"Baby, baby, psst!, I whisper in a moderately quiet voice"
I’m wondering how to signal Chris to hear and see that just now, as if out of a magician’s hat, a man and a woman have appeared at the peak, speaking, it seems… Swedish!
I am frozen and motionless, as one Bulgarian character says.
I look around; it’s not a hidden camera, there’s no joke, and Chris couldn’t have arranged this prank. I would have sniffed it out, being a journalist and all.
I look and can’t believe my ears, as bulgarian expression says!
The way these people appear at the peak also looks magical because the spot is narrow and they come from a steep slope, suddenly emerging in front of you – it’s almost like they teleported, like in Blake's 7.
Chris turns, sees them, stands up, and heads towards them, speaking something in their language with a very solemn tone, as if announcing the Oscar winner for best director. In this case, the director is God himself, as meeting people exactly at Vihren, at that exact moment, who speak your language, is a miracle. And just moments ago, Chris had placed the Swedish flag at the peak. It turns out they are Norwegian, but Chris assures me the language is quite similar, and that’s why they understand each other smoothly, like they are on a mode "Smooth Operator" and Sade. :)
The couple decided to spend their vacation in our country, mainly cycling. They started from Sofia, through Blagoevgrad, to Irina-Pirina, as the mountain, smiling broadly above Bansko, is known. Their powerful guardian. These two then quickly descend, with the same speed they appeared, like ninjas, leaving us wondering how they do it. They dashed off like Captain Pugwash from Jamie and the Magic Torch.
And so at 14.10 minutes we set foot on Mount Vihren, whose perfect mountain model measurements are 2,914 meters – an achievement we owe to Chris. He dreamed of it, he fancied it, he wanted it very much, and I, as a good friend, I lent not just a hand, but I literally gave my whole being, all my cells to this adventure. The most difficult thing was to control the little gray cells, as Poirot calls our brain and the faculty of deduction, because fear at one point tried to put a watermelon rind on me.
The road...
Between 9.30 and 10 in the morning we landed at the Vihren hut with a minibus that transports people for 12 BGN tickets. The morning depth and light of the views from there just make you sing because you are alive. It is such a vital, joyful feeling, for me, comparable only to the life-affirming crowing of a rooster.
There are signs, and we look carefully, because Chris's previous ascent up the mountain, due to the lack of signs in English, took him to Muratov peak, and he didn't know exactly where he was the whole time, nor did he realize that he had conquered a peak. I even ask someone to guide us, because my first teacher in the craft, Niki Kanchev, bequeathed me the valuable advice: It's not a shame not to know, it's a shame not to ask!
And so we go along the marking. I was talking to Chris all the time about - where is Mark, because if it's a noun in English, he became like a hero to me, institutionalized like a living thing that guided us so well where we were going.
And there were stone to stone, such difficult terrain that you simply cannot stand up, walk and admire the views. You have to bend over, grab whatever you find. To be honest, I only staggered a few times, we didn't crash anywhere. And Chris was always there with his trusty helping hand. And since we are people born in the last century, we often got out of breath and stopped for a rest. Accordingly, we were slower and covered the distance in 4 hours and 30 minutes instead of the 3 and a half hours mentioned on the signs.
Two young boys meet us and, as is the custom here in the mountains, we say to each other: "Good day." They ask me how I am. I answer: With God's help I hope to go as far as possible, for I am not young at all.' One of them tells me: "Over there is a cross and a bell above, pray and ring." He was kidding in a youthful way. And the place he was talking about, when we reached it, turned out to be both majestic and unpretentious. And so, you begin to humble yourself with each passing step. Neither the mountain is a joke, nor the beauties of God with which he has filled this place.
A little more flat terrain and then again stones, stones. These stones have no mercy.
We meet another couple and the girl tells us, "You've got one more rise and then some gentle terrain, one more ridge and you're on the way to the top."
Chris, so sweet, like a live coach motivator nudges me with the words, "Push it baby, push it." But to a Balkan girl, is that how you talk! It turns me on and it gets me worked up not only that I can barely bend over those pebbles over there. And I tell him that doesn't push me forward. He reminds me of it in the evening and we understand that this work with languages also has a hand in relationships - some words, expressions, work better than others. We agreed that if he said something about "courage" it sounded better to me.
And we reached this turn, and on the way we hear all "meee, meee" – wild goats are scurrying around. Flowers and vegetation - just a masterpiece picture.
We sat in front of the entrance - to our right there is a lake, wonderfully, wonderfully beautiful - a must see. Like dark blue eyes of a crying girl.
Looking up at Whirlwind, I told him, No way, baby, I can't.
This height takes my breath away, not in the poetic sense, but in the literal sense.
You could also say My legs are getting shaved
I have a fear of heights. At that moment, I realize how powerful Vihren is, and the whole mountain, and everything here, created by our God. I just cant look at t, that’s how it humbles me. Chris says: “It's fine” and if I can't go, he'll stay with me, we'll come back in time, next year for example. How can you not love Chris! Here, in one word – roll me up! My persistence, plus his patience, plus my faith that God would guide us, pulled me forward. And this last road to the top is even more from stone to stone. There you climb with your hands - you cannot be vertical, you move horizontally. Hour and a half. The more you climb, the better you see the pebble inscriptions made by people on the flat green before the descent. Names, wishes, the messages are different. We are meters from the top, I feel dizzy, I stagger. It's such a beautiful feeling to see something blowing up there and that's the point you've been chasing!
We hug - we are there. I play the track from Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise was climbing the rocks - Ico, Ico. I take a picture of Chris placing the Swedish flag next to ours, the Bulgarian one. We take pictures. He calls relatives and friends. It's so good! Then I tell him that this already makes us different people - you have reached a peak, you have overcome something. We are not the same.
And the way back is supposed to be easier, but it is not - you have lost your strength. It takes 4-5 hours, we drop off the return bus. We barely step on the meters in front of the hut. Like a marathon runners. We sit down to eat, Chris drink beer. I, who love wine so much, could not drink. I scrub with a wet cloth and see beige marks on it - from dust and everything. I see my fellow student from the university, a big nature lover, and at one time quite liked by the girls in the graduation, filling water at the tap. I run to ask him not if he is free tonight, finally ;), but if he happens to have a car and seats in it. Alas, he is staying at a campsite below. Still, we note that it's good that we got to recognised each other - so we're not that old. I sit back down next to Chris. He is no longer communicative. He's locked up, his legs hurt.
And just as our emotion was at an upper crescendo, suddenly - poof, we became ugly, dirty and evil, as the Italian film title says. Not exactly, but almost. Tired, nervous that there is no transport, we hitchhike. Chris runs, I hear him say, "You're stupid," and I say, "You're stupid," to keep up, and that wasn't it what he said. So I emaraced myself. But we're so exhausted we don't know what's going on.
Nice young men with passable English pick us up in the car and enjoy talking to Chris, one of them is English, and Chris amuses them with stories like how if the Germans used to steal people's girlriends, now he's going to steal them return by stealing Bulgarian women. I'm telling you - we don't know what we're talking about, what world we're in. Crazy job. We don't know what the next crazy thing will be, but I know that together is always the most fun.
Crazy little thing called love...
Text by Boryana...
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