BULGARIA 2001

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Having flown in various locations throughout Europe, I always write an article about what the flying holiday was like. The main reason for this is for the benefit of other pilots who want to go and fly abroad but have no idea what to expect with respect to the flying, accommodation, food, local talent ;-) etc.
I get email from around the world as all my ramblings get published to the www and every now and then I get invited to places to go and fly. This was one such trip and certainly my most adventurous to date.
I had an email from Nikolay Yotov, who is a paragliding instructor and officer in the Bulgarian Air force.
OK, I've drunk their wine, and had a good idea where it was, next to a war zone by all accounts if you take any notice of the BBC. But then again, from the Bulgarians point of view, so are we with respect to Northern Ireland. So I made a few phone calls and 5 of us headed out there. 3 paragliders, 1 hang glider and a retrieve driver/navigator, i.e. my wife Caroline (Wiz).

Day 1. Saturday 16th June

We flew out from Gatwick on a scheduled BA flight. Cost 119 pounds, bargain.
Getting the hang glider checked in was a nuisance. It cost Dave 35 quid extra. It went down as a windsurfer but if it had been charged at the rate for its size it would have been about 350 quid.
We took off late but landed on time due to tail winds (more about that later J) and went out into the arrivals lounge. Nikolay wasn't there so I phoned him on his mobile. He was surprised to hear we had just arrived in Sofia as he was expecting us on Monday. Many emails had been back and forth in the previous months so I'm not quite sure how the mix up came about.
He was in Sopot, the premier flying location in the country and 160 km away.
We went to the cafe/bar and waited for about 2 and a half hours and he eventually turned up with his friend the taxi driver.
We crammed all our kit, which included 2 paraglider bags one hang glider and 4 bits of hand luggage, into the car plus the 5 of us. It was a bit overloaded to say the least.
We got to Sopot about 2 hours later and looked over the accommodation. A detached house surrounded by trees. 4 bedrooms, small kitchen with practically no utensils or cookware, cooker from the 1950's and a "Bathroom" consisting of a shower and basin and a hole in the floor cunningly disguised as a toilet. The cistern above didn't flush so you had to fill a bucket with water to flush it. The shower worked off an immersion heater on the wall which when plugged in made all the lights dim in the house. We were being charged 10 levs each, per night for this place which was about 3 UKP. Not expensive by any stretch of the imagination but the hygiene of the kitchen and ablutions wasn't particularly awe inspiring.

We went into town and bought 2 bottles of red wine, 6 half litre beers, a bottle of orange drink and fizzy water and a gallon of still water. Total cost 16 levs, (5 pounds).

Dinner was supplied courtesy of the Bulgarians present, Taxi driver + wife, local pilot + wife and a few other hanger-one'rs. A traditional Bulgarian affair of tomatoes, cabbage, cheese, cold meat, and a cold yoghurt cucumber drink. Certainly not my cup of tea but at least I tried it. We all got shit faced that first night, combination of long day, tiring drive to the town, and the need to impress upon our selves that we were, once again, ON HOLIDAY !

Day 2 Sunday

Easy does it

We went up the mountain on a ski lift type thing, although there's no piste skiing to be had there. (I took up some beers for the lift drivers, which was a sweetener for Wiz's ticket to get down!!) I launched at about 1pm. The thermals were strong but quite small. I flew my Trance but was quite nervous as this was the first flight since September 2000 when I busted my arm for the second time in 3 months. The foot and mouth disease had kept all flying the UK to practically zero.
I was struggling to get high and had one tuck that ended up as a cravat. I cleared it and then decided to land and get my Feeling out instead.
I had a much better flight but the thermals were starting to die off. I was still a bit cautious and slightly nervous in the air so I landed and had a beer.
Total airtime 1 hour 50 mins.
Dinner in town was cheap. 5 of us, dinner and beers, 24 lev, 8 UKP.

Day 3 Monday

Every one has their hang-ups

There are many local pilots that tend just to have top to bottom flights. This tends to be due the fact that they can't afford wings that will either thermal or have the necessary speed to penetrate any wind that picks up. Our taxi driver Stoyan, was one such pilot and this was the day he got a name we could all remember and pronounce.
There are landing sites everywhere, many big enough to get hang gliders into with ease. The most popular LZ was the field right next to the car park for the lift station. However it does have a cable running right across one end. Guess who hit it and after Wiz's suggestion, had to park his car underneath to stand on to unhook his glider. Yep, you guessed, I named our taxi driver "Busby". The UK readers will remember this name as the cartoon bird on the TV advertisements for when British Telecommunications was privatised. He used to perch on telephone wires and got jiggled around when a phone call went through.

I saw his landing from the air but wasn't sure why he had his car where it was. I just thought he was too lazy to walk his glider back to the lift station. Shortly after this when I was very much lower and looking to set up my own approach, I saw Dave Morrison attempting to land in the very same field. There are two choices with this field; one is to approach from the south side and land slightly uphill towards the telephone line, the other is to land downhill. Unfortunately the slope of the hill is pretty much the same as the glide angle on a good glider. More about that later….
Dave sets up for the down hill landing not realising that there was a cable that ran between the poles that stretched across the field. I was getting a bit agitated about his set up since I knew about the wire. Then the excitement started. Dave saw the line too late so had no choice but to fly underneath it. That he did with kamikaze precision, just as well as I shudder to think what would have happened if his king post had caught it.

