The Fun Filled Days in Bulgaria

Jeep Safari – Bulgarian Style

First day in Bulgaria, a jeep safari you ask? Yes, please! Adrienne and I hopped into a gutted-out jeep with five others and had a bumpy ride with Galow (no idea how to spell/say his name, so this is a guess). He was young and enjoyed taking us off-OFF-roading (as I will call his crazy driving:).

Adrienne and I

Galow, our driver

A caravan of about 20 jeeps took us out of Varna and into the hills. We stopped for some very unique (and unpleasant) tasting Bulgarian brandy, off-off-roaded it to honey tasting, air-gun-shooting and sunflower field viewing.

HUGE sunflowers!

We did many doughnuts in the mud and drove sideways alongside hills. We saw animals on our safari as well! Cows, goats, and stray dogs. The whole time we tried figuring out, "What is going on?!" Ah, Adventure.

Sideways jeeps

AHHH!

What is goin on?

Finally we made it to the “barbeque”. The place looked like it came out of an old scary movie (see Adrienne’s face below).

Entrance to the BBQ

Before lunch with a couple of very nice undergrads from our jeep (the one on the right goes to UW-Green Bay).

Adrienne thinking where are we?!

The food was interesting as well. First, let me tell you what we were told NOT to eat while in Bulgaria…

Avoid: Tap water, uncooked fruits and vegetables (could’ve been washed in tap water), uncooked meat…

Barbeque menu:

Salad - full tomato, half a cucumber, shredded cabbage

"Salad"

Main course – a full pepper, solid baked potato, two chicken skewers that were red inside.

Drinks: Lots of beer, wine, and brandy (apparently to make Adrienne and I worry less, the Bulgarian told us).

Then there was singing and dancing and a beautiful ride back to the ship. Good day. Good day.

Every song ended in "Jeeep Saffariiii!"

A Natural (FREE) Spa - Bulgarian Mud Baths

The mud baths were interesting and fun. We first sat in a really smelly mud pool with salts and exfoliated. Then we went to the mud part and covered our whole body in mud (even our faces). Now, don't picture a spa or anything nice. This place looked kind of like a rice paddy farm, with sections of the mud squared off. Two-by-fours are the bridge to get to the pools of mud. Then you walk across the street to the black sand beach, let the mud harden on your body, then wash it off in the sea. It was a blast and our skin felt silky smooth.

Exfoliating with the stinky salt

Covered in mud

Orphanage Visit

People have really like Bulgaria because we've actually participated in meaningful trips like visiting Gypsy communities (actually referred to as Roma communities), hospitals, small villages and orphanages. I went with Amy on the bus visiting children ages 0-3. It melted our hearts to see the little babies. The orphanage was clean and gigantic. They could house around 240 children but only 170 were there. The government is shutting down these orphanages (0-3 yr old children) for many reasons. One difficulty the government is having is mothers bringing their children to the orphanage, while continuing to hold custody of the children. So, they come maybe every month or so, see their child, sign a paper they were there, and receive monetary assistance from the government because they are “raising” their children. The staff that work with the children are wonderful and the kids are so well behaved. They all wanted to be held and loved.