mountains « World nomad

Posts Tagged ‘mountains’

Going back to Sofia (for a week)

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

For the first time when I’m in a new country I miss my “real home”, which for now is Sofia in Bulgaria for me. I miss friends, the wonderful people in general, the nature (most of all the mountains), trekking, sports (indoor climbing and so on), warm thermal springs, the great tasting (and varied) food, drinking coffee while walking and a lot more. I also miss being on the road…

That’s why I will be going to Sofia tonight and stay for about a week. What I don’t miss is the cold weather and I know Sofia is covered in snow right now, while Istanbul will be extra warm this week. But I really don’t care right now, and I also left some winter clothes in storage in Sofia so that shouldn’t be a problem (I didn’t bring them to Istanbul because I thought it would be warmer here).

Too bad my Turkish flatmate couldn’t join me this time, would be fun to show him Bulgaria, but I know there will be more opportunities in the future. And when I come back to Sofia next week I will have visitors from Spain and Sweden which I also look forward to! Until then, enjoy some random pictures below from the last week here in Turkey:

Sunset in Istanbul

Istiklal street in Istanbul, with an ocean of heads

A common sight in Istanbul's suburbs

Building construction in Istanbul with low security for the workers

Kartepe ski resort, about 3 hours from Istanbul

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Tags: Bulgaria, daily life, Istanbul, mountains, People, Sofia, travel, trekking
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Sofia -> Istanbul

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

It was a long time since I wrote something in the blog. The reason are many, but mostly because I’ve had a full schedule the two months I have been here in Bulgaria now. I’ve traveled around by car, bus and train, visited small towns, big cities, incredibly friendly & interesting people, been trekking, caving, taking baths in outdoor hot mineral springs, bungee jumping, partying, exploring and learning. I have totally fell in love, both in this country and it’s people.

BUT – I will probably move to Istanbul for 2 months in the beginning of January. There are mainly two reasons for this. First of all I will maybe loose my apartment here in Sofia around New Year’s Eve. Instead of looking for a new apartment here, I will take a break to get a perspective on things, and look for an short term apartment/roommate in Istanbul instead. Also, I need more warm climate than Sofia right now, although this means I will miss the snowboard season here.

First of all I will fly home to my family in Sweden for a week to spend Christmas there. Then back here in Bulgaria for NYE celebrations. Hopefully at this time i have more concrete plans and an apartment.

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Tags: Bulgaria, daily life, mountains, moving, nature, Sofia, trekking
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The mountains and caves around Sofia

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

I love trekking and when I have not been exploring my new home town Sofia I have done trips to the mountains. Two beautiful places that I want to tell you about are Lakatnik and Skakavitsa.

Lakatnik is about one hour outside of Sofia and there is a train stop which is perfect to start your trekking from. You will cross a bridge over the Iskar river and then walk up through a beautiful forest with an incredible panoramic view. After about one hour you reach one of the many caves you can find here. These natural caves date back to around 130,000 BP and have different difficult levels that suit both beginners and experienced cavers. If you don’t like cave’s (or bats) you can just enjoy the fascinating view! This mountain also has some perfect walls for climbing if you know what you are doing.

Lakatnik - crossing over the Iskar river

Locals we met on the way walking up the mountain

The river again following the mountain

One of the Lakatnik caves with an incredible view

Portrait photographing on high heights

Beautiful view over the foggy forest

Skakavista is two hours from Sofia and is most easy to reach by car. If you don’t have a car available you can also take two buses to get there. Skakavista is perfect for a weekend trip as there is a big hut up in the mountain (within 1-2 hours walk) where you can stay if the weather is not suited for tenting. This place is most famous because of it’s beautiful waterfall and on the other side of the mountain it’s lakes. In the winter the waterfall is turned into ice and great for ice climbing. If you are here in the summer you can instead take a dip in the small river that goes down the mountain.

Skakavitsa - view of one of the mountains

Ice on the mountain wall

Beautiful ice formations in the river

More river and ice

Skakavitsa river coming from the waterfall

The Skakavitsa waterfall, with periodical ice breaks

Both these places are great both for beginners and advanced trekkers because you can find varied level of difficult tracks.

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Tags: Adventure, mountains, nature, Pictures, Sofia, trekking
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Torrevieja VS Sofia

Monday, October 26th, 2009

After one week in Sofia I start to see and feel some differences between my last living place, Torrevieja, and here in Sofia.

Most obvious are the weather. From having to hide from the sun in Spain (still in October!) to having to buy more winter clothes in cold Sofia. Some days ago I was trekking up in the mountains in the outskirts of Sofia in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower with a group of Couchsurfers, and it was below zero degrees with frost. Good think we had blankets and vodka.

Another difference is that almost everyone here speaks English or at least understands it. As usual people are a little bit shy in the beginning to speak but after a while you realize they are quite good at it. I’m still throwing out Spanish words by mistake, but have started to go to a language exchange to learn Bulgarian, as well as practicing the Cyrillic alphabet.

People here are really warm and helpful, but they seem to be wherever I travel. Just some people ignore you in the street when you ask for directions, but that is nothing new either. The rest stops and help you for 15 minutes, showing the path and distance on their GPS and so on. Maybe it sometimes have a small connection with how secure people are with speaking in English.

The prices here are incredible for still being inside Europe (almost comparable to Asia in some cases). You can get a kebab or slice of pizza for 60 cent, normal restaurant food for 3 euro, rent a central apartment with high standard for 200 euro a month, or a central room for 80 euro. Every time you get the bill somewhere it gives you a big smile =).

The food is great. Not only cheap as I mentioned above, but the variety and quality of the food here is really good, and I find so many food dishes here that I have never seen before. On top of that they need to write how many grams every dish is in the menu (it’s the law), which is very helpful. Be prepared though that it can take a lot of time to get the food, and that you won’t get it at the same time if you are a large company dining together.

So far I really like it here and plan to stay for at least 3 months (until January). In this time I will also check out other cities and countries close by as this area has a lot of unexplored places for me.

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Tags: Bulgaria, daily life, mountains, moving, Sofia, spain, torrevieja
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Day trip to Ronda

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

A week in Fuengirola is a little bit too much, so one day I took a short trip to Ronda. This small town is located high up in the mountains and is known mostly because of Ernest Hemingway writing about it’s beauty and the 120 meter tall bridge that you have to cross to get into the old town. I had been there before and went there now mostly to show the town too some people, but this time we took a different way back home and it turned out to be the best part of the whole trip! The roads were newly renovated and great to drive on, if you don’t easily get road sickness as there were almost no straight lines but only curves the whole way. The view was breathtaking and started with a desert landscape which soon changed into high beautiful mountains and a protected nature area with the name Sierra de Las Nievas. If it hadn’t been for the darkness catching in on us we would have spent more time just walking and driving around there.