The flare then went all pear shaped and he touched down fast, closely followed by an exercise in grass strimming with his right wingtip. The violent 180 degree turn that then ensued was accompanied by a coming together of arm and upright and rounded off with a nice rendition of a choice Anglo Saxon adjective or is it a verb? I dunno, anyhow it's certainly a word for all occasions. I believe the mayor of Hiroshima was quoted in saying "what the **** was that?"
Fortunately Dave was unhurt, apart from his pride and he had 2 spare uprights Expecting trouble d'you think?
I took his picture and promised good publicity for him.

The cloud cover then got quite thick and the thermic activity died off so we went swimming in an outdoor mineral spring pool. The water was quite sulphurous, however the view around the pool made up for it, and it was rather scantily clad too. The chap in the water with a cigarette in his face was particularly amusing. Every one seems to smoke. At 60 cigarettes to the UK pound, it's a cheap way to slowly kill yourself.

Later that day we had a look round the hotel in the neighboring town of Karlovo. Very basic, but functional. Rooms without any character, but at least there was a sit down toilet. The price was $25 for a double and $15 for a single. We turned it down. The locals can get a room there for about 10 Lev but the tourists must pay extra. Guess what, it was pretty empty.

That evening we went for a walk through some woods and saw tree spouting water. The locals had piped water to the tree and put a tap on the side of the tree so as to fill a tank with water that the animals could use. Over the years the bark had closed around the pipe. We came out at quite a nice restaurant. Very smart and up-market compared to everything else we had seen. Niki and Busby were with us and they were about to leave us to ourselves with the English menu so they could go off and get some food that was more in their price bracket. We set a precedence here and invited them to stay at our expense. After a very nice meal with beer and at least 3 bottles of very good wine, the bill came to 115 Lev. About 40 UKP. So between the 3 of us actually paying, it was still a bargain by our standards. This scheme of things continued throughout the holiday and although it increased our spending to more than it would have done, we really needed the translator present wherever we ate. Later in the holiday the 2 taxi drivers would often go off on their own, leaving just Niki with us.
Walking back to the house in the dark but very warm air, we noticed an approaching storm. Not really unexpected, considering the humidity.

Day 4 Tuesday

Skid pan and potty training

Thunderstorms all night long kept us awake. The rain was quite something to be seen, even though we were assured that it was a trickle compared to what came down the previous Wednesday. It rained all day so we went on a bit of a mystery tour whilst Niki went to fetch Ken and Ivor from the Sofia airport. Busby and a local lad drove us to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second largest city. We would quite liked to have walked around and see some more of the older parts of the city but the rain was so heavy we would have been soaked through in minutes. Apparently the Old Town is worth seeing for it's classic architecture, and the Roman theatre is quite spectacular. We missed it all because of the rain, what a wasted opportunity, but then again the holiday was not meant to be a site seeing one (other than flying sites of course).
We elected to head back to Sopot and await the arrival of the "Dynamic Duo".
Actually getting out the city proved to be a bit of a challenge. There are not many road signs or directions in the towns, so if you don't visit regularly it is very easy to get lost. Busby had the added challenge that he decided to give up cigarettes the night before. We all cheered when we saw the "you have just left Plovdiv" sign & we knew we were going North.
Once we were back, we had a few hours to spare before the others would arrive so we made good use of the time by drinking and pizza eating in a local club. 3 of us shared a pizza which cost us just over 1 Lev.
About 7 minutes after the E.T.A. given by Niki, he arrived with his Brother, Dimitar, a Sofia taxi driver, and Ken and Ivor. We showed them around the house in all it's glory and decided that we would find better accommodation the next day. Whilst we were deciding where to eat we plugged in the water heater. All the lights dimmed as usual, then about 30 minutes later all the lights in the house went out. I unplugged the heater and we left for the restaurant. We had a quick look in the 1940's style fuse cabinet and decided to leave well alone. The fuses were whopping great ceramic jobs and one in particular was hotter than a hot thing in a hot place.
We ate in the posh restaurant again but this time the bill came to 90 Lev (30 pounds) for 8 of us.
Back at house later that evening the dreaded holiday jelly bum struck. This was not the time to have a hole in the floor with no air conditioning.
It appeared to be just me and Dave who were affected and we couldn't really work out what it was that caused it (Wiz thinks it was the pizza, since she didn't have any). Pretty soon the time taken by one of us in the toilet was longer than the other poor sod could wait and so we had to go back to nature. I was out side declaring chemical warfare on the wildlife when I heard Dave indoors shout out our word for all seasons again, but this time in the context of "isn't this a mess?" Shortly after I was back in side the house and the noises coming from the toilet were hilarious. It's not what you think ! There were sounds of buckets clanging around, water being sloshed everywhere and the really odd noise of someone doing their washing. You know "the slap the wet clothes down hard on the stone by the river type thing". We were all puzzled until Dave eventually emerged not wearing very much but holding all his sopping wet clothes. Before asking what the hell had been going on we had to get all the doors and windows open, although I'm not sure if that let the stink in or out.
Dave reappeared in dry clothes and explained that after decorating the floor with his lower intestinal tract, he then proceeded to slip over and soak it all backup again with his fully clothed body.
There wasn't a dry eye in the house. We all laughed like drains, which was very appropriate given the circumstances.
Niki, who appeared immune to the "fog" emanating from the toilet area, decided to try and fix the heater. A while later there was a loud yelp followed by an expletive, recently learnt from Ivor. We realised that he had just zapped himself whilst standing in a pool of water. After that we insisted that he just left it alone.

