Day 40. 54km (52733kms)
Waking up to a light mist rather than rain was a pleasant surprise. Dry tent packed away I enthusiastically set out for 2 x rock monasteries, and maybe a ruined citadel to boot, but I quickly ditched that side trip out of laziness telling myself it was due to the forecasted weather.

If not for corona virus I should’ve been exploring the likes of Petra, Jordan, or the rock hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia by now. So I was very excited to visit these two rock hewn monasteries; one still functioning, the other a UNESCO site. And they didn’t disappoint. The first, Ivanovo was maybe the most extensive with frescoes still bright on the ceilings and walls of the main chamber. 15 kilometres up the road Basarbovo looks more impressive from the outside with multiple little doors and windows in the rock. Narrow stairs carved into the cliff-face climb up to a simple chapel sparsely decorated with iconostasis, crucifix, and so on (code for I don’t know the names of the other religious furniture 😆)

A strange thing happened at Ivanovo; Hanging out at the entrance was a man dressed in a fitted-leather jacket and beenie looking for all the world like a hit-man. He approached me in good English telling me it was 5Lev to enter gesturing to a laminated price list pegged to the wall. Suspicious that he didn’t actually work there I asked for some ID, upon which he promptly forgot how to speak more than a few words of English... after a pause I explained my suspicions and hesitantly told him “I’m just going to go in then...” he proceeded to follow me around explaining - in English! - the frescoes. I was worried he was now going to charge me the guided English tour price on his laminate. But nothing more was said on the subject. I left completely perplexed; did I just rob a heritage site of 5Lev, or escape extortion of 5Lev?

The rain finally caught up with me at Basarbovo. They had an appealing gated shelter outside the monastery walls, under the cliff, but I was not permitted to camp there. I’d seen a dilapidated shelter on my way in, so I returned there pitching the tent in a dry spot that I hoped would avoid the worst of the run off.

#ivanovo #bulgaria #monastery

свернуть