Blueberry harvesters
I was not sure how quickly the Campylobacter sickness pass. I felt extremely weak on Monday, July 15th morning. With no rush I packed my stuff and started walking slowly. I hiked up Apecka mountain (1512) and started descending towards the border with Romania.
This mountain range was under attack from blueberry pickers. The ridge was full of cars. I could understand how the 4WDs got here, but struggled to comprehend how the Soviet-era Zhigulis and Ladas had managed it. Hundreds of people were picking up blueberries while others were buying the berries from them right on the ridge and loading them into their lorries.
Many people were camping there leaving considerable mess behind. For hikers this provides opportunity to add some valuable items to their food supply. In this case, I reused some onion and bread left by campers near the embers.
On my descent, I realized the forest road I wanted to take didn’t exist, so I had to make a steep descent through the forest. Fortunately, the rain started half an hour later, by which time I was on a wide forest road. This forest district was different from the ones I went through before. There was no mess left behind by loggers; quite the opposite, there were bags for waste. Roads were signed and even when I approached a roofed picnic shelter in the evening there was no garbage around, which is extraordinary in Ukraine.
Approaching a different world
On Tuesday, July 16th, I continued my descent to Solotvino, now feeling much better and almost at full strength. Walking through the villages was a new experience for me.
In Verkhnie Vodiane I ate some yogurt in a bar/supermarket on the main commercial street, which was bustling with merchandisers. This was a predominantly Ukrainian village, while the next two were Romanian.
What they all had in common was the sight of many houses under construction, some seemingly for years.
It was easy to guess what their owners wanted to achieve: huge, shiny, decorated houses – palaces, perhaps, would be a better word for these structures that gleamed along the streets of the Romanian-speaking villages. This was a collection of what we might label as kitsch; however I prefer to avoid judging different cultures. In any case, their glamour was in striking contrast to the other deteriorating infrastructure.
In the early afternoon, I approached the border town of Solotvino, with its neighborhoods of run-down, Soviet-era concrete blocks of flats. I tried to find a hotel, where I could have a shower and (ideally) make laundry. I found one quite expensive hotel but they only offered overnight. I spent my last Ukrainian hrivnas on kriwka candies and crossed an old border bridge over the Tisa River to enter Romania. Distance-wise, I was at the midpoint of my journey. This meant I could make it to the Danube if I keep the pace and avoid accidents.
Romanian border guards gave me some tips for a hotel in Sighetul Marmației but then said, ‘You should rather use the river.’ They were right; I was unsuccessful despite walking the town from north to center and west to east.
However much the palaces and unfinished Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches resembled Ukraine, the difference was striking. The streets were alive. People were sitting in restaurants, chatting. Services were readily available (I even managed to find interdental brushes in the sixth pharmacy I visited, an item no one in Ukraine seemed to know). The shops were full of different sorts of goods, though price tags were much higher than in Ukraine. One gets a clear feeling of entrepreneurial spirit and the fact that THIS IS the European Union.
On the way out of town I somehow entered a gipsy ghetto in the middle of an old car dump, which was shaking experience. I continued along a river to find a place for camping and making laundry. I passed by an open-air museum of Maramureșian architecture; unfortunately, it was too late to visit, and I was too shy to ask for accommodation, even though they offered it.
Contrary to what the map showed, there was a settlement along the river. I waited for a sheep to go out of a pasture and put up my tarp there. The river was full of garbage, and when I searched for a place to bathe, a rat was looking at me from a pile of plastic bottles and rotting textiles. The water seemed clean but the river was ugly. Apparently there was a house across the river with wild dogs. They sniffed me and were barking towards me until late night. Some even tried to cross the river. Mosquitoes added to the experience. So I went to my sleeping bag feeling smelly, bitten, and afraid of a pack of wild dogs. Welcome to Romania.
Picturesque Maramureşian landscape
I woke up at dawn on Wednesday, July 17th, packed silently, and got out of that place. I needed to pass through a couple more settlements with dogs ready to attack a lonely pilgrim. Indeed, welcome back to Romania. I made breakfast in a meadow far away from settlements and started walking. Unlike in Ukraine, where some roads on OpenTopo maps were hardly visible in reality, here there were many more roads than on my map. So I tried walking the main ridge, and it worked, though sometimes I needed to cross fenced private grounds.
It was hay-time, and here in the highlands, people from villages in the valleys were cutting the grass and drying their hay. The landscape was very picturesque. When I stopped for lunch, a lady passed by with her children carrying some wood. I asked her for a water source, and before I finished eating, two of her children arrived with 2 litres of water. This was really nice, so I shared my last Ukrainian candies.
In the evening, I came to the village of Petrova, where some old architecture was giving way to modern houses. A local helped me find a cheap hotel, and the staff allowed me to use their laundry machine.
With my body and clothes washed, I went to bed and used my room for drying.
Closer to the mountains
Going for breakfast to a local shop and packing my stuff took longer than I expected. So I did not start until about 11 am on Thursday, July 18th. I went up and down over a ridge to reach Ruscova. As I was in a hurry due to a planned meeting with Paja in the Rodnei Mountains on Saturday, I declined an invitation for lunch at an Orthodox monastery.
