on the road again

We survived being locked into the compound but we had to leave the truck behind to get fixed. Our Romanian mechanic, Nachi, said he had found a camp site for us with hot showers and thermal pools and it was about 10 km away just outside a town called Oradea so we hopped on a bus over there. Turns out it wasn't quite as described. Definitely dodgy.

We walked into a field surrounded by derelict concrete-crumbling windowless ex-soviet eastern block buildings with squatter toilets and no showers, not even cold ones. With no idea how long we could be stuck here, this could be our first real trial.  On the bright side, there was a swimming pool and a barbeque!

Also locally, after a 30 minute walk dodging rabid dogs and old ladies taking their cow out for a stroll, we found a water park which was amazing. 16 swimming pools, thermals, flumes and a wave machine made this place a lot more endurable indeed! In fact, with fields full of sunflowers, topped up tans, and an amazing cook group who made the best carbonara ever experienced (can you guess who it was?!), Romania was actually turning out to be pretty good.

Then, on the horizon, there was a cloud of dust and an orange blur emerged out of it. Our truck was back and fixed!

On it was Nachi.  Turns out, Nachi was actually amazing. He had sourced the parts from across the city, worked into the night on the truck and has been very generous! Even if he did lock us in.

So next morning we left Oradea and drove through some beautiful and varied landscapes into the province of Transylvania where we visited Dracula's castle and camped amongst hay bales near the castle. Did you know, Dracul means devil and this was the name given to the ruler of the land as he ruled with terror? And his son, Dracula (son of the devil) was even worse as he used to drive wooden stakes into the victims vertebrae where they would slowly bleed to death over 48 hours.

How interesting. Anyway, off to Bulgaria!