Walk from Shabla to Tyulenovo

I departed early in the morning and kept walking on the beach nearly up to the Shabla's Lighthouse and after that I went up on the clifs until I got to the Tyulenovo village.

However to compensate that Tyulenovo village was very nice place with very friendly inhabitants. Around the vilage, before and after it there were one of the most impressive rocky shores I've seen, with a lot of smal caverns and secluded places were many foreign turists were sunbating, swimming or jumping from the rocks. When I passed the village I found place designated as "bivouac", where explicitly was written on postsign that tents can be pitched up, campfires made and there even was a chmical toilet, so despite of not walking a lot that day I decided to stop there and camp during the night.

It was pretty warm, so I didn't bother to pitch up a tent, but later on it started cooling and I decided to try my Karimor survival polytilene bag, which was a bit of disappointment, because even it breaks the wind, it keeps inside all body moisture, which makes the sleep in one of them pretty unpleasant. Also I made my self hobo stove which worked as charm and kept me warn.

Later in the evening several fishermen arrived and kept fishing until 6 o'clock in the morning of thd next day and one of them managed to catch half bucket of the exeptionaly tasty Black Sea fish called localy "Safrid". The fishermen were very friendly and asked me if I am al right, if I am cold, comfortable and so on.

All in all the experience was very pleasant and I took some pictures, which I'll post in near future, when I have faster internet and computer.

PS The tortoise shown in the video is not a Horsefields one, because I've got the English names mixed up and this species doesn't even live in Bulgaria. So, it is the Spur-thighed (or Greek), which is the largest one living in Europe (up to 8 kg), rare and treatened with extinction species.

Walking on the beach from Durankulak to Shabla

First to excuse myself for the quality of the editing. I am doing this on my phone, where the preview doesn't work, so there are  some faults, but this is the best I can do at the moment. A bit later I'll do better video, where these issues are going to be fixed.

I walked on the beach from the Durankulak's camping site to the Shabla's one. At first I thought to pitch up my tent just outside the camping site, but later on I changed my mind and entered the one called "Holiday Houses Mezdra". Sleeping in tent costs 2 pounds per person, for which one gets showers and toilets too. Provided basic safety rules are followed also campfires and BBQs can be made. The hosts showed me also the bungalows and in general were exceptionally friendly.They are couple in they late 40s, early 50s with a daughter, called Nona, who is an aspiring journalist and her boyfriend, very pleasant young man, who works as builder. After that the hosts invited me to share a meal with them, and it was a meal, what is seen on the picture is only the beginning, later we had sausages and meatballs on grill, Bulgarian anisette, called "Mastika", beers and so on. We stayed around the table until nearly 2 o'clock after midnight and many interesting stories were told.

From all the places I ever visited on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast I'd say that this was by far the best. Very cheap, friendly people, nice sandy beach and in general all that I like in a resort. So I'd give it 10/10 from my semi-wild camper point of view.

Update about the travel posts

Now I don't have access to Internet everyday and when I do have its often way too slow to update anything, so I am posting some of the videos not in a chronological order, but rather because it managed to get uploaded. For my next trip I'll have in mind to sort somehow better, or at least more regular access to Internet, so I could post daily or nearly that updates.

PS And at the end I'll stitch up these short clips together with some photos to make something like short movie.

Camping "Kosmos" near Durankulak - bungalows and short review

When I arrived in the area in search for the most northern point on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast I spent first couple of nights in one of these bungalows, which are pretty good for the price of 6 pounds per person. The price for place for pitching up a tent is about 3 pounds per night, per person and it gives you access to water, showers and toilets. Also campfires can be made provided its done in secure way. The beach is may be 50-100 meters away and is nice yellow (but not too fine) sand.

There was nothing that surprised me in a bad way and I guess I would recommend this place for people searching more secluded beaches and places around the sea coast. And about myself I liked it far better then the overcrowded and overbuilt popular resorts starting a bit further south.

The adjacent to the Durankulak's camping site restorant

This is a short video from the adjacent to the Durankulak's camping site restaurant. Its the only place to eat or buy anything in the area, the next closest one being in the village itself, a few kilometers away.

As it can be seen from the video, this restaurant is suited only few meters away from the sea and I guess in a storm these sitting inside will be showered with droplets of seawater. The staff as with the camping itself was very friendly and nice, portion of fish would be about 2 pounds and 0.5l beer 1 pound. In the evenings there is live music and can be seen people from various countries, like Germany, Romania or Czech republic.

