The valley of the roses

Mom and I hired a taxi and went for a round trip to the valley of the roses, to the towns of Banya and Karlovo. Our taxi driver, a lady, took us to all the places of interest, but I found things along the side of the road that I thought was much more interesting. The graves next to the road, the camping next to a dam, the old people in the little towns we drove through, the cattle on the river bank and the magnificent poppies at the edge of the little towns, to me was the real thing. The lady thought that we were hilarious!

We bought 5ml of Rose Oil for R 250. Mom nearly had a heart attack, but when I explained that one drop of rose oil in a litre of body oil, is all you need, thats how highly concentrated it is. It will last her a lifetime.

The roses grow wild in the veld, and even the rose farms look wild. We just missed the first picking.

She also took us to a hydro electric plant that supplies electricity to the region, and then to the museum of
Bulgaria's undisputed national hero, Vasil Levski, the apostle of freedom. He saved Bulgaria from the Ottoman empire, he was born in Karlovo in 1938, he then joined the revolution against the Turks, after he trained as a monk. He was a strong leader, that set up revolutionary committees around Bulgaria. He was caught and hung in Sofia.

Karlovo is also where my friend Flo's mom was born - she has an anti-turkish rebellious revolutionary ancestry. Not that far from here is Batak - where the Turks slaughtered a whole church full of women and children seeking refuge.
I can never understand the cruelty of men and the need for violence in this world.

Our taxi driver was smoking much better and did not worry about wearing a safety belt. We've learnt that a taxi driver caught smoking whilst driving a taxi will pay a fine of 500 leva (about R2500). It seems that there is no traffic police in the country!

I stopped next to the road to photograph 2 old ladies under a cherry tree, the one insisted, after I showed her, her picture on the iPad, that her husband bring the mule to the cart so that I could have the best picture!

Bulgaria is truly beautiful! What a wonderful country with awesome people!

By the way our taxi driver could not speak a word of English but we understood each other amazingly well!