Day 14 Hayricks,
wooden churches, old crones......Maramures, Romania
Romania was as equally brassed off as Kazakhstan with the
fall out from the film ‘Borat’......many of the opening scenes were completed
in the Romanian countryside and whilst the story is solely based on Kazakhstan
the Romanian reputation damage was done. I am pretty much certain it was filmed
in this area it is pretty much the same as in the film......
The Maramures area is full of tiny villages,
wooden churches and houses, unpaved roads, hayricks, horse drawn carts and lots
of people working the land – pretty much all by hand...the scythe, the sharpening
stone and the pitch fork are big in this
area......strimmers, combines, tractors etc are not, it is a top place.
The houses are made of Oak and are ancient, fronted with – if
you have an ‘available’ daughter they hang pots and pans outside their house....
Women over the age of 50 wear head scarfs, infrequently grow above the height of 4’10” and wear progressively more and more black as they move into their 60’s and beyond. As with Hungary they have all been friendly – check the dude out who when we asked to photo his horse and cart couldn’t wait to be in on the action ...the small nipple looking hat is the local garb...pretty cool
We got up super early to go and take a steam train ride up into the
Carpathian mountain- we are in the van and
on the road at 07:30 – we plug the sat nav in and the train is 80km away but the sat nav is
suggesting a 2 hour journey....train leaves at 09:00 so we decide to pass on
the train ride and opt to explore the area....
I find a ‘tic’ has embedded itself in my leg, gorged on my
blood all night and is now unmovable......my mate removes tics from his dogs
by soaking the tic in whisky and then using tweezers with a twisting motion to
ensure all the legs etc are removed..... We stop at a couple of out of town
stores before 08:00 to buy whisky...no joy....so into town and a pharmacy is open so 80p later and a 70%
alcohol spirit does the trick and distracts the tic long enough to get the
tweezers to work....................I opted not to take the £100 jab that S and
C took for tic-borne enchalitis before we came...feeling a bit stupid now with
a swollen leg....
We camp before lunch in Breb – 900m of pot holed dirt track
to a field where a young Dutch couple with a 1 year old have set up a pretty much
perfect site ( www.baboumaramures.com) – what makes people opt to just sticks and go and do what they
feel they need to do is always interesting....watching them makes my ‘ never
take insurance for white goods rebellious stance’ feel pretty lame.
Top day - highlight was
17th century all oak church and then a walk through the lanes around
the campsite...the highlight so far - a truly fantastic area
Tomorrow - we will
get the train – Sat nav say 62km and 1 hr 55 mins..average 20mph....alarm will
be set early !
I have just googled’ Borat’ and found the village was called
Glod and is about 5km form where we are staying in Breb.....score...
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