Borderlands

back blip

sitting on the border post between Serbia and Bulgaria looking at Bulgaria 1500m abouve sealevel. This Serbian boy comes from an area of high poverty and where hope for the future is meagre. As always in such parts of the world, the people are friendly, generous and happy to meet strangers and share some experiences with them.
The experience yesterday was to travel up (and up and up) the mountains in old Russian army jeeps on "roads" (wheeltracks over fields and stones). Some of walked a lot of it too - I enjoyed walking and being able to stop and look at plants, insects etc which one misses in a jeep. Besides, my brain had been shaken badly during the small amount of time I'd spent in the jeep and I was worried that I would have no information or memories left if I stayed there any longer. We also decided that travelling like that would be great therapy for kidney stones....
Once we were up there we found (after some searching and being promised that it was "only 3kms more" to the point that "just 3kms" has become a running joke - today, now we find it funny ;-) a horseman and his family who live in the summer at 1700 above sealevel in a kind of hut/tent and herd 100s of horses. The horses are sold for meat. They cooked for us over a wood fire...horse, of course, nicely spiced with chilli and the ubiquitous white bread, onions, tomatoes, cumber, peppers and chillis. And beer.
Delicious, wonderful views...exhausting. Especially as we had a long meeting in the evening to stay awake for.....
The place this photo was taken and where we spent the day was a very dangerous place to be 12 years ago. These days it's a place of silence, emptiness, wide horizons, wildlife, free ranging animals....how times change.