Day 5 Wednesday

Moving House
It occurred to Dave the following morning that I have a tendency to write about my experiences on these flying holidays, and would I be writing about the previous nights unmentionables and the limbo flying. When I said that I would write about it, Dave's wallet came out and he tried to bribe me to forget all about the 2 incidents. As you can see, I declined his kind offer.

Today "things came to a head" (to use a Navy term!) on Tuesday night Dave & I were competing for the same black hole, but the Last straw was when the water failed so we couldn't even fill the bucket.

From rags to riches. Hut 1 was in easy walking distance to the lift, in one direction and the restaurants in the other. 10lev (3ukp/person/night). The down side was the lack of hygiene. The new location is a 5 min drive from take off, but has swimming pool, tennis court, gym etc 25$ a night for a double room (70 lev, 23 UKP). We had to pay 3 nights in advance. They wanted dollars but since we were in Bulgaria, we only had a mixture of DM and local money.
We moved in, much to the annoyance of the hotel manager, or so it seemed. I wasn't convinced he was the sort that would piss on you if you were on fire, but then again he might if he though he could invoice you for it.
We went back to the nice restaurant in the woods above Sopot and then all came back for what was going to be an early night.
Dave then insisted that I join him for beer or three before bed, and so I then retaliated and made him drink some Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey. We had a look at the food menu whilst in there and found that there was an English version.

I had a bad head the next morning. Not a thumper, just a bit foggy.

Day 6 Thursday

Cross country flight at last

Today was looking to be the first flyable day since the storms and we all made it up the mountain just so sit in the orographic cloud for and hour or two. Every now and then a clear patch would allow us to see the landing field. Every now and then a local pilot would launch and head straight out towards the valley, knowing that there glide angle would soon drop them out of the cloud. None of them had a compass and so what would have happened if they had been caught by cloud suck would have made an interesting rescue mission for whoever was going to risk their own life scraping them off the mountain.

Cloud base was lifting a bit and so I decided to switch on my GPS and head for the landing field. I cleared the ground with ease and flew straight through the cloud having first checked with Wiz (who was sitting in glorious sunshine!) on the ground that the other pilots had emerged clear.
I found a little lift along the edges of the cloud and so stayed quite close in until Ken launched. I then moved away until I had a clear view of him.
There wasn't much lift away from the clouds and so I flew straight out and towards the industrial part of Sopot, hoping for house thermals, or in this case factory ones.
I wasn't disappointed and made back all the height I lost on the glide. Ken floated around near to the mountain side and maintained height. I wasn't too keen at this stage to get in close, as I'd still not got all my confidence back. Niki joined me flying my other, faster, wing and we attempted an XC flight.
A full frontal collapse from the edge of a strong thermal woke me up and off we went. We made it to Karlovo with ease and then the clouds started to thin a little. The thermals were quite fragmented and staying in lifting air was proving to be difficult for me. Lack of practice I say J. Dave joined us on his hang glider and we all tried to widen the search for the best lift. I then hit some massive sink and within 2 minutes I had lost all my height and had to find a landing field.
We were in the "Valley of the Roses", this region of Bulgaria produces something like 70% of the worlds rose oil, so finding a field that wouldn't rip my canopy to shreds was a tricky one. I picked a small field between the railway line and the road that led to Burgas on the East coast. I landed in waist high grass and set about packing up before trying the radio for a retrieve. I sat myself down by the road side and spoke to Ivor who was back on the mountain after a top to bottom flight. I told him I was 12.9km from the launch and radioed the lat and long coordinates. The driver had a map and Ken had his GPS. The wind was very strong and from the wrong direction to get airborne anyway. The reason was all too obvious, a thunderstorm was heading for us along the valley and I WAS going to get wet. There was no shelter apart from trees and I didn't fancy sitting under one of them in a storm, certainly not if was going to be another one like 2 nights ago.
The rain came down, massive great drops like grapes and since they had come from thousands of feet up, they were bloody cold too. I was soon soaked to the skin. I knew a car was on it's way to fetch me but standing around in the torrential rain was extracting my body heat at a rate that was going to give me a problem if I didn't do something about it.
I started walking in the direction of where the taxi would come from and 30 seconds later it arrived. I made myself comfortable in the front seat and slowly leaked into the cloth. We drove on further along the road in the direction of where Niki and Dave headed plus another pilot who went past me whilst I was waiting for the taxi. He had an interesting time, just trying to keep his wing inflated. Perhaps he thought he could outrun the storm!
So 5 of us in the taxi, all soaked plus 3 paragliders, 1 hang glider and a pod. It was quite cosy.
We got back to the lift station just in time to see Ivor and Busby on finals from their out and return……………on the lift, ha ha ha. Ivor's going to duff me for that. See picture on the right.
There then followed discussions about the fact that my GPS was obviously giving out false information as the coordinates I gave put my position miles away from where they knew I was. I checked the datum being used and it was the standard WGS84 and so couldn't work out what the problem was. Then I dawned on me. I gave out my position as degrees, and decimal minutes. The map they were reading just had degrees marked on it and they all failed to realise that there are 60 minutes to the degree. Not 100. I then changed the format to decimal degrees so they could then read the map.
So a lesson learnt there. Make sure every one is using the same units.
We had dinner in the hotel that night and it was not the best service in the world but acceptable.

