Journey to the Fogaras mountains, 2005 aug.

The Carpathians is a wonderful place for trekking. So, I wanted to take a trip to the Fogaras region, in Romania. But there was no one among my old friends who wanted to go with ME . (Jani was staying at Glasgow, and the others were working…) I didn’t want to go alone because. So I started to seek companions on the net. I sent off an advertisement to a traveller page. I read about it so I knew: it works. So, I sent it off. Two men replied to my advertisement - the one of the guys was called Sanyi-. Cool, I thought to myself.

I had bought a tent and a mini-cooker before I started to organize the journey.

I have been a few times in the Carpathians, and this time we chose the train. I bought the international ticket at the Szolnok station. Then I had been waiting for an hour when my new friends arrived at the station from Budapest. So, finally we set off at 18:00 o’clock, PM. However we had a little problem. We didn’t have a reservation for the Romanian line. Who cares, we thought, and we knew the Romanian public transport. (The ticket inspectors are usually corruptible.)

Then we went easily through the boundary (about at 22:00 hours). Later few people got on the train at Arad, with valid reservation…so we stood up and waited… (We already had talked with the ticket inspector at the boundary) Then the inspector arrived again. We started to bargain with him. He wanted 5 euro per person, it was 15 euros all together. We weren’t really satisfied. I told him that 10 euro would be the best idea, hm…? Then he agreed with us (it was a quite good money for him). Well, it was O.K., and then the inspector made some local passengers stand up… so we sat down. We slept until 5:00 o’clock, and the train arrived at 6:00 in Brasov. So the trip took about 12 hours by train. My friends were looking for a restaurant for a coffee but I don’t drink coffee, so I went to change money. I changed about 800.000,- old leis. It would be enough, I thought.

Later we got on the next train to Zarnesti. The ticket was really cheap: just 21.000 leis, about 50 eurocents. When we arrived to Zarnesti the local drivers had already waited for the tourists… one of the drivers made an offer: “200.000 leis to Plaiul foii!

“120.000,!” – We replied.

 “150.000!“– again the driver.

It’s O.K. Then he guided us to a broken, ARO dud. The car was very strange because the exhaust fume didn’t get out but into the car… it was really in bad state of repair. Our driver wasn’t disturbed by the fume because he was smoking during the trip. I was really smelly because of the fume, and not to mention my lungs…we started to make plans in the car. We looked at the map and we thought that it might be a good idea to go further – as far as the Rudarica hunting camp. When we arrived at the Plaiul foii, we had to have new bargain with the driver. While we were arguing, we were putting on and taking our luggage off the car. The driver was using his hands, actually his whole body to makes us understand how high the price of petrol, and how hard the life was. . Good skit. Finally we agreed. Later we experienced that the foxy driver was calculating. Huh, we continued the trip that made me feel like in a gas chamber…. After driving 13 km we arrived at the camp called Rudarica. So, when we wanted to pay the driver we noticed that we didn’t have a small change. The foxy driver said that he couldn’t change, either. (His purse was full of money, I was sure) So we had to pay full fare… it didn’t matter, we thought, because we could bargain, as you know…

So, we were there! We were at foot of the mountains. At 10:00 AM. We set off to the Komisz peak. At first, the route was easy; we could go fast in the forest. We saw a Hazel Grouse /Tetrastes bonasia /. I have never seen it before in the nature.

Then we started to approach the ridge. The route became hard a bit (I was covered in sweat). As a result, one of my new friends said that he would turn back. I was surprised. Sanyi (the other guy) was, too. The guy’s dorsal started aching. O.K., finally we distributed the stuff, and then continued the route. He turned back to the Plaioul foii and later went home.

Later we met a polish couple. They could head faster than us so they overtook us. The woman was prettily mellow and we were gazing at her for a while…We went through the beech tree /Fagus silvatica/ area and started the pine-grove. That time we could go faster than the polish couple. Later we arrived at the foot of the Komisz peak; actually we were on the ridge. It is a small peak, 1883 m. It was 18:00 PM, and we were tired a bit. We pitched the tent and started to look for water. While we were looking for a stream we talked with the polish couple. They were funny and nice people so we laughed a lot together.

When we returned to our camp I started to cook something. I carried a lot of “smack“so I cooked them. Anyway, it is my favourite meal when I travel. Simple and fast, only it needs hot water.

