Yesterday:
First a couple comments about yesterday since I was too tired last night to write any notes. The start of the day was a downhill ride for nearly 20 km through Alpine ski country ending at a small village where we had a fantastic lunch! A small village that reminded me of my perception of Bavaria! Tho I’ve never been to Bavaria…

The end of the day was a spectacular ride through narrow canyon carved by a river through the marble mountains. The Devils Throat!! Ooohhhh… But spectacular! We also toured a huge cave that the river runs through, it was pretty cool, but if you’ve been in caves before, well, then this was yet another one…

We stayed in a guesthouse up in the hills, nothing to do up here but hang out, and our dinner was served at the guesthouse as well. The only heated room in the guesthouse was the restaurant area, so the bedroom was very cold! Thankful for extra blankets!

I think the most interesting component of the evening was meeting up with a couple that we first saw at the cave who are cycling around Asia and Europe for a full year. (They were on Surly Ogres, which is the bike I have on order!) Australians are permitted sabbatical from their employers every 5 to 7 years, it is very common apparently. Wish to hell America could get on board with this idea! How fantastic would that be?

After dinner, Bularian soccer finals match came on the television, most of us stayed up to watch for a while, it was fun to watch the guides excitement about it! Then to bed and almost instant sleep…

Today Official:
Day 8 – Rodopi – Dospat Dam Today will be nothing short of spectacular! Back on our bikes for a descent back through the 300m high walls of the Trigrad Gorge before a gradual incline takes us up into and through Bulgaria’s longest gorge, Buinovo. Known by locals as the The Wolf’s Leap, the 10 km-long gorge narrows to several metres at some points as the river cuts through the marble rock. You’ll spot entrances to many caves along the way and we’ll stop to visit the beautiful 5-story tall Yagodina cave filled with fascinating formations. We end our ride today at Dospat village located picturesquely on the shores of a dammed lake. We look out onto the dam from our hotel. Hotel Panorama. Ride 45 km. 800 m ascent/700 m descent.

Me:
After a tasty breakfast of paper thin pancakes with apricot jelly, fig jelly, and delightful honey, we started down the hill in the very crisp mountain air!

Yada yada yada riding, yada yada yada riding. Eventually we got to Yagodina cave. Now this was a real cave, nearly a kilometer long hike through this cave, was not terribly interesting but hey, a kilometer long cave? How many of those are around! So pretty cool really…

As usual the vendors selling all kinds of tourist junk on their stands around the cave entrance. One of the more interesting things I had was three tastes of honey. One was regular honey, tasted very light and sweet. One was called what the woman said was Viagra honey, it had a slight minty flavor. I might’ve misunderstood what she was saying, for all I know she was saying something completely different than what I heard, but that’s the word I heard. The last Honey I tasted was strawberry honey, and it was absolutely amazingly good! You could taste the hint of strawberry flowers in it, I really don’t think it was flavored honey I think it was honey produced from bees housed near strawberry plants. Fantastic! But of course I can’t buy any and bring it back, customs won’t allow food items to be brought in.

We had lunch at a nice restaurant in the sun under umbrellas near the cave entrance, I had a bowl of tasty beans soup which is a common Bulgarian favorite, and a lasagna that was made with minced pork in layers of potatoes and onions with some cheese on top. Very tasty as I am a huge potato fan! The Bulgarian version of Greek moussaka I believe…

The cycling in the afternoon was pleasant, lots of uphills and down hills, almost an equal amount of climbing and descending, mostly through hilly farmlands was very peaceful to cycle through. Eventually we ended up at the Panorama hotel in Dospat which overlooks the lake behind Bulgaria’s second largest dam. The scenery is spectacular that is for sure!

We passed many people in groups of motorcycles today, or maybe I should say they passed us; apparently the same route we’re on is fancied by motorcycle groups. I must admit to a little bit of bias against them, they really don’t do any more work than somebody riding in a car except for the wind in their face. Yes, I guess I am revealing my bike snobbery.

On arrival at the hotel, the restaurant was sunny and the three of us that arrived first had an ice cold Shomansko beer and a plate of hazelnuts. Priceless!

Today is the point in the trip in which I suddenly realize it’s almost over, tomorrow is our last cycling day. The day after that is departure day for all the group. This is definitely a shorter trip than I usually take, two weeks is the common duration, this being only 10 days it definitely went quicker.

Another nice dinner, I’m pretty sure there’s more of me now than I was when I started this trip! Seems like the food has been fantastic and high volume! The dinner lingered for quite some time, a bottle of ball Garian wine helped to slow things down as well as a massive delay on the main dishes. I was 90% done with my dinner before Stan and Paul got their chicken dish. There were some nice sunsets out of the lake from the restaurant, hopefully I captured a good photo below.

Everyone else faded out and left, but I remained with Orlan and Pano to talk about their lives a bit. Both entrepreneurs, doing the cycling trips and other jobs as well. Pano 25 and single, Orlan a bit older and married w 2yr old daughter. It was interesting talking with them about laws and customs in Bulgaria, somehow we got on the topic of cannabis, alcohol, and small-business ownership. I’m sure we covered other topics, those are just the highlights of the ones I remember. Always an interesting conversation with the guides when they relax a bit.

Ok, amazingly tomorrow is our last day of cycling. Should be a good day, about 700 m ascent, 700 m decent, about 64K. I will savor every rotated inch…