Lost in prejudices

by Nadia Kadri (Romania)

The last thing I expected Romania

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“No way...” I was keep telling myself while approaching the building. After 3 days of walking on the mountain’s highest slopes, the only thing I was wishing right now was a good bed and a hot meal. I was with my friends on a seven days hike on the main Fagaras ridge, a 70 km long trail on the highest mountains of Romania. I planned carefully every day, from where to start, how long to walk and where to sleep. Due to the facts that most of the shelters were situated at a much lower altitude than the trail, every night we have to decent and every morning we had to climb back to reach our path. That day we reached the half of our journey and we were happy because the weather was good to us, the shelter was closer and we were reaching the Bâlea Lake, a very touristic spot on the Transfăgărăşan road. But the secrete behind our joy was that we were reaching the civilization after days of eating our dry food so we were dreaming of big delicious portions of carbohydrate food. All my dreams vanished in front of this shelter that was looking like a barn. To reach it we crossed the tunnel under the mountain and, on this side, the entire valley was covered with thick fog and the air was smelling like rain. We could only see a tiny fraction of the road that goes to Vidraru dam. Stuck to the mountain wall a weird house that was supposed to be our home for tonight was awaiting us. While we were approaching, a kind man appeared from the house and invited us inside. The main room was decorated in a Romanian traditional style and, in the middle of it, from a rustic cheminée, a good fire was warming the place up and spreading in the air the smell of fresh burning wood. While we were waiting for the food, the host offered us a very good homemade blueberry alcohol, which is a very common tradition in Romania. My friends and I were absolutely speechless. Finally, the food arrived and it was beyond delicious. I am not sure if it was like this because of the dry food I had in the past days or because of the fact that it was served in these ceramic dishes that are perfect to keep and enrich the flavors. We were tired after all the hiking so soon we went to sleep. In the morning, I opened my eyes and see in front of my bed how the clouds were dispersed by the wind and under them, the entire valley was appearing. The experiences I had here were the last things I expected when entering. I understood that, if you give it a chance, even a strange place can surprise you.