From Kartala to Macedonia Hut

~ Veselin ~ 18 Comments

We did our first true hike since we had children. I know we’ve been to Vitosha many times but Vitosha is almost a city park, it has lots of visitors, easy access, and is a low-effort adventure. Rila, on the other hand, is more remote, higher, and more scenic.

Our starting point, Kartala, is a small ski resort, 28 kilometers away from Blagoevgrad. The asphalt road to it is in a fine condition., Hut Macedonia is about about 9km further up in the Rila mountain. It should’ve been an easy 2.5h walk, according to all the websites we found. It might be 2.5 hours but you need to be in a good shape for it. For people like us, 3-4h is more realistic.

The path looks like this:

The trail is also accessible by vehicles with permit. It is used for supplying the hut and the nearby maintain rescue group. There are 3-4 well marked shortcuts that can cut maybe 2 kilometers from the total walk but are steeper and we only took them on the way down.

It starts as a continuation of the road Blagoevgrad-Kartala, however I would advise using the free parking at Kartala. The part of the road accessible for the public is maybe a few hundred meters and not worth breaking your car.

Took us 3h 10 min without any breaks for a total of about 26000 steps both ways, which is very close to my personal best since my phone started tracking in 2015.

We didn’t have any food so we were very happy that the hut keeper cooked for us and fed us well. The food was great.

The area is full of tiny creeks that all go to this small river, called Bistritza. I’d say it was moist. Lots of berries everywhere, still green, but once they’re ripe, the path will become even more challenging 😃

The altitude gain of this route is about 730 meters.

Orchid

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

A year ago, we found an orchid in the mountain. I was surprised that wild orchids exist in my country. We saw plenty this weekend from another species.

I have my doubts about the exact species. The first photo clearly shows dots on the leaves, so according to the image search, it should be the Broad-leaved Marsh Orchid. However, given that we are not in Germany, it’s more likely that we saw Dactylorhiza cordigera or Сърцевиден дланокоренник instead.

I wish I took better photos.

Rose

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is blurred in the back. Took this photo during my morning walk today.

The tourist logo of Bulgaria is a rose. We have roses everywhere. The coat of arms is 3 lions. We don’t have lions anywhere out of the zoo. I much prefer encounters with the roses. 🌹

Wool & Shift by Hugh Howey

~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

The two big books from this small pile are Wool and Shift. I still don’t have the final, third book about The Silo.

It looks like I’m altering between post-apocalyptic books and fantasies about necromancers. Could it be me or just that writers are currently only succeeding if they imagine a future with simplicity and grave destruction? In the Silo trilogy, humans have obtained the technology to end the world and it was race for who does it first. When rather than if. The second part gives details about the technologies used to destroy the world, and they’re already a bit off from the modern trends.

The main protagonist is Juliette, a 34-year-old master mechanic with a free spirit. Most of book 1 is dedicated to her and it is fantastic – she solves one problem after another. However, book 2 chooses another path. It is about a bunch of secondary characters from book 1 and explains what happened in the past. Although this might be important to completely understand the story, some of the story lines are not pleasant.

Overall, the first part was a solid 5*/5 for me, and the second was a mixed bag of great and not so great stories for an average of 4*/5. Juliette is featured, which is probably the best part of the book.