Day 7 Friday

A blustery day

Today it was windy from the north west. We went to a west facing site in the Stara Planina to the 100 foot or so high Beklemeto monument to the 1876 uprising and 1944 kicking out of the Germans. You can climb up to the top of this monument inside it, but it's not particularly safe. All the cement is crumbling and the stairs and handrails are a bit dodgy.

Niki flew my Trance. It looked very turbulent with little to no properly formed thermals. No one else flew despite his statement to the effect it was perfectly safe.
We came back to the Sopot lift station and there was a glider in the air trying to land. He eventually got down vertically like a Harrier. Then 2 more gliders appeared in the air and neither had any penetration into the wind. We watched one of these have a 60% collapse whereupon he failed to hold course and turned loosing about 100 foot of height when he didn't really want to. He flew so close to a tree he snatched off a large branch and took it with him on the way to his final landing point. There were trees in the way and so we didn't actually see the landing, but later on we all saw the two pilots either limping away or favouring their damaged hand.
We elected to be land lubbers for the rest of the day and went back to the hotel and had bottle of red plonk by the pool.

We went to Karlovo for dinner at the "Waterfall Restaurant".
This is near a hydroelectric power station at the foot of a gorge that nearly had me for tea the very next day! We then drove into town for a "quick" drink before back to the hotel. This turned out to be more of a boozing session than Wiz was expecting. Niki was feeling a bit under the weather and so I insisted that he tried the Tullamore Dew medicine. They flowed a bit too much and eventually Wiz thought it was a good idea to pull me away. At the time I wasn't too pleased about this but the next day when I'd regained use of the grey matter, I thanked her for it. The others made it back just as the sun was coming up I believe. Dave was taken off to a night club full of girls (school girls that is) and had a hard time coping!

