July 28, 2011
After another stifling ride in eastern Europe from the Bulgarian border to Romania's capital, Bucharest, we resolved to see the rest of the country in some what higher style. Motorbike? Hovercraft? German convertible!? The possibilities were endless. We arrived in Braşov, a skip north from Bucharest and immediately called the first rental agency in the online yellow pages. No bikes ... Damn! We called the second ... No hovercrafts!!! Blast! We called them both back inquiring about German convertibles and were laughed off the line. We called six more agencies before we were able to rent anything for the days we wanted... €55/day for a Skoda Octavia... a midsize sedan. Sigh... Instead of a salt shaker half full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers and laughers, our trunk was full of dirty backpacker laundry, empty water bottles and tomorrow's breakfast. Ready for a road trip nonetheless.
Few vestiges of Caucescu's reign in Romania stir as much mixed feeling as the Transfăgărășan highway that aptly flies over the Carpathian Făgărășan mountain range. From an engineer's standpoint, the road was a fools errand or 'make-work' project, but from a driver's standpoint, a more awesome road does not exist on the planet. Either way, it took the mind of an obsessed communist dictator to devise it. Convinced that either a Hungarian or Russian invasion was imminent, he commissioned the road as a route for tanks from Wallachia to cross the range to Transylvania to confront the invasion. Climbing to, and then descending from, 2100m over less than 150km, it's strange the Bran pass (1300m) only 50km east didn't do the trick. But then we do all know the saying: a crazed communist dictator gets what a crazed communist dictator wants.
The road twists back upon itself time and time again, climbing only a few meters with each hairpin. Slowly the road climbs out of the forest and into the alpine where you're suddenly surrounded by waterfalls, sheep grazing, and merchant stalls hawking smoky cheeses and cured meats.. Clearly all traditional features of the Romanian mountain tops. The road continues up, climbing into the clouds, and at the top something comes into view that's been nagging at you for the last 20 switchbacks. A tunnel... While it seems that would have been a good solution some 200 switchbacks ago, I have to trust it was overlooked for a good reason. Perhaps a tunnel at 1000m just wasn't quite as 'bad ass' as one at 2100m... Oh, all the things hasty executions fail to extract (sigh)...
The far side of the tunnel was home to a veritable mountain town of eateries and souvenir shops, with the shoulder-less road squeezed to a single lane by parked cars. The only souvenir I needed was another checkmark under the 'landmarks I've pee'd off' heading of my bucket list which already includes a number of bridges and a hydro-electric dam. While Nick stole more photo angles from Sarah, and Sarah, in protest, decided to decorate the car with woven daisy-chains instead, I went about my business enjoying the scenery until all our feet were numb from the cold, and we started down the mountain.
Two more days zig-zaging over the Carpathian mountains, visiting medieval castles, and sampling the cheapest local vintages brought us back to Braşov just in time. Sarah criticized the lack of heads on spikes at Vlad the Impaler's 15th century stronghold, Nick shot wide-angle photos of the nude statues at Peleș Castle, and I quietly admired every 600 year old structure that will likely outlast new buildings today. Upon our return, we miraculously recouped our entire deposit and made plans to head west: a whirlwind tour of central Europe to finish off this leg of our trip, and whatever is left of our bank account.
Sander.
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