This was the first very long day. This isn’t titled 5-6 out of laziness, it was literally the same day for us. Our original plan was on the 19th to drive through Hungary and drive through as much of Romania as we could. On the 20th we would finish Romania – taking a detour to drive on the Transfăgărăşan highway of course – and then arrive in Vama Veche that evening. After that we would take the next day off and relax on the beach, or drive slightly south and go to Sunny Beach in Bulgaria. That was the original plan, and that got thrown out the window. We had decided in Budapest that we aren’t racing from party to party, especially since with that amount of driving we would be getting into Vama Veche in the evening. With that plan out the window we just started driving to Sunny Beach which is 1200 km (750 miles) away from Budapest – though Google Maps won’t show you the route using the crazy highway so the above pic is inaccurate.
Romania was the first country in the EU we had to show our passports at. I’m not terribly familiar with their standing in Euro politics, but I guess they aren’t part of the “schengen” area, which allows visa free travel from country to country. After we showed our passports we were asked to pull off to the side and wait. I think it has to do with being an American driving a UK registered car, which means this will probably happen a lot going forward. It only took a few extra minutes though.
We were pretty shocked at how nice the roads were when we crossed into Romania. The highways all look and feel brand new which makes sense because most of the traffic we ran into was related to new highways being built. We took a detour off of the main highway to go into a little town called Fäget to eat some food. We didn’t really care about what we were eating, we just needed a meal and to be able to keep the car in sight so that all the gypsies don’t steal our wheels. The gypsies are everywhere, and if you don’t see any that’s probably even worse. I think the place was some kind of Romanian pizza shop. The waiter spoke a little English, I think he was excited to speak to some Americans – which has been our general experience…except for France. We asked him to bring us some Romanian dishes, or whatever their specialty was. We got some stomach lining soup which was incredibly delicious, a salad that was his favorite thing (weird, it was just a salad) and their specialty pizza. I believe we were given sour cream (for our soup? no idea) and then 2 dips for the pizza, onion and mushroom. Ketchup was an option. Whatever the pizza was was pretty tasty too. The best part was our entire meal – 2 bowls of soup, a salad, a giant pizza, bottled water – cost a total of $17. Credit card machine didn’t work (or they didn’t want to pay 3% of $17) and unfortunately we hadn’t gotten any Romanian currency yet. They didn’t have a problem taking USD though, which was awesome. I’m sure they took the $8 we left as a tip and bought 37 cases of beer.
750 miles doesn’t seem like a long way, but of course we’re not talking about driving through Kansas. As soon as we left lunch the highway became a 2 lane road winding through the hills so our average speed dropped down to 35mph – if we were lucky. Beautiful drive though, the countryside is still undeveloped but the road was still great. The little gypsy towns are interesting because livestock is just kinda all over the place. Here’s a cow hanging out in the front yard.
The tentative plan was to get to the base of the Transfăgărăşan highway and camp for the night, then get up bright and early to traverse it and head to Sunny Beach. We got to the highway around 7 and google maps showed there were a few campsites at the bottom and one somewhere on the mountain, so we decided to drive until we found somewhere we wanted to stay for the night. Our big stupid van car loaded down with us and a whole bunch of gear – including a steel roof rack – handles surprisingly well through all the cutbacks. That being said our big stupid van car with a 1.2L engine doesn’t exactly rocket you up the mountain. It was a slow-go up. When we passed the tree line and were able to look off the mountain the views are gorgeous. It is incredible that someone was able to build this thing.
We had no intention of driving to the top, but the next thing you know there we were. We even passed another rally team chugging their way up. You can’t really camp at the top so we started making our way down. The sun wasn’t supposed to be down until after 9, and even though it was on the other side of the mountain it was light enough to keep going down. There is a lake at the base of mountain so we figured we’d drive there and find somewhere to post up but nothing looked cool enough to stay at. Probably a good thing, a rally team that was camping somewhere in there got robbed while they were sleeping. Wallets, passports, rally over. Fucking gypsies. There’s a life lesson in there. Your passport should always be in your pocket if it’s not safe. Leave it at the hotel, never ever in the car. I feel really bad for the team this happened to. Anyway, this picture does not do the road justice, and not just because it’s blurry. Imagine 90 kilometers of this, and your average speed is 25 mph.
We just kept driving but were all getting a little annoyed and no one had eaten. We came across a hotel that had a nice big patio so we hoped we could grab some food. Kitchen closed, oh well. We did get a bottle of Riesling for $7 though, but it was warm so they gave us ice cubes. Gypsies… Oh yeah, right up the hill from where we were sitting was Dracula’s castle!