Day 8 Saturday

Mobbed by kids

Today I managed a little jaunt 9.5k east of Sopot. I was a bit annoyed I didn't get further but I wasn't going to do much better until I started to get in close to the ridges where the thermals kick off. On the way down I radioed my position and said I'm landing in a playing field behind a proper stadium. As I was setting up for my landing small broken thermals kept coming through, but weren't enough to use and get away again. Since I had said I'll be landing there I thought I ought to.
The lift that was there was sufficient to keep me in the air for about 10 minutes. I was right over a market with people and stalls all over the place. Then I was spotted and the kids came running from all directions onto the field that I'd chosen to land in. I made it down, the canopy hadn't even touched the floor and I was surrounded by Gipsy kids. They were all touching my arm and my kit, and all talking at once. I had no idea at all what they were saying, but I said I was English in my best Bulgarian and they seemed to understand.
They were extremely inquisitive and probably hadn't seen anything like this before. I got my camera out and immediately they all took up a pose for their picture to be taken. I left all my electronics in a pile on my flying suit and set about packing up my glider. They all helped.
I then heard Wiz on the radio and I had to walk out to the stadium. I kind of instructed an adult present to talk on my radio to the taxi driver and then he knew where I had to go. I had an escort out to the taxi, a very noisy one at that.
I returned to the lift station and went up again. As I approached the top I saw Niki and Ivor launch and immediately start a good climb out. By the time I was at the launch point they were dots in the distance. I launched and also immediately found a good thermal. Within 5 minutes I was 500m above the launch point and I headed off in the direction the other two went.
I glided across one valley and then found my next thermal and regained my height. The same thing happened for the next valley, but the third valley was my worst nightmare.
I tried to cross it with only 300m above take off height. I was half way across and I hit loads of sinking air. I had to turn at more of an angle in order to cross the next ridge as I lost height. It wasn't happening. I was losing height faster than the ridge line dropped. I found myself surrounded by densely covered tree mountain faces. My only way out was through the narrow gap where the hydro electric power station was. The green baize on the mountain side turned into bushes and then into trees as I lost height. I was getting ready for a tree landing followed by either a helicopter rescue (some hope) or a days walk out. My other concern was rotor. The prevailing wind direction was west. I was in a gully below a sharp ridge and was expecting all sorts of nasty turbulence that could result in my needing to throw my reserve, that would then be two knackered canopies in the trees.
I then saw a bird of prey close to the rock face on the sunny side of the gully. It was going up. I flew over to it and found that my sink rate had turned to zero's. I wasn't going up but then at least I was no longer going down. I continued towards my exit point and eventually made it to the power station. I radioed in, since I'd be out of contact for a while, and said I'd completely bollocksed this one up and I'll be landing in the same sports field as two hours earlier.
I was pleased to be out of the hole and had speaks with Niki about that later on. To be fair he did say that you need lots of height to cross it and it was a sink hole, but if he had said excess of 1500 feet and cross it with speed, maybe I'd not have got into the situation at all.
I got another escort to the taxi, which was waiting in the same place, I turned the corner to face the telephoto lens of Wizzy's camera, caught looking like the Pied Piper.
That night we ate at the hotel again and it was a disaster. It was obvious there was no trained chef on call, and the word "vegetarian" just doesn't compute with the waiters. They all looked scared stiff of us. Dave's "No meat bolognaise" had ham in it and so he sent it back. We suspected that all they did was to pick out the bits of meat, since we found a bit they missed. It was sent back again and they were told not to bring it back. Then Dave's vegetable pancake came out. As the waiter was putting it in front of him, he hesitated and then took it back and scuttle back to the kitchen. And within seconds came out another. It was "Fawlty Towers" Bulgarian style.
We finally asked for the bill but before it came, the manager turned up demanding more money to stay another night. Again, if looks could kill, we were well and truly dead and buried.
After we had paid up we sat and spoke to 3 Bulgarian hang glider pilots who had also reluctantly booked in there for the night. There was no other place to go apparently. They informed us that people stay at the hotel and never return. I can see why.
The manager obviously has his own agenda and is not doing his boss, the owner, any favours. If the people of Sopot want foreign money then they'll have to invest in another hotel and not use a misery guts to run it.

Day 9 Sunday

Off to the north west

We walked down to the taxi's that had come for us and were chased by the hotel staff wanting to know if we intended staying another night. I tried to say that we would be back within the hour and either pay up for another night or leave.
We left.

We packed the cars and drove 100km or so to Vraca in the north west. Niki's friend suggested a hotel we could try. 3 mini apartments at 40 lev per room. The place was more like a very large house. It had a swimming pool that had just been dosed with chlorine and so we were asked to stay out of it. The owner didn't want us to get skin blotches and ruin his reputation. We could only stay one night as the rooms were booked for the next 3 nights. The cook had been given the day off but was called back just to feed us. The waiter was let off and the owner did waiting instead. The cook did a special improvised rice dish for Dave as she couldn't bear not to provide for a veggie. It was here we found the most wonderful red wine. We had drunk quite a lot by now and were becoming connoisseurs of the local brews. The wine in question was called Chateau Slavyantsi Special Reserve 1995. This cost us 9lev (3 pounds). We had another at the table and then when Wiz had gone to bed, me and Dave had another one.
Busby was recalled by his wife and son, and so another taxi driver, Petar, was draughted in from Sofia. He turned up wearing a T-shirt with the word Diesel on it and so I nicknamed him just that. It was much easier than learning his real name. By this time, Niki's brother had been named Ferrari, owing to the fact that he liked his red T-shirt with said logo on it.

Day 10 Monday

Dave's the man

We moved to Montana, and Niki made contact with a friend of his who owned a harness and reserve parachute factory. Angel, the boss, Vasela his daughter and Ani, his wife, hence the name AVA Sport. We were shown around and were all impressed with the design and workmanship of the reserves. We all started to negotiate a price for new ones for ourselves.
Vesela then took us to the best place to stay in the area. This was a Butlins (Bulgarian style) type camp, the hotel part is still being built, however 5 chalets over look a lake/reservoir to the mountains beyond. Twin bed rooms en suite, 12 lev per person per night. Basic, but in reasonable surroundings. There was a bar next to a massive swimming pool, which had water slides into two separate pools. There was a restaurant, and some sort of reverse bungee twin tower that you get catapulted into the air with. We were told there were jet ski's and wind surfers too.
Soon as we had unpacked were guided by Vesela to the nearest launch site for the current wind direction. Town taxis have never been here before. The track was rough and most of the rock strata was limestone shaped by the wind into sharp dinner plate slithers.
The wind was very strong but didn't stop Dave from flying. The bastard went off and off and flew 40 odd km. He said it was his best ever XC. He was a very happy camper! See the map above for the approximate take off site.
We ate an excellent evening meal in the restaurant next door, although I don't think the staff were allowed to smile. We tried our best to get a laugh out of the waitress and just about managed an enigmatic grin.

Day 11 Tuesday

Dave's day, again!

