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Thursday, October 4, 2007

Live (so far) from Cluj-Napoca, Romania


After zooming along at 75 to 80 and being constantly passed on the last vestiges of the EU autobahn through Hungary we got our passports stamped at the Romanian border and ventured both back in time and back in worlds. Back to the 3rd world to be precise.


Within a short amount of time we were on roads unseen since South America, choking on diesel truck fumes, unbridled horses wandering through traffic, burning things, like a tire in the fields, crazy drivers passing on the right, huge abandoned soviet era factories and power plants, horse drawn wagons on the roads, hunch backed old women in shawls, even some sort of railway looking device being driven backwards, in an over the shoulder way with 3 guys on board, put-putting up the highway with semi's narrowly avoiding them.

I'm back in my element! I love it, Clara hates it.

By the way, we both saw something we've never seen on a country road in Hungary. It was about 12 inches long, furry but moved quickly across the road like a lizard. I thought it was a cross of a Daschund and an Iguana. Very odd.

There is of course plenty of pollution, again making our faces black. But, we can finally afford to live again. Pizza dinner was about $14, and a hut at the campground $25, complete with roaming donkey and rabid dog running around.

Last night in Budapest we paid $32 just for the privelege of pitching our tent on hard packed dirt.

Time for some oil changes. I need to put on my new front tire and fin a new rear tire for Clara.


Go Sox!