Bulgaria continues

The first town I passed was Bankso which is a famous Bulgarian ski town. The road was nice, sweeping me through the mountains but as soon as I left the mountains behind me and reached the plains it became a bit boring.

But they had a cool Metallica sign.

By noon I reached Plovdiv. I wanted to grab some lunch here but I really could not figure this city out. After driving around I was trying to find the heart of the city where all the shops/restaurants are but I could not seem to locate it. It looked a bit boring to me. (Later I found out Plovdiv is one the three oldest cities in the world, I should have probably made a longer stop here, ah well, can’t have it all).
I was getting closer to my next destination in my tour, Perperikon. This used to be an ancient settlement dating around 6000 bc. There are a few ruins but my timing wasn’t the best as there was a storm approaching.

I had to hide in a little shack near the ruins where I met a friendly guy called Emil who had lived in London and New York. He gave me some tips on other places to visit and translated some things for me.

After the ruins I drove to some stone mushrooms. Well, stones that look like mushrooms (if you eaten a magic one).

But now the storm really got me and I had to take shelter under one of the mushrooms, which sounds pretty weird especially if you had one of those magic mushrooms.

After what seemed like a brief moment of less rain I left the mushrooms and took off in search for accomodation.
The whole day I had been driving on paved roads and of course my gps decided to take me on some farming roads. You have got to be kidding me. I thought “bring it on”. It can’t get much worse right. I was already soaking wet, what more harm can a little mud do. There was a point where I was going straight forward but my bike was sideways. Both wheels were covered in mud and not turning around at all. Don’t know how I managed to stay on, but I did. My fuel light had been on for a while as well and I needed to find a petrol station pretty soon. There was a farmer guiding his herd of cows through the rain and looked in disbelief when he saw my coming out of one of the farm tracks.
I had stopped to have my gps plot a route to the nearest petrol station and the farmer approached me and started telling me things in Bulgarian. I just shrugged and raised my hand indicating I could not understand him. I just told him the only city name that I could remember. He pointed me in the right direction.
The storm was still in full effect and gave no indication of ending soon. The sky was black. And of course at this moment my bike started to stutter when I opened the throttle a bit more. I was running out of gas. Luckily I travel with an extra fuel can that can hold about 3.5 liters. Now was the time I really had to use it. In a bloody thunderstorm. I put in a little bit of petrol, just enough to get me to a petrol station. It was of course not far away.
Paying for petrol was a bit of a challenge since I had to take of my gloves which weighed a ton. I had some plastic gloves on underneath them but still, that doesn’t keep them from soaking up water like a spunge.
As soon as I arrived in the next town I saw a hotel and it looked fancy enough and grabbed a room. I always get these strange looks when they see me. I am not the cleanest biker out there, especially not after mud soaked roads. I am sure one day they will tell me they have no rooms available while the place is empty. But luckily this wasn’t the case tonight.
Getting out of mywet gear, into a nice warm shower and then to the restaurant. It was still raining so I did not go and explore the town.
I ordered some salmon and they asked if I wanted bread with it…uhhhm, no thank tou. When I received my plate it was my choice of fish and sone octopus rings, some vegetables and some sauce. It tasted good but now I understood why they asked me for bread. So I corrected my mistake and asked for some bread. “One?” was the question of the waitress. Sure, I will have one. It’s not like a will eat two loafs of bread. She came back and gave me one slice of white toast bread, untoasted. She asked if I wanted it toasted. No thanks, I will manage eating this single spungy slice.
Thing to note, while in Bulgaria, you order your btead by the slice. Lesson learned.
When it was time to pay, no credit cards accepted although I had payed for my room with my card. Apparently the restaurant works seperately from the reception desk and does not accept cards. Luckily an atm was nearby. It had finally stopped to rain. Lets hope my stuff dries a bit and that it will be a nice sunny day tomorrow.