As far as the paragliders were concerned today was blown out, Dave flew 25k whilst the rest of us went to find out about the jet skis and the wind surfers that we were told were available when we were booking into the accommodation.
It turned out that the jetty was in a state of disrepair and therefore we couldn't launch the jet skis and the wind surfers were unavailable because it was off season!! So it begged the question, why did they bother telling us they had them?
That night we had dinner with AVA sport people and discussed their reserve parachutes. Ivor's colon was on its best behaviour since he was sat next to Greta, the English speaking member of the company. It was a late night.

Day 12 Wednesday

Records fall

Went to AVAsports premises and we all ordered a new 55sqM reserve. 530lev each.
We then went to the flying site and Niki took off, then Ivor. Silly bugger didn't do a radio check and only found out when he landed that we had all changed frequencies. This was Niki's idea as there was another group elsewhere that was on the frequency we were on. Communications could certainly have been better. I then took off and flew up and down the ridge a couple of times before finding a good thermal. Niki had already gone off in his 1 man gaggle whilst I was determined to stay in reach of the hill whilst we waited for Ken to airborne. The radio message then came for me to go without him. The wind had suddenly picked up, probably due to the thermal that I was now well into, which prevented Ken from getting off the hill.
I slowly climbed out and had Ivor in sight. He looked to be heading straight back for the hill well below me, but I wasn't sure if he was penetrating at all. He was on an Eden and as such was not going to have the penetration my Trance had. I lost sight of him as I climbed higher and also lost sight of Niki. It turns out that Ivor landed behind the hill near the next village and got a lift back to the point where the track for the top leaves the road.
I got to base at +5500 feet and decided it was bloody cold. I had a draught blasting onto my forehead and it felt like a knife cutting in. My cloud was quite big and wherever I went it was lifty. I managed not to get sucked right in but felt as thought the whole sky has over developed. It was cold, grey and very gloomy. I looked at the ground and see shadows of the clouds and so then realised that the sun was still shining on the majority of the ground. There then followed sink and my lovely cloud had started to decay in to a massive blue hole. I put the speed bar on half way, I was still nervous of the wing, and noticed I had a 70km/h ground speed as indicated by my GPS.
I radioed t Wiz and told her that It looked like I was going down fast and I would land somewhere near the main road from Montana to Vratca. I was a bit peeved since I'd only done about 25km distance. I flew to the area behind a village and hoped for some lift coming from the houses - I wasn't disappointed. I started to climb out again and extended my flight to 30km where I once again radioed in to say I'm now landing in a large field next to the road leading to Vratca from the hotel we stayed in 2 nights previous.

The air was rough and there were power lines on the ground. I wasn't looking forward to the landing. Then at about 500 feet above the ground I found another thermal. I started to circle in it and started to drift towards a large reservoir. I was a bit nervous about going with this one since I was going to have to be very careful about having a landing spot within glide reach at all times. The whole thing was complicated by the fact that the lake was next to a large electricity grid that was supplying the local chemical plant. The ground that was clear of water and lines was a bit boggy too. I eventually made it across and noticed I had just past my personal best distance of 34.5km I was very please with myself and it gave me the confidence to continue.

The lift turned to sink once more and I went on a glide towards the motorway café where we had lunch the day we moved the Vratca area. I radioed in and told Wiz this which gave her a good idea where to find me if I did go down. I bumbled into another thermal that was quite rough. I had about a 40% collapse in my wing but felt reassured that it would re-inflate after seeing what Niki had done with it the other day. I climbed out once again and headed for a large town in the hope more of the same will be apparent. The thermals were short lived but kept me high. I then had a decision to make. There were two lines of hill/mountains that were converging and I was in the valley between them. Niki had told us to keep out of the mountain, as there were no roads in there to retrieve us. Do I go for the mountains or do I land here whilst I still have radio contact with Wiz still on the hill where I took off. I could have gone into the valley where the mountains converged but I couldn't see where the roads went. I could see the train lines but I had no idea what the road system was like in there.
I decided to land. I made a final call on the radio and landed in some long grass about half a km from a little village. I marked my position on the GPS. 48km shame I didn't quite make the 50. Oh well there's always the next day.

