Busik Po Bezdrożach - Balkans 2015 part I

Friday, August 21, strikes 9:00 am, I get up, there are several hundred kilometers ahead of us to cover the first day, so I gave myself some sleep. A quick coffee for scrambled eggs and the final preparations are coming, all in all, there is a lot of work ahead of me, and the time is running out. Unpacked, because I spent the whole week at work from morning to evening, alternating with preparing the bus for the trip. The traveling lifestyle and frequent trips, whether it's for a bicycle competition or a typical travel one, have taught me to pack quickly and minimalist, also 3 boxers, 3 T-shirts, 3 pairs of socks ... well, no exaggeration, this time we are going by bus. I'm going to go crazy, a few pairs of socks, a few t-shirts, a few pairs of panties, photographic equipment, trekking equipment, ready to go. Packed, I start cleaning the interior, which I did not manage to do the day before, in addition, I start packing all this stuff, in the form of food, water, tools, etc., inside Tripi. In the meantime, I am waiting for the arrival of the rest of the crew: Asia, Dominika and Łukasz, as Daniel is still at work, we pick him up on the way. This time we have a 5-person bus crew, a total of 6, including Barry, a travel dog (which he only became after the expedition), whom Daniel took from the shelter in May.

Luggage packed, seats taken, with a 30-minute delay we set off to look for adventures! It was not difficult to find these during our trip. We have traveled about 60-70 kilometers, then I hear a soft, gentle screeching and screeching, a noise coming out sporadically from time to time ... I inform Daniel about it, he hears it too, we wonder is it from us? Everything was checked before the expedition ... We decide to check it as soon as it is possible to go to the gas station, or if it is possible to go to the gas station, or if there is a better, level place, due to the narrow roadside ... it's just tearing nonstop and louder and louder. Is our placenta dead? Cool, we don't have a spare rear axle kit ... as if it couldn't be the front. We start the expedition elegantly, we have barely left the house, and here are such balls, I whine aloud. What to do, we have to stop, dismantle the hub and think about what to do next. Just by the road there is a bus stop, I am braking, I go down, I am standing still, and there is still a screeching and screeching, we look at each other with Daniel, what is it ?! At this point, a badly rickety car passes us, despite the fact that it looked quite young, from which all these noises were coming out. We all laughed, and a stone fell from my heart. Nibbled, he followed us for several kilometers, sat on our ass and scared us quite badly. We go on, peace and quiet, nothing knocks and knocks, only rock'n'roll comes out of the speakers. The triple dog is rushing forward. Apart from the situation with the closed bridge in Skawina, the detour, which was a bit badly marked and the sum total of the total change of the route, we reach the border with Slovakia. The kilometers go 300 km, 400 km, and I had an exceptionally good ride. Initially, we assumed some wild overnight stay along the way, however, I found that we were going to our first destination on the list, which is the village of Sapanta in Romania, where the Merry Cemetery is located. There were only 4 items on our list - Sapanta, Transfogarska route, Blue Eye in Albania and Theth, the rest of the route and places to see were arranged overnight, based on the 2-in-1 Romania guide we received from ExpressMap. In Hungary, GPS is starting to freak us out. Despite the disabled ferry crossings, it brings us to the bank of the Tisza River. More than once we drove various rubbish roads to avoid paying for Hungarian roads, but this trip beat them all. First, we come across a closed barrier, behind which the road breaks off and a river flows, then after GPS reprogramming we find a dirt road that leads to a huge steel gate - on the GPS map it looked like an ordinary road and a bridge, and here is such a trick. We take the reliable Express Map of Europe atlas, which always saves us in such situations, we find the first larger city and the larger road on which the bridge should be, for the third time we move the GPS, despite the fact that dirt roads are turned off, we are driving along them on the GPS map are marked as normal roads ... At one point we enter the orchard, where you can see only 2 narrow stripes left in the grass by the tires ... well that's nice, it's 3 am and we are wandering through some thickets. It's hard, we keep going, we'll get somewhere. We wanted wilderness, we have it. Finally, after a few kilometers in the field, you can see flashes of lamps illuminating the road between the branches.

Iha! We get to the main road, I think up to 3 times. We succeeded, we found the bridge and got to the other side of Tisza. We have already watched the rest of the road on the basis of a road atlas, all the way to the border with Romania. After crossing the border, you immediately notice the Romani style of construction, i.e. huge palaces with towers, and next to them, shelters or houses without a roof. The road through Romania was too easy, we had about 30 km to our destination, but we decided to sleep somewhere and move on to explore. We are in the mountains, so we decided to leave the main road and hide somewhere in the forest to pitch our tents. To get to the dirt road leading deep into the forest, I had a ditch to overcome, maybe up to the knee depth, I drove through it more than once, but after driving all night tired I did not take into account that we were going in 5 people and we were packed to the roof, so ground clearance has decreased significantly. We drove off a dozen meters from the road and the oil diode starts flashing on the dashboard. I turn off the engine right away. Well, extra, I think, we have definitely broken the turbine oil drain hose. I get out of the car, and there is a path drawn out of oil, I grabbed my head and at that moment the rest of the crew knew it was very bad. I look under the car and there is a hole the size of a fist. Well, we're grounded. Normally, if I were well asleep, I would be happy and think "Father, but adventure, we are in the mountains, where there is nothing, you have to manage somehow, it will be fun" but after almost 20 hours behind the wheel I was not laughing ... In addition, we were almost near the border with Ukraine, so we had a Ukrainian mobile network in our phones with quite high rates for connection. I went to see the ditch through which I was driving, I just hit a rock with a bowl. I picked up the parts of the bowl in the oil stain. I was unable to sleep. Well, there's no need to cry, you have to act. I mention to the team that we have assistance, but it is a pity to use it on the first day, and if something continues to break down, for example in the Cursed Mountains, it will be a real trouble. Together with Daniel, we decided to go down the asphalt road to find out about the terrain and seek help. A few hundred meters below there was a restaurant with a piece of flat ground, an abandoned camping site and a small river. We decided to push the Tripciak out of the forest and as it is downhill, we will roll down to the parking lot ... It was not as easy as it seemed - but about it in the second part of the report :)