After a breakfast of cheese and tomatoes on toast, served with slivers of cucumber on the side, I paid my bill. It seemed low for the accommodation (albeit basic), lunch, dinner and breakfast. I tried to add a tip, but the Hut Keeper would only take a few Lev, returning the rest to me.
Today my walk was at lower altitudes than recently and consequently all through woodland. Beech, oak, birch and pine, leaves on the first three turning yellow and brown with the changing season. I passed another monument to one of the battles that led to the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottomans. This one, at the Arabakonak pass, recalled a battle in December 1877 when the Russians drove the Ottoman Army out of the area. Grass and weeds were growing in the paving around the monument and the flight of steps up to it.
I decided to follow the Kom-Emine cycle route to divert into the village of Gorno Kamartsi. The guidebook warned the hiking alternative was overgrown and reported that there was a shop in the village. I also felt I was missing something as the Kom-Emine trail visits few villages or towns. After following a tarmacked road down to the village I was disappointed to find the shop would not open until 15:30, over three hours away. Seeing me loitering around the shop a teenager on his bike indicated I should follow him to a "magazen" or shop (the Bulgarian word presumably lifted from the French). He led me up a side street, encouraging me to hurry. This shop was just about to close for lunch, so I quickly bought two apples, various types of chocolate, a small square of cake in a plastic wrapping and a Coke. I tried to ask the lad who helped me find the shop if he wanted anything, but could not get the message across. As the owner locked up I sat down at the table outside and drank my Coke and ate my cake. The lad had acquired a can of "Hell" (a soft drink) and was smoking and starring at me. In a combination of mime and a few words of English he asked me a few questions. He was surprised I was in my sixties and did not smoke. A lot of Bulgarians are heavy smokers, fortunately they stand outside the huts to smoke. He was only 15 I gathered. From his mime I think he was offering me lunch, which I declined, partly as I had some distance to walk, but also not wanting to get too involved. I had been reading Patrick Leigh-Fermor's account of his walk through Bulgaria during the 1930's in his book "The Broken Road". I was sure he would have accepted lunch, probably spent the night and learnt a few new Bulgarian phrases or customs. By comparison I felt cautious and fearful, not only that I might be robbed but that I would not know what to say and do, whether to offer to pay for lunch and if so how much. I am not comfortable in the close proximity of strangers who might expect some undefined, unknown behaviour from me. The teenager followed me on his bike as I left the shop making me worried that he would be difficult to separate from. Eventually he said "You me money please". I gave him some random coins from my pocket which seemed to satisfy him and he cycled off up a side street by a telegraph pole with a stork's nest on top of it (but no stork).
After following the road up to Vitinya Pass I turned off onto a good gravel track which I followed for a few hours. Two lorries of roughly chopped wood and a few pick ups passed me.
As the sun lowered in the sky and having almost completed the 30 kilometres I planned, I turned off the road and found a nice flat spot to pitch my tent among the beech trees.
29.5 kilometres walked today.
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