I walked into the village and met a woman with her son. I got out my phrase sheet I had in my rucksack and pointed to the line which said "What is the name of this place" She gave me the nod and said what I knew to be "I don't understand". Then I realised that I was asking her to read a Latin alphabet even though the words were Bulgarian. I didn't have a Cyrillic version of the phrase book. So in my best Bulgarian accent I tried to pronounce the phrase. To my surprise I got a response and she told me it was Brusen. Just then the telephone rang. It was Wiz finding out exactly where I was. I gave her the Lat and Long coordinates and told her I was in Brusen. She knew roughly where I was anyway because of the running commentary when I kept thinking I was going down.
I then asked where I could buy a beer, again using the phrase book. She pointed around the corner and off I trotted. I past a stork on a pole in it's nest on the way and thought that would make a good land mark when Wiz gets closer to me to use radio again.
I found an "open all hours" type shop and went in and asked for a beer. I struck up a conversation, within reason, with the girl running the place. She spoke a little English and between that and little drawings on a piece of paper I managed to tell her I had just flown from Montana to here using just the contents of my rucksack. She was quite amazed. An hour later I heard the radio spark up and it was Wiz getting close. I again told her the town name and mentioned the stork.
Two hours and another 2 beers passed and still no retrieve driver. During this time two squaddies from the army rail engineers came in for an ice cream. They went back out side followed by the girl and I overheard a conversation where I thought I understood the Bulgarian word for English. Just then in walked on of the soldiers, lifted his arms in the air and said "I love you, Manchester United, Liverpool" I laughed out loud and tried to tell him it was pointless trying to a conversation with me about football. That's assuming it was football he was on about and not just a good knowledge of the midlands cities.
Again the radio burst into life and Wiz was back where she was when she last contacted me. I asked what the hell was going on and she said, don't ask, I'll explain later. Then the signal strength got much better and she passed the stork. 30 seconds later the taxi was in view.
I went back into the shop to pay for my beer and I bought the most expensive box of chocolates there. My bill came to 3lev. One pound ! I presented the girl with the chocolates for the putting up with me for 3 hours. I didn't expect she would have the means to indulge in such luxuries too often. She was very grateful and waved goodbye. I did get her address so I could send her a copy of the photo and inform her of the fact she would written about on the internet, but I lost the address when the sheet of paper it was written on got thrown away.

Over to Wiz now for the reason for a 3 hour retrieve drive.

This was the day that we had mislaid our map, Ken very kindly input the coordinates into his GPS, gave it to me saying "follow the arrow and you will get to Gary" - seemed simple enough. Diesel popped out with one of his few English phrases "Lets go get Gary".. Apparently Gary had landed at the same spot as Dave the day before. Niki's brother had told Diesel the way, in theory I was just a passenger - or so I thought. The first part of the trip went well, I could see the landmarks which Gary had mentioned, I got radio contact with him at the village of Mezdra, then it all went pear shaped. According to the arrow on the GPS, we needed to go North, however when we started heading that way I had a strange feeling we had taken a wrong turn (retrieve drivers twitch!). Diesel was not looking too confident either - As Gary mentioned earlier, a taxi driver outside of his normal range is as lost as a tourist. Every now & then he would study road junctions & head with more (apparent) confidence in the direction of choice. Meanwhile I knew we were heading back to Vraca, infact we turned on to a main road not yards from the hotel of Sunday night. At this point Diesel stopped and got a map out - joy, he could find out where to go…. Then I got the impression that he didn't tend to use maps much, as he stuffed it on the back seat. I retrieved the map - oh great - Cyrillic script… fortunately I had been studying the road signs as we had been touring round the country. When Diesel hesitated at a junction in Vraca, I confidently pointed the way. From then on it was a team effort, he drove & I pointed. This time when we got to Mezdra, he stopped & with my radio he had a chat with Gary's friend. He then asked a passer by the way to Brusen - unfortunately the directions were through a pedestrian zone, so we had to turn around and ask a motorist the way. For the next 15 mins or so I taught Diesel the concept of "stop and ask", every time he drove in a direction which I felt was wrong, I would point to the nearest person & get him to ask them the way, then we would turn round and head back to Brusen…. We got there in the end. It turned out that Ken had miss typed the coordinates, so no wonder that didn't lead me to my beloved.
Bulgaria is still described in guide books as a patriarchal society, it is still unusual for women to drive, so I guess Diesel wasn't expecting me to map read, much less tell him he was going the wrong way!! As with all good teams, once you know each other's strengths, life is pretty jolly. "We go get Gary!!"

Day 13 Thursday

Bloody students

Angus, Niki's student tried out his new glider & harness. He was now the proud owner of a Nova Phocus. He took off and blundered straight into a thermal & went about 10K on his first ever XC. Ivor, Dave and myself tried about 30 - 60 min later but we bombed out. Niki as usual went off on a one man gaggle with no radio, helmet or boots (having lent them to his brother for a top to bottom). We all decided it was too hot to try again and so we went and started on the beer.
That night we ate in Montana town, and had to move from inside the restaurant to the terrace to avoid the live music. Everywhere you go they want to play music if there's punters around. It's a bloody nuisance, but I think a cultural thing.

Day 14 Friday

Spiral dives and Ivor's tight turns

We went to AVAsport and collected our reserves, but we had to wait a couple of hours for a front mount deployment bag to be made up. I forgot to ask for one, but thought it was obvious since I wanted it for my paramotor that has no reserve container. Maybe it was a language thing. I'll be writing another section to this report all about these reserves. I'll include photo's of the quality of workmanship and all the specs for the different sizes. They are excellent quality for an excellent price. Look out for a dealer near you soon. (It won't be me so I've not got a vested interest in convincing you of the reasons to have one. I think there should be lots of unbiased info on the web about these things and word of mouth will be more convincing than any sales bumph you may read.)

