…and your enemies closer

This post is about an 18km walk from Tau Bistra to Șugag. I start off with a deep fried pancake, and I make some friends on the way.

The first thing I saw was another dam. It was called Tau Bistra, and it looked pretty damn big.

langos

The second thing I saw was a food stand that seemed to sell pancakes. They called them langos, and they were actually deep fried pancakes. I ordered one with nutella and danced around on the damn dam because it was so good. I chatted with the owner of the food stand for a while. His name was Mirca, and the season was three months each year.

the enemy

A few bikers appeared. They were from the Czech Republic, and they seemed very friendly. I had built up a strong animosity towards bikers at this point. Or rather: the objects of my animosity weren’t the bikers but the motorcycles themselves. Many of them were just so goddamn loud, I couldn’t stand it.

But I liked these guys. And so I told myself that I was just keeping my enemies closer by making friends with them. They also got some langos for themselves, and we had a good time with our langos in the sunshine on the dam.

benedictas tu

I was just walking down the forest road, wondering why I was out here making friends with the enemy, when a car stopped in front of me. It was Mirca, the owner of the food stand. He wanted to give me a bottle of water. I said thank you, and he drove off, but minutes later he came back again, this time with a small picture of the Virgin Mary. He wanted me to be safe.

the enemy returns

I ran into another biker after this. Christian from Romania. He told me that he liked to ride his bike by himself, not in a group with other bikers. I liked that. Also, he said, he liked to buy stock bikes, not the loud kind. I liked that even better. And so I found myself making friends with the enemy, again.

And it was good.

planning and preparation

When I reached the village of Șugag there were a bunch of guesthouses to choose from. I picked one at random. It turned out to have a few very good vegetarian food options. I also tried to find out how I would be able to get to Sebeș, the next bigger town, in order to get my rabies shot.

I ended up drunk and talking about penguins.

pictures

the walk from Tau Bistra to Șugag:

Tau Bistra dam

Mirca’s food stand

making a langos

my langos with nutella

Mirca

roadside cross

Christian the biker

the road to walk from Tau Bistra to Șugag

the stone breaker

these stones had to be broken

country house

warning against making open fires

icon

Șugag church