Rural Bulgaria

More Rhodope mountain passes as we ride from Batak to Devin and then Zlatograd in southern Bulgaria.

ig : seemovisuals

So, there’s a nice comment 5 minutes on top of the hill next to the village. 5 minutes from here. I want to go see it. Yeah. And then find some breakfast. I think next time I’m using my foot will be like 2 minutes with it’s a Michelin star but for guest rooms. It was definitely freezing last night. Frost all over the ground as we look over this eerie town. Oh, hell yeah. [Music] Those [Music] who fall in the fight for freedom never die. It’s pretty pretty badass. It does look a bit more alive in the day, but not by much bakarion. Got an Italian coffee machine. Hell yeah. Got a breakfast. Is it good? I’m still looking for the cheese. Yeah, that’s I looked at it. I was like, it just feels like bread. Give us a taste test. Show decent Italian. Okay, nice. Bye-bye, Bak. Uh, Ptera, here we come. First that I’ll try to fix Ivan’s back bag. And then we got a big old climb to Dein. [ __ ] 80 kilometers of just pretty much uphill. It’s cold, man. My hands are freezing. Oh my god, he’s so cute. Nice. Got the got the rack repaired on Ian’s side. Hell yeah. Depanched cuz now we’re in the valley and it’s up. Some construction road that’s closed to cars. Seems nice to me. Damn. Old Roman bridge or something. Oh, there’s a shepherd’s dog. Wow. Oh, hello. Hey, that makes sense. This is why the road was closed. Let’s see where we could pass here. Okay. And we’re back on the main road. That’s dangerous. Don’t do that. Crazy [ __ ] Got some nice pears from a stand. Oh, what are these, dude? It’s a peach. Peach? Yeah. [ __ ] man. I’m I They’re cooked. My I’m cooked. Yeah. So, too many languages, too many fruits, too many names. Yeah. Terrain changed completely. Apart from the building. In one day, we traveled from Siberia to Spain. We’re in Kosaro. Kosars. Why does every town have a sign like this? You want to wait here? I’ll go buy some things. I’ll buy bread. You want something else? You get like a spreadable cheese. You want spread spread cheese? I’ve done Oh, kimak. Kak. Yeah. King’s banquet. Slavic king. Chalky milk. All right, we’ll be following this valley up for 60ish kilometers. So, that’s cool. But we’ll be going up the entire way. Just my stop number one. Number one. Number one out of 20. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Damn. That’s crazy. So sick. [Music] Stop dance. [Music] Right now, there’s absolutely nowhere in the entire world. I would rather be in here. So sick. Mihail co. I think this where the boys are waiting for me. Only town on this remote valley before Devine, which is where we’re staying tonight. Where are the guys? Let’s see. Man’s got a beer. He’s so cute. That’s a nice tunnel. Hey, is it downhill from here? Yes. The climb is over. Oh yeah, baby. Oh yeah. That’s a sick spot to build a house. [ __ ] I’m jealous. Down the hill we go to Devin. Wow. Wow. Had to stop cuz it’s super dangerous to film uh while going 50 an hour. I’m sold piece of [ __ ] I don’t know if I showed you guys, but yeah, the front uh front mud guard is completely gone. Right. Right over there across the river is Devin. So, we won’t be biking in the dark. Let’s go. What an achievement. First day. We don’t bike in the dark. Dein, let’s go. Oh, it’s all tucked nice and cozy into this valley. Nice. This is a great spot. Bike one, bike two, bike three. Hell yeah. Organizing the track for tomorrow cuz I don’t think we’ll be able to do the transopi trail. What the hell? What is going on? It’s the elevator. Okay. went to the attic of our building. Oh, look at that cat. Wait, wait, wait. Hey, misses. You do not care. Went to the attic. Couldn’t access the roof, but that was pretty cool. Still I’m dying. [Music] [Music] kind of disoriented. Firewood everywhere. I know. I It probably does get cold if it’s cold now. Autobots have rolled out of Devin just down there. Now Euroving through the redies. We changed the roots. Uh, a transerodopi route looked just way too overgrown, uh, unmaintained and far away from civilization for us to be doing it at this time of year when it’s cold, muddy, wet. So, yeah, this is not a bad alternative at all. We’re on like the red uh [ __ ] the red the iron curtain trail. [Music] [Applause] [Music] made it to the top, baby. Oh, dangerous descents. Oh, yeah. Dangerous for this piece of [ __ ] The boys, the boys are enjoying this. Oh, wow. Lakes. Whoa, dude. There’s some really nice mountain formations over here. Uh, the one over there. Some cool jagged rocks behind me. See, that’s what I mean when the rock formations. More lakes. But yeah, spans in the valley down there. This place is really nice. Really cool. Really, really cool area. [ __ ] love the rodopies. Smolan. Smolano blast. Let’s see what this town’s all about. Nice. It looks cool. God damn. [Music] You still [Music] [Music] just ate lunch. Um, so we’re like we’ve biked 40k today. We’re 70k away from Zlatigrad where we’re supposed to sleep and we still have 1,000 m of elevation to bike and the sun sets in 3 and 1/2 hours. So we uh we move. Let’s go. Smallon is much bigger than I expected. It’s cool town. Climb number two. Two out of three. Sun is already setting. [ __ ] Choke. Manov. Okay. Nice. Reminds me so much so much of home. The colors are less bright and potent. The colors of fall, but man, it’s pretty. That’s again I would not want to be anywhere else in the world right now doing anything else. This is peak human experience. We will store baklava mix. It’s going to break for the caterpillars. High protein stick. What the [ __ ] Pamas. Where are you gonna fit that? I’m gonna eat it right now. Okay. Okay. Final climb of the day. Already halfway up. It’s getting cold, but we’re warm cuz we’re biking up. But at the top it’ll be freezing. We’re at the top. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. [Music] Mother [Music] and here we are descending in the dark. But it’s only like 15k all downhill. And then we’re in Zlatrad, Golden City. If you can’t see [ __ ] me neither. Except the floor in front of me. Here we are as well. Is it on this side of the river? Food time. Got another one tattoo. [Music] You better than me.