Travel Tips

The trip I had done 3 years before to Ukraine had left a lot of blank spots, especially concerning the mountains and some old towns. Chorno Hora seemed a mysterious place, a foggy land where nothing was clear, with peaks that bore different names on different maps, no big cities in the immediate neighbourhood, still being so close to the Romanian border. They splat from Maramures mountains, another foggy land, located on teh former Romanian - Polish border, then on the Romanian - USSR border and nowadays on the Romanian - Ukrainean border. The decision to go there had already been taken while hiking with a Polish friend in Suhard Mountains, just miles from the Maramures. The initial plan was to do the Maramures, then cross into Ukraine via Rachiv, do the Chorno Hora, then cross into Poland via L'viv / Przemysl and do the Bieszczady, all in all being supposed to take not more than 2 weeks, say 20 days. Well, plans never come true and that is the fun of being alive I guess, otherwise it'd be a loooong and wideeeee boredom. So, taking things at a time, Valea Viseului / Rachiv was not an "international" borde3r crossing point on the Ukrainean side, so I could cross the border there, as a Romanian, but my friend could not. The only solution was going to Suceava / Chernivcy, some hundreds of kilometers to the east. Quite upset about this situation, we started. According to the same plan, we were to go by train to Viseu de Jos, take the narrow gauge train along the Vaser Valley to its end and start hiking from there. Wrong again. After a night's trains riding, we reached Viseu de Jos on a chilly and foggy morning. I could not even see the station because of the fog and the steam coming from the ancient wagons heating system. We got on a chilly and ancient bus soon filled by peasants, workers and one other backpacker. Getting off the bus, we started walking towards the narrow gauge railway station. It was the only narrow gauge still in use in Romania, partkly for tourist purposes, partly for exploiting wood. The train was supposed to leave Viseu at 07.00, but of course it had left at 06.00 and there were even more pieces of bag news to come:
"Tomorrow it is not going to work, as it is a religious holiday". The other backpacker from the bus, a German buy, was very happy:
"I have come all the way from Germany for this train alone" he said and vanished in a cloud of fully explainable anger.
Life is great and bad news always travel in couples, one might say. So, we went back to the main road. Sometimes an unexpected change of plans ends up well. Sometimes not. But in both situations one gets up with an interesting experience and he/she ends up drunk. After a brief coffee and after noticing that half of the Pipulation in Viseu was Italian or had cars with Italian plates, we took a small van to Borsa Village, then we started hitch-hiking towards Prislop Pass, where Maramures Mountains started. It did not take long and a typical 25 years old truck appeared and suddenly stopped. Three boys were on board, probably none of them being over 16 or having a driving license. The road went up in very tight and steep curves towards the pass, while they were driving as if they were part of some rally.

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Jupania Peak and the Junipers Sea, Romania

the Romanian side 02

The air was filled with a loud Gipsy