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| View from Botev Peak. |
Breakfast was again scrumptious French Toast with jam and cheese served with tea (chai). Tastes like they add mint to the tea. Then it was a morning of hard climbing to reach the top of Botev Peak. At first I was following a path which had cut a groove into the earth between bushes of creeping juniper which covered the hillside. Then I joined an eroded track of loose white stone rising over the open hillside. A gravel road crossed my track a number of times, and I saw a few pick ups drive up and down to the buildings on top of Botev Peak. The road went through many switchbacks to climb the mountain but my track just went straight up. Navigating was not difficult as there were numerous poles to guide me, poles intended to assist when the ground was covered with snow. Steep climbs alternated with more gentle sections. I had plenty of time today so I climbed slowly, briefly resting after every few poles on the more vertical sections and admiring the scenery. There was a cold wind so I was well wrapped up, but if I exerted myself too much I overheated. The wind was bringing in clouds from the north which eventually swept across the top of the mountain so that when I finally reached the flatter area around the summit, I could only see the next pole ahead of me.
A monument materialized through the mist, decorated with images of three ice axes. It commemorated three people who died on New Year's Day 1955. Some time after much bigger buildings took shape in the whiteness around me, these included a red and white TV tower looking a bit like a rocket. The guidebook said you could get a cup of tea here. I tried a few doors without success, then spotted a sign in Bulgarian indicating something was 50 metres away. It was a little shack, where a man who had lived in Weston-super-Mare, that British seaside town, for 9 months served me tea and lentil soup with which I celebrated reaching Botev Peak. At 2375 metres it is the highest mountain on the Kom-Emine Trail and roughly the halfway point.
When I left the clouds had cleared on my side of the mountain. Descending steeply on eroded paths, loose rocks tumbling down, I tried, largely unsuccessfully, to find the path which the GPS said zigzagged down. In the saddle at the bottom I found Botev Shelter, where I am sleeping for the night (it is a proper manned hut, not just an emergency shelter). A group of Bulgarian men and one woman was having a picnic outside the hut. When I went inside the hut keeper shooed me away with his sweeping brush, so I sat outside until he was free. Through heavy use of Google Translate and the assistance of the lady picknicker we established I would eat at 7 pm and I was shown the dormitory where I would be sleeping. Unfortunately the toilet is a hole in a concrete floor in an outbuilding.
It transpired that the picnicking party were staying the night, although in a different dormitory to me. From 1 pm to late they sat and talked, argued and laughed, multiple voices at the same time, picking on a table full of food they had evidently brought with them. What they could talk about for so long I could not imagine. Some of them had sweatshirts with the Bulgarian Tourist Club logo on, the organisation that runs most of the huts.
After a pork and potato stew, that could have been reheated a bit longer, and a crème caramel, and lots of reading on my kindle I am now heading for bed, hoping I do not have to use the outside loo at night...
A very short day at 11.6 kilometres although with over 1100 metres of ascent.
PS although I was worried that the under heated stew might give me food poisoning I was reassured on seeing a box of "Kilner" type jars filled with stew. Presumably there was some central kitchen that cooks the food and puts it into sterilized jars which are sealed. All the hut keeper then has to do is heat up the food.
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