Whilst drinking our warm vampire gypsy wine we all yelled at each other for a minute. Close quarters for extended periods of time can really build some tension, especially when we are continually pushing people’s buttons on purpose. The general sentiment was that we were sick of getting up late and driving so long that by the time we got to where we were going it was dark. So with a small tiff out of the way we decided that in order to enjoy a nice relaxing day on Sunny Beach we would have to drive straight through, which would mean another 9 hours in the car. It was past 10:30 pm at this point, but ya know whatever this trip wasn’t going to be exactly easy or always pleasant. To Bulgaria!
At this point the nice smooth road turned into total crap (relatively speaking, it’s about to get way worse.) Our goal was to never drive at night, especially when you’re not on quality roads. 1 week into the trip that idea is out the window. The roads got way better once we got to the Romania/Bulgaria border. At this point it’s around 2am so thankfully no one is crossing through. The first little checkpoint we go through was customs I guess? She didn’t speak very good English and kept asking for something and I had no idea what it was, so I kept alternating handing her my passport and my vehicle registration. Turns out she was wanting proof that we bought the vignette when we got into Romania – we didn’t. We just played dumb and eventually she just asked for 6 euros. We didn’t have any euros left so we gave her $10 which ended up being ok. Even though we lost a little on the exchange rate (6 euros is closer to $7) I’m 100% positive the vignette cost more than $10 and 110% sure that the lady just split it with the dude in the booth. So lesson learned, when all else fails continue speaking until they get frustrated and then hand over some USD. Hooray for bribery! Once again we were held up at the border and had to wait until the vehicle was verified. The car gets its own stamp on entry and exit, so my passport is filling up fast.
Ryan switched over to the drivers seat and was gonna try and get us to Sunny Beach since he was the most rested. And he did! Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU, so maybe it was just the road we were on but we couldn’t really tell that was the case. The little towns you pass through weren’t the nicest, but most were better than the little gypsy cities in Romania. It’s a shame I’m not good enough with my camera yet, the stars are extremely bright with the lack of light pollution – or pollution in general. When the sun came up over the hills we hopped out to take a few pictures. And to pee. Being a guy is awesome, anywhere is a toilet if you want it to be!
We finally got into Sunny Beach around 6-7 and we needed food. Dinner the previous night was some Romanian leftover pizza so we were pretty hungry. Parked the car for a minute and once we settled on somewhere to eat and headed that way. Now Sunny Beach is a small resort town on the Black Sea. It’s pretty lively, but thankfully not at 7am. Why? Because that’s when our brakes went out. Not completely out, but the pedal turned into a big sponge and we weren’t stopping on a dime like this fine Italian sports car is meant to. Of course right as this is happening a woman starts crossing the street with a baby stroller. Thanks universe! Next time throw in the watermelon cart and the guys carrying around plates of glass to hit. We didn’t hit her, but I had a minor heart attack. It took a few minutes to diagnose the problem, turns out something had hit the rear brake line and we were leaking brake fluid like the Trump administration staff. Thankfully we were going to be there for the entire day and didn’t need the car, and hey, if you’re going to break down might as well be in a beach town. We topped it off and slowly drove to a mechanic we found on google maps. It opened at 8, so we hung around until then to make sure they got the car first thing. We ended up going right across the street to this big Bulgarian guy that spoke this much English total: “Brake line. Ok. (Mutters) 12:30). Awesome, breakfast time!
We walked about a mile to check out the beach and find somewhere to eat food. It was still early though and for some reason most of the restaurants that serve breakfast don’t open till 10. Ryan found a place called Tiki Bar so we went there to put together a game plan. It’s an outdoor patio thing and it turns out it’s open 24/7. Apparently every day in Sunny Beach is Spring Break. We chatted with a few locals that were up at 8:30 drinking – happy hour all day long with a 2 for 1 special. Wtf? One of them recommended a good place for English breakfast, so we headed down that way after promising the bar staff who had taken quite a liking to us that we would be back that night.
We had requested an apartment through Airbnb at around 1 in the morning and were crossing our fingers the owner would accept it. She did! And she let us head over there at 10:30 to check in! What a saint, thanks Spela! As fate would have it the condo building was literally, and I mean literally, across the street from the mechanic. Absolutely amazing luck. We checked in and napped for a little while, and when it was ready Ryan walked 200 feet away and $100ish dollars later we had our car back that 4 hours ago wouldn’t stop. Considering there are teams that have cars that have all but exploded, we’ve been extremely lucky and our little Doblo is getting the job done.
After a solid nap we headed towards the beach. On the way a guy at the stoplight recognized us as Americans and chatted us up for a few minutes. I would say he’s probably one of the shadiest people I’ve ever met, for reasons that I won’t discuss in the blog. He told us a little bit about what lies below the seedy veneer of the town which was pretty off-putting. Anyway we hung out on the beach for a little bit, enjoyed a few beers and then headed back to the apartment. Before we did though, for a cool $8 Mitch and I rode around on these ridiculous scooters for 15 minutes, zipping through traffic and crowds of people. It was a blast and Mitch totally almost ate it. I almost did too, but there’s no video of it happening so I guess it didn’t happen.
