Bachkovo Monastery

I met a guy at the Hikers Hostel in Plovdiv named Carel from Amsterdam who is living in Australia. He's much older than me (8 days) and we hit it off pretty well and decided to travel a bit together. We saw all the sites in Plovdiv and decided to head south into the mountains to the Bachkovo Monastery, Bulgaria's second largest and most visited. It was easy enough to catch the bus and make our way to the monastery but when we arrived we learned all the roms were full. There were only 2 other hotels in 'town' and one was full and the other was closed! After much scrambling and talking to the locals (Carel speaks a bit of German) we determined the Eko Hotel isn't really closed... it opens at 4pm. So we had a few hours to kill and went for a hike up in the mountains behinf the monastery above the town. Stumbled on a 12th century church on a trail in the woods... absoulutely amazing. No locks, nobody around... open to any traveller who happens by. There were some beatiful frescos inside and out. The Monastery was beatuful... not as grand as Rila but definitely worth the stop. The hiking trails made the trip though.
On Tuesday we got up and went our separate ways... Carel headed south further into the Mountains and I headed north back to Plovdiv and Veliko Tornovo. Let me just say that public transportation in Bulgaria is nothing like anything I have ever experienced... either in the US or anywhere else. Bus schedules are just close estimates. I was told the bus to Plovdiv left Bachkovo every hour on the half hour, plus or minus 10 minutes. So I arrived at the bus stop 20 minutes early just to be safe, only to watch my bus pull away just as the bus stop came into view! So I figured no big deal, I'll wait for the next one. Then 5 minutes later this older guy pulls up in a minivan with 4 people in the back, rolls down the window and asks 'Plovdiv?' It was the same charge as the public bus so I hoped in and got a ride into town. It was about $3 for a 40 minute ride. Then after a taxi across town to another bus station I got my ticket for a 1:30 bus to Veliko Tornovo. A 4 and a half hour ride. Well, the bus left about 10 minutes early and only took 3 and a half hours and dropped me off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of town where nobody spoke English. I met some nice people who figured out where I needed to go and they gave me a free ride to the local bus stop about 5 mintes away. From there I caught the local bus (50 cents) into town and got dropped in the main square. I paid some local guy about $1 US to show me the way to the Hostel beecause by then I was about finished mentally. All in all it was quite a journey.
I'm happy to say the hostel is fantastic. Very new and clean and everyone is very nice. I ran into a guy from Newcastle that I met in Plovdiv and we had dinner with a couple guys from Paris. Sorry if I'm rambling but it's been a long day and I had a few beers with dinner... I think it's going to be an early night.

More tomorrow!
LP