The village of Ruscova, with its new EU-funded paved roads and newly constructed houses, illustrated high hopes and rapid change of a once poor country. From the ridge above Ruscova, nice views opened onto both the Maramureş and Rodnei Mountains. The meadows higher up were abandoned but those closer to the village were still mowed for hay.
In the evening, I entered a magical valley leading towards Vişeu de Mijloc. At first, I lost my way slightly and needed to take a shortcut down a steep hill through a dense forest. The evening was calm, no one around. Some meadows were abandoned, but in one place, people were still living in remoteness.
I found a nice place on a pasture, but the silence of the night was interrupted by a shepherd’s dog that sniffed me and started barking at around 1:30 am. I ignored it, but after 30 minutes, I needed to use twigs to fight it off.
Ascending Rodnei
It was quite some distance to the village where I got breakfast on Friday, July 19th. From there, I continued through a similar landscape as in previous days to Săcel, from where I started ascending the Rodnei Mountains.
The hills were alive with families working on their hay. I was wondering if anyone will be doing this once the older generation is gone.
It rained a bit again in the afternoon, but I tried to go as far as possible because the next day I was to meet my colleague from Kaprálův mlýn, Paja, quite far into the mountains. This western part of Rodnei mountains was pointlessly equipped with picnic tables, courtesy of an EU grant.
I could see Pietroşul Rodnei (2303) on the horizon, bathed in the evening sun. Signs of bear presence were quite visible, so I was happy to end up in a simple shelter in the Pietrii mountain pass.
Rush through the Rodnei mountains
I woke up early on Saturday, July 20th. My colleague from Kaprálův mlýn, Pája, was expected to be in the Prislop Pass around 2 pm and therefore around 3 pm on the main ridge of the mountains. She called me 8:30 am to say she had started ascending, half a day ahead of the plan. I walked as fast as I could through the mountains, following the well marked trails.
In the pass, where a side ridge leading to the highest peak, Pietrosul Mare (2303), extends north, I met a group of Slovakians – the first hikers I’d encountered this week. We even realized we had a common scout friend. While ascending Repede (2074), it started to rain. Though I managed to put on my poncho and waterproof trousers, my shoes and socks were soon soaked. I passed by my landmark stone where a local guy attempted to rob us during the night back in 1996.
Munții Rodnei is the highest range in this part of the Carpathians, the only one with a true alpine appearance, which is why they are popular with tourists.
The mountains were quite busy that Saturday – apart from Ukrainian and Romanian hikers, there was also a Hungarian running competition taking place. We met with Pája at about 4 pm, and the first task was to repack all the food from its original packaging into lighter plastic bags. Meanwhile, the sun came out, and I could dry my wet things.
We set off for the hike at about 6 pm, enjoying beautiful views to the north towards Prislop pass (1405), which divides the Rodnei and Maramureş mountains to the east. We finished around 9 pm near a water source, about an hour’s walk before Ineu (2279). The place appeared to be very windy so I tried to combine a tarp made of two ponchos with the Gatewood Cape.
Unexpected meeting
Apparently, the mountain shelter (‘refugiu’ in Romanian) below Ineu (2279) was empty on Saturday, so our worries about not fitting in were not right. I copied an entry from the shelter’s logbook – a Polish hiker traversing the entire Carpathians had stayed here more than a month prior. I would later learn his name was Michał Kulanek; we got into contact but missed each other by just one hour near Orşova.
From early morning of Sunday, July 21st, we started meeting tourists – we counted about 15 hikers below Ineu. Anyway, this is a relative measure. The day before, I had the impression of ‘crowded mountains’ after meeting only about 25 people throughout the day – an amount you might encounter in 30 minutes in some parts of the Făgăraș or Low Tatras.
Instead of going over the next peak, Ineut (2222 m), we decided to see the lakes in the cirque below the peaks. This was a nice change, but the tourist trail went through boulders and mountain pine, so I tore my poncho when I slipped on a rock (did I mention it was raining again?). We were meeting more and more tourists on day hikes, and when we got back to the pass on the main ridge, we found out why – the pass was accessible by car.
Believe it or not, in the pass we met our Czech scout friend Lobo with his girlfriend. He actually works as the project manager of the project I was putting together and both me and Pája are partly paid by it.
We went together to the Rotunda pass (1275), which divides the Rodnei Mountains from the Suhard Mountains. Contrary to our expectations, there was no restaurant but a local offered us cola cans, tomatoes and bread for a decent price. Moreover, we could charge our phones there. After a few kilometres we stopped for sharing sweet goodies (including honey from our bees that Pája had brought with her). Then we exchanged some food and said goodbye to our friends as our pace was considerably higher.
The weather turned beautiful as we continued below Omul peak (1932) in the Suhard Mountains and towards the pass south of the highest peak. We found a nice camping spot above the pass.
One Reply to “Northern Romania”
Comments are closed.