We went to a site that is south east of Vratca, that has a big concrete cross on it. Niki as usual managed to fly all the way back to the dam and land in the car park. I cocked it all up at 8km and nearly landed in a military barracks with about 200 squaddies looking at me. I got retrieved within an hour and went back to the top for another evening flight ("We go get Gary!!" Said Diesel to Caroline). The thermals were still strong on occasions and Ken, Ivor and myself got loads of height before we all set off to do some spiral dives in front of Wiz with the camcorder. I had my Feeling spiralling tighter than I'd ever had it before and the g forces on my neck were such that I could hardly move my head. I eased off and then couldn't wait to get down and see what it looked like on the camera. Would you believe it, Wiz missed the whole thing. Typical !

Dave was somewhat pissed off because he thought he would be picked up in 10 minutes. But there was some sort of communications cock-up again and he ended up walking a fair distance with his glider on his shoulders. Mad man.

Day 15 Saturday

Going west

It was home time. We took a slight detour on the way to Sofia to drop Niki and Angus off at the station in Mezdra (Been there !!). They were about to embark on an 8 hour train journey to Dobric where Niki lives. He had to go to work on Monday too.
The drive to Sofia was a gentle affair with some extraordinary sights on the way. One minute we were on a single carriageway road, the next minute were on a runway. It would seem that when the military became surplus to requirement it was easier to joint the road onto either end of the runway and save several thousand feet of tarmac. In addition to the expanse of concrete, there were people selling all sorts of things to the passing motorists. Including selling themselves. Youngsters touting for business in full view of, who we thought, were probably their parents. What a weird culture!
We got to Sofia and had an hour or so to spare so we had a quick walk round and found a bar with a Harley Davidson mounted in the middle of the drinks cabinet. Best place for it too in my opinion, give me a good FJ12 any day.
We also found the Bulgarian equivalent of an off licence and I bought 2 bottle of the Chateau Slavyantsi Cabinet Sauvignon wine. The cost 5 lev each, or 1.60 pounds.

We got to the airport without a hitch, said our farewells to Ferrari and Diesel and checked in. We had a bit of an altercation with the check-in girl about Dave's hang glider, but then again I was expecting that. But all's well that ends well. They let it on the plane with out anymore money changing hands.
On the plane we tucked into the best food we'd had for 2 weeks. We asked for some more but they had run out. Dave veggie dish was absolute heaven by all accounts too.

So there you have it, 10,000 words or so of what we thought was a holiday that we're going to remember. Whilst writing all this I've come to miss the place, even with all its little foibles. The people we met were mostly sincere, apart from the pillock in the hotel in Sopot.
I think now I know what the place is like I will go again. In the few weeks since we've been back, Niki has managed a 137 km flatland XC where he reached 4000 m amsl, but in August had a 140 km flight from Sopot to Sofia enjoying the airplanes going to and from Sofia airport! What airspace restrictions ? The country's national record has also been broken. 160km from Sopot to almost Slovenia (Kulata - a custom post on the Bulgarian/Serbian border wherethe pilot didn't dare to continue). Other changes have been made too. They have buried the telephone wire that christened Busby and chopped down the telegraph poles. So that landing field is a bit more friendly.

We were the first pilots that Niki had tried to guide around the country. There were some attitude differences between us. We were all reasonably seasoned pilots with many hours to our credit and on the odd occasion a dice with Reaper Man. We fly if we feel like it, knowing that there will be another chance, another day. Niki is a novice in terms of experience in many situations, but I guarantee he will fly the socks off the best this country can throw at him. He has to fly every day and he will. If it wasn't for his position in the Bulgarian Air force and he had some money to get to foreign competitions, he would rank among the top pilots in the world, maybe even the next world champion. He has a natural ability that is all self taught from books and bitter experience in the mountains. Flat land flying is unknown territory and so is his air law and collision avoidance techniques. The latter didn't cause too much of a problem because most of the time he was above us and more often than not 10k over the back in a one man gaggle ! He showed us how it can be done, time and time again. It got tedious. I can't wait for the next trip out there. I'll show him :)

Summary

Here are a few hint's and tips if you fancy a trip to a land where there is no air law or no go zones.

You will need an interpreter & if possible a dedicated Taxi driver (may need to teach him how to retrieve!).
Take maps with you. The Bulgarian ones are years out of date.
Take a phrase book in both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets
Food - Generally they eat salads first, the meat is on the plate on it's own. Chips & other "veg" need to be ordered separately and may arrive in any order (unless you master the phrase for "on the same plate". Bread sold per slice.
Bring antiseptic wipes. Toilet facilities are to be seen to be disbelieved. The hotels generally have acceptable facilities. Best not to use public ones, go and make your own in the forest.
Take the "Rough Guide To Bulgaria" ISBN 1-85828-422-8. It will give you tips on where to stay if you don't go to the places we stayed. A mine of information - which we mostly forgot to use while we were out there!
Don't worry about wearing out your Visa/Master card - they don't take them.
ATM machines work - max payout £70 approx.

If you want to go then email Nikolay Yotov or contact me and I'll give you anymore info I can. I definitely would like go again and would be willing to help you organise your own trip or you can tag along with me.

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