Most Northern point along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast

Video from one of the most northern points along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, between the Bulgaria-Romanian border and the Durankulak's campsite called "Kosmos"

Romania-Bulgaria border at Black Sea shore

I wanted to do this video at some border-indicating post or sign, but there was none at the Bulgarian side and apparently I was not allowed to film the one from the Romanian side, so I decided to do it somewhere in between.

Arrival in Duran Kulak, Bulgaria Black Sea camping site

Duran Kulak is a village 5 km from the Romanian border. What is interesting is that there are fewer visitors and the place is one of ths last calm and near wild places for camping. The sea water is pretty warm, the sea itself is calm, there are also a number of Central European visitors. All in all there and only couple of bars where the turists can eat or have a pint of beer. There is also a lake where in addition to the sea fishing one can fish in fresh water.

I've got at that place at 3 am with a friend, after spending several hours searching for calm camp site north of Burgas. Originaly I wantd to find place somewhere around Kamchia river, but we've got there sometimes after midnight and everything was closed, so we left and kept going north for another couple of hours.

Arrival at Sofia Airport, Bulgaria

Short update about my trip to Bulgaria. Just arrived at Sofia Airport. A lot of taxi drivers queuing for clients. By the way mind the Bulgarian taxis, they've been notorious in the past for the bad treatment of their clients, but I heard that this is not as bad nowadays.

Other than that, in 22:00 its already dark night, but the temperatures are pretty high with 31C as can be seen from the board on the bus stop.

Plans for travel in Bulgaria

So, I decided the first part from my walk to be between Vama Veche, Romania and Rezovo, Bulgaria, which means walking approximately 400 km along the whole Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. I bought already plane ticket from London to Sofia for this weekend and then with a bus I'll get to Vama Veche.

The issue with the wild camping in Bulgaria seems to be somewhat grey area. Big part of the land is not private property, so there is that, but still it could be somewhat illegal to pitch up tent near the coast. I'll check this more in debt and will write about it more in some of the next days. Next, there are few rivers which doesn't have bridges close to the sea, so I'll need small inflatable raft to cross them. I found one for £15, with weight 2.1 kg and I hope it should do the job of carrying me across these small rivers. Also that small raft can be used as mat, so its worth the additional weight. Fishing with fishing line should be completely legal without any licenses or permits in Black Sea, but again I'll check that to confirm.

That so far is my idea, but its not set in stone, so it may change.

Somewhere in Bulgaria around Black Sea

Plans for next travel

In case anybody wonders where I disappeared the last 5 days, worry not, I've been planning my next walking adventure. This year I am not going to see anything too exotic for various reasons, but still I'll try to do my best with what I have. So the choice is narrowed to one of the Balkan countries and I am planning to walk several hundred kilometres for several weeks along sea coast and during that time I also plan to sleep exclusively under open skies if the weather permits it and if it doesn't, in my simple tarp bivvy. Also I'll try to avoid buying food, so I'll have to see how I'll sort that issue. Probably best bet is to go fishing from time to time and also carry some food with myself in case I feel too lazy for hunting and gathering.

Next few days I'll write a bit more about that.

I want to be in places like this

Visit to the Brixton Street Market, London 2016

Today I visited the Brixton Street Market, place in London which I often have heard mentioned when people spoke about exotic foods, but somehow haven't seen yet. So my first impression is that its not really very big and while some years ago I would have thought that looks like Middle-Eastern or Afro-Caribbean market, today I think its something rather typical for London, as there are several similar markets around. When I say Middle-Eastern or Caribbean, I mean not only the exotic foods, but also the ambient, the faces of the people, the stalls without prices and covered sometimes with fruits and foods that I haven't seen yet in my life and strangely enough the prices are not really fixed and the vendors often decide on the moment how much to ask for any specific thing.

Street musicians next to the Brixton Underground Station

Other then food, other thing as these flowers can be seen, too.

"Progressive" yet ancient looking unisex toilet.

There are a few covered passages, bazaar-type

Shop with some crafted things and vegetable seeds for planting

There were also a lot of stalls with fresh fish and seafood from many different species

Most of the stalls and places for eating are Afro-Caribbean

The omnipresent rye and sourdough breads

Soursop, spiky green fruit, which I have never eaten before but found and bought from this market. Somehow I forgot to take a picture myself, so I am using this one from Wikipedia. The fruit is very sweet, its related to the Cherimoya and with somewhat similar taste, but it has a bit strange aftertaste, to which I think one has to get used first.