arriving in the lush Arges Valley. Special thanks to the German family who picked us up in their mobile home and shared their breakfast with us.
Although this is the poorest county in Europe and there are signs everywhere of how Ceausescu screwed it up, we left Romania with colorful memories of hiking in wild and spooky forests, Saxon churches, gypsies and their music, and a somewhat repetitive diet.
Unfortunately we had our first encounter with corruption on the train out of the country when the train conductor threatened and blackmailed us. But in the end, maybe that's all part of the adventure? |
