Roofs & Rambles

The day started with a donkey and ended with a cow. One was a slightly bucolic experience, the other was far from it though the sort of thing it appears happens all to often in rural Bulgaria.

The idea was to get up early and head to Melnik to be there not long after the sum was up. It would be a mere good hour or so drive. I left Bankso and noted that there were a lot of dogs wandering across the roads in various villages. Being still dark I decided to take care and keep speed down when driving through built up areas. Doing good time I had come down from the mountains and was nearing the main road to Greece when a Donkey appeared.

Well it didn’t exactly appear more solidify out of the darkness on the bonnet of the car and headed into the air and onto the road behind. A black donkey that had happened to wander into the road unwittingly camouflaged against the darkness of the night. The visual experience was rather less than the huge thump as it hit the front of the car.

Let it suffice to say that the donkey was probably killed on impact. The car was merely mortally wounded. And there I was in a small village in the hills, far from anyone who spoke English, several craggy faces staring at me indifferently and my thoughts are ‘Police’ Car hire Company’.

Surely the car was mortally wounded? I turned the key. It stuttered into life. I pulled over got out and inspected the damage, which was not good. The front of the car had concertinaed into a mangled look.

I decided to limp back as best as could to the hotel where I could get help informing the police. My mind was trying to assess the possible outcomes, which I wont bore you with but northern angst prevailed.

The car managed about 12km before it overheated! Nothing to but hitch and standing there on the side of the road the sun not even up I  wondered what the value of a donkey was? Perhaps the police would have been informed by now. I had the police number should I ring them. But that would be pointless. I can’t speak Bulgarian, they wouldn’t speak English and all the time perhaps someone was after umbrage for the donkey.

It took a while to sort out quite how I contacted the police once back at the hotel. I was told I had to go there and then there. Eventually it was decided that the tour rep would take me to the Bansko police station. The attractive lady was very friendly as we drove to the police station. As we walked in she said quietly ‘You know I have never been here before’.  Then her phone rang and I could sort of make out that she was telling someone she was at the police station and I suspect explaining that she hadn’t done anything just escorting a  mad tourist etc.

I sat with her with three policemen. We filled out forms. I explained to her what happened. She explained to the policeman what happened. There was a lot of discussion and a lot of nodding of heads.  When you are trying to follow a conversation in another language you don’t speak sign language becomes more important and sideways nods mean NO to me and no, means things aren’t good. But in Bulgaria sideways nods are an affirmative but I had forgotten this little cultural difference and for ten minutes I started to fear the worse. Then the rep turned to me with a smile and  asked me whether I thought the donkey was dead. ‘Yes’. ‘Da’ she told the policeman. Then there were smiles and sideways nods of heads. Smiles and sideways nods of head! ‘Someone will eat well tonight,’ she said with a smile and the policemen laughed. ‘Donkeys are a delicacy in Bulgaria’.

All I had to deal with now was the hire care company. After numerous calls the car was to be picked up and assessed for damage! A dead car assessed for damage? I was very stressed that I would have to foot a big bill. Forget the damage waiver, you just don’t get away with writing a car off for €236. The guy at Sofia Airport was giving nothing away so I would have to wait until the manager was on duty this evening. At 1800 he rang me and said pending the police report I would only be liable for €236. Relief. ‘Was the donkey dead? He asked. ‘Yes’. I could feel him at the end of the fone smiling as he said ‘Dead Donkey very nice.’

Through all this the boys were fine, swimming, eating ice cream and hanging out. For the last two days I have been called birdman. Today they started calling me Donkey Killer!

Late evening went for a stroll in the fields around the town with my binoculars. Lovely summers evening. For all the stress I had actually spent the day doing nothing. Swimming with the boys, sleeping, steam bathing and…nothing. Walking in the fields was pleasant. This was just a pleasant evening stroll watching Red backed Shrikes and Golden Orioles, the white storks flying into the City to rest. On the walk back to town a rather plump man in only a pair of long pink shorts appeared out of the grass. He was sweating profusely and mumbling sweet nothings. Then a cow appeared the other side of a ditch. It had obviously slipped its lease and he was trying to reclaim its tether; a very bucolic scene. Then man looked over at me and raised his arms and motion for me to ‘shoo’ the cow towards him. Now cows have never bothered me. This one looked quite placid, as cows generally do. As I shooed the man nodded his head from side to side in encouragement, the cow began snorting indignantly and sort of lunged lugubriously toward me. For a moment I had a thought that perhaps those horns were about to wreak revenge on behalf of a deceased hoofed brethren that passed away at the hands of the donkey killer.