Hitchhiking in Bulgaria: Koprivshtitsa

4^th of January, 2022.

               As soon as I put my backpack down, a car stop. The Police. Fucking bastards! Always wasting their time with innocent people, like me, and never capable to really spot the bad guys. So incompetent, as usual, that couldn’t even find the stamps in my passport. While they are still bothering me, another car stops. And the guy is super patient to wait until the idiots finally realize I am clear and let me go.
              This nice guy offers to drive me to Burgas. He is a very chill guy, leaving in a small village before Sozopol and today he is going to deal with his bank so that’s why he is going to Burgas. He drops me in a good but busy spot just outside of Burgas, which is great so I don’t need to walk at all!
              Soon enough Kiril stops. He speaks little English and I have mixed feelings about him. I don’t really understand how far is he going but it is the way to Koprivshtitsa, so let’s go! We drive for quite a few hours, in which he tells me names of mountains and towns. I think he is a nice guy after all, but he is just a very simple person from the countryside. Kiril drops me in a gas station, after a big intersection but in a small road, and he says that is the direction to Koprivshtitsa. Only about 30 minutes, he says.
              Not long after such simple person help me so much, a fancy guy, dressed like someone who cares a lot about how he looks, driving a new Mercedes, stops. He is the first person ever to look under my small backpack to check if it is clean enough to be put it in the back seat. He is not a bad person, but he seems to me like someone who cares too much about shallow things. He is actually Italian and a sky teacher. He is on the phone when we pass the exit to Koprivshtitsa so I have to warn him. Luckily he drives back and a bit reluctant decide to drive the 10 minutes in the small road to Koprivshtitsa.
              I am very happy that I am here but unfortunately I don’t have much time to visit the town. And to make me even more angry, when I go to the first museum / traditional house, the ladies there are so nice that they give me a ticket for free! It would coast only a few Euros and I was only asking for a free map. With it, you can visit 5 museums in town, which belonged to notorious Bulgarians. But I feel so overwhelmed that they give me the ticket, and for some reason slightly guilty in some how, that I don’t go to visit this museum, the Museum-House Dimcho Debelianov, or number 2. I don’t even take a photograph from outside! What a hell? Why do I have to be so sensitive sometimes…

              I already asked to leave The Hulk in a hotel before coming here because I could see that I will go uphill in many places. The first place I visit is the Church “Assumption of Virgin Mary”. There, I find this really creepy rabbits, with huge eyes which look like human eyes. They freaked me out! Then I visit museum number 3, Museum-House Todor Kableshkov. It is super cool inside, with lots of info about Todor. I wish I had time to read all about and get to know more about this part of Bulgaria History. But I cannot and that makes me really sad. I try to reach all the museums but I struggle to find the 4^th one, Lutova House Museum, and that takes a lot of my time. A nice lady helps me to find it. Walking towards the museums number 5 and 6, I see up in the hill the Statue of Georgi Benkovski. The Museum of Bulgarian Revival Education and Museum-House Georgi Benkovski are just nearby but when I try to open the gate of both of them, I cannot. After going up to the statue, I see a lady cleaning outside of number 6. I ask her if I could go inside for a photograph and she allows me. If they were open or not I don’t know.

              It is getting late and I still need to get some food and find a place to camp. First night of camping officially in the Winter!
              I don’t see any food shops where I could ask for some morning bread or food, but I see what seems like the kitchen of a restaurant or a hotel. I see some ladies inside so I ask one of them for some bread. She speaks little English but she understand me. She tells me she has only Bulgarian bread. I say it is totally fine. Then she asks me if I want with some cheese inside or something. Again, like before with the free tickets, I feel a bit guilty and decide not to take advantage of her kindness, so I say that only bread is fine. After a while waiting, I am wondering why is she taking so long. She comes finally with a lovely steaming warm flat bread, prepared in the grilled with some butter. I almost cry when I see it! How kind of her to prepare me a bread like that when all I asked was a piece of old bread. I say many times “thank you” and take my way out of town.
              Usually I would wait to eat dinner inside my tent, but I cannot waste this delicious and warm bread to get cold. So I sit in a bench still in town and eat half of it.
              I climb a hill, through a forest, and find a lovely place to camp. How surprise am I in the morning when I notice that my sleeping bag is quite wet on the head area, all because of my breathing. The whole part of my tent which is right above my head is also wet. And it gets even worse! When I start to unpack my tent, I notice that it is frozen!