Carpathians

No trip to Romania is complete without a visit to the Carpathian mountains. The part of them most easily acessible from Bucharest is Bucegi in the southern Carpathians.

Two stray dogs who just sat there watching the ski lift go up and down. (Click the picture to see all of it. Move your mouse over all other pictures to read descriptions, and click them to see them in full size.)

We took a mini bus to Busteni, hoping to catch the cableway up the nearest mountain (with my wimpiness, walking all the way up one of these 2000-2500 m high mountains would have been a bit tough). The cableway turned out to be closed because of the strong wind further up, but in the neighbouring town, Sinaia, we had more luck. At 1400 m we left the cableway and walked the rest. It was great fun, especially a very narrow and steep part that's called 'The little path of the sheep', where numerous friends and relations of Mihai have fallen down over the years. But not I!!
During the last part, before we reached the cabin at 2000 m, the wind had become really cold and strong, and hail was showering over us. I was getting dizzy, because everything was somehow just *white*. But it wasn't long until we had reached the little hotel where we could rent a small room, and eat our provisions - the tastiest salad (including the Romanian specialties alium ursinum and hazmatsuchi), bread, cheese and soy based sausages that I've ever come across in my life - while Mihai kept teasing me about how today's route was sooo easy, the kind of trip you make with little children!!

Not very far from where we left the cableway

The weather was still not very good in the next morning, and we didn't go very far from the cabin. We were staying at Cabana Miorita on Platoul Bucegi, and in the neighbourhood there were a couple of other cabins and also a military base with poor Nazgûl-like guards standing at guard wearing long, frosty coats and fur caps, asking passers-by for cigarrettes and reminding us that it was forbidden to photograph the military base.
Like everywhere else in Romania, there were many stray dogs hanging around, who got food from the soldiers and the people who stayed at the little hotels. Most of them were really thin, and I guess the ones who seemed to be in better shape just had thicker fur that concealed their bones better. Of course, a large part of the food we had brought went to the dogs we met.
In the evening the weather cleared up, but it was already too late to set out on the path to another cabin by Piatra Arsa ('the burned cliff'), from where we would descend later, so we postponed that until the next morning.

After staying too long in bed again ... we set out towards the north along the mountain ridge. At the cabin near Piatra Arsa, where we stopped to stuff me full of food so I'd survive the following descent down to the valley, we met a little black dog who was hanging around at the cabin.
When we left, the little dog followed us. We walked across snow and ice, yellow grass and crocus flowers that grew all over the sunny parts of the hills, and the little black dog still followed us. She didn't let us touch her, except when she was smelling our hands and nudged our fingers with her little nose, but she seemed to like us somehow.

Tinet is happy, because she has just survived the descent of a very steep, very long and very slippery snow/ice-covered slope (which can be seen in the background).

A little stray pup who followed us all the way from Cabana Piatra Arsa down to Sinaia.

The dog is trying to figure out what it is that Mihai sees in that landscape.

The little dog sniffing at the crocuses that grew all over the mountains.

After the flatter part, a very steep slope suddenly appeared before us, where you could look down almost all the way to the valley. We made a little break before starting to descend it and sat/lay down on the almost vertical slope. I was clutching a bunch of grass to hold onto something, and I really wished I was a bird, like the ravens and eagles we saw flying across the sky, or a dog, like our little companion who was jumping around and playing with crocuses nearby. It's much easier to keep your balance when walking on four legs ...
But I eventually survived also this part of the road, holding on tightly to Mihai's hand and stepping in exactly the same places as he.
The rest of the way was easier, despite the fact that the path was covered with icy snow further down, where the thick forest prevented the sun from melting it. The very last part down to Sinaia was a paved serpentine road through beech forests, which Mihai thought was really boring. By then my knees were really hurting from the unusual strain, so, yes, I thought it was kind of boring, too. We picked some beech nuts and ate them, until Mihai remembered that he was fasting in these Easter times ...

As we were approaching Sinaia, we started to get worried about the little dog who was happily following us. It would have been hard to bear leaving this faithful companion behind when we would have to take the bus back to Bucharest. Maybe I could smuggle not only cucumber plants, but also a small dog through the customs into the European Union ...? In the outskirts of Sinaia, we stopped at a restaurant to stuff food into me again (the Romanian specialty of papanaschi - a kind of deep-fried pastry you eat with sourcream and blackberries), and the dog first walked around the building, trying to find a way inside, and then just stayed at the door where we had entered and waited for us. One of the waiters gave the dog food and talked with her, but she still followed us when we came out and started walking towards the town.
But as we came further into town, and the local dogs started to bark at this little stranger on their territory, she started to hesitate. After more and more dogs had joined the choir, she turned around and started running back towards the mountain. I hope she made it back safely - at least the road was considerably shorter and easier for her than for us humans ...

Sinaia was, of course, full of dogs, too, both in houses and running freely. On one narrow and steeply inclined road, where the sidewalk was built like a stairway, a band of dogs was resting, and each of them was lying on her own step on the sidewalk.
Soon, we mounted a mini bus heading back to Bucharest, where Mihai's own dogs, cat and turtles had been waiting for us.