After dinner we had a wash in the stream. The Fogaras Mountains is not a National Park or other protected area, so the tent is allowed. We looked after the nature; of course, we carried our thrash to the nearest tourist hostel. Anyway the area was amazing, clear, and inviolate, it wasn’t crowded, and the weather was good. When it was dark we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up early. I went down the stream for some water. We used effervescent tablets with vitamins with the water – I liked it, especially the orange one. So, we started to go along the ridge. There weren’t real pines in the area, just few swiss mountain pine groups, /pinus mugo/ were seen. And everywhere was a mountain pasture with several sheep.

The route wasn’t too hard, we could go quickly. When we set off, the polish couple was still sleeping in their tent.

We had been going for a while when we met some shepherd dogs. The dogs noticed us very soon and ran fast towards us. They were nice, big and wild dogs. Furthermore, they looked very angry so we began to feel embarrassed. Konrad Lorenz would have been pleased if he had seen it because the dogs were well- organized and we were encircled soon. When we moved to any direction the dogs barked and muttered menacingly. We feared to move. The Shepherd was nowhere of course. Then I started to go slowly, very slowly and we managed to get out of the dogs’ territory. They looked very dangerous.

We stopped to have a rest. We were browsing on the map. We decided that we would go as far as the next refuge. While we were resting the polish couple came with a Saxon man and his son. They also had met the dogs. The Saxon man’s clothes were ripped and his hands were hurt.  Unfortunately, they were attacked by the dogs.

We pitched the tent at the refuge in the evening.

Next day the weather again was good with sunshine. I noticed that my skin was burned a bit. The ridge’s line went about on 2000 – 2100 m, we could head easily. Later we approached the real Fogaras region, the ridge 2200 – 2300 m. We met an Austrian and a Czech guy. I asked them where the marked path was. (The path was diverged). Then we went next to the Urlea peak (2473 m). We didn’t climb to the peak because the weather was getting bad. It was raining at that time. It was a hail. We couldn’t find a good place to camp out, so we moved along. Later the weather became much worse.  Finally we went down a valley to camp out. There had already been a tent in the valley. We pitched our tent while it was raining. I got soaked. I behaved like an amateur because my sleeping bag wasn’t protected against the water, so I had to sleep in the wet bag.

We stayed to rest there on the next day. The weather became better so we could dry our pack. We cooked smack and pudding for lunch and then took a picture of the area. There was some snow among the rocks. I was sunbathing a bit after lunch. The weather was bad in the afternoon again. We went into the tent and we were waiting for a good weather. It was raining and foggy.

We couldn’t move along the following day Because of the bad weather. We feared getting soaked. It had been raining for 2 days by the time the weather became better.

Then we moved along. We met the Hungarian “Baraka” group. Anyway, the “Baraka” is a travel agency. It was in front of the Big Vistea (2509 m) peak. Otherwise the Moldoveanu peak (2544 m) is the highest summit of the eastern Carpathians; it is situated next to the Vistea. We started to climb the eastern side of the Vistea. However the path at the beginning easy to move even a bag, we had to use our hands a bit. It was a short part.  When we arrived on the Vistea the wind became hard. We didn’t want go to the Moldoveanu (the distance was only few meters) because the weather was foggy and we could see nothing. I mean that the view wasn’t worth going.

 The wind was getting much harder and we noticed that it would rain soon. We went down the Vistea quickly to camp out. Actually it was a pass where we stayed. A hard wind was blowing all night. I couldn’t sleep very well because the tent was always moving.

All The area was frosty in the morning. It was very interesting (and cold). The weather was clear so the view was amazing. We could see as far as the Big Vistea village.  While we were going on the path we saw twice a chamois group. I couldn’t take a picture of them because my hands were frozen so I couldn’t change for 300 mm lens quickly.

We set off to the Podragu shelter. Actually the shelter is like a tourist hostel. A clear lake, called Podragu Lake was there, next to the shelter. I had been there 5 years ago. We were resting a bit. The next station was the Turnuri shelter. That route took about 1 hour.

We ordered an omelette and some beer at Turnuri. It was delicious. We hadn’t eaten real good meal for a week. We pitched the tent down at Turnuri. We became tired because of the beer so we slept a bit. I ate some blueberry after the sleeping. It wasn’t so tasty like the blueberry in Retezat last year.

We woke up early in the morning. It was the last day in the mountains. We could go down quickly, however the route was long as far as Viktoria city. Fortunately a forester car picked us up after the Arpasu tourist hostel and carried us to the station near Arpasu de Jos. It was a better alternative than Viktoria city.

We went to Brasov by train again, and then we went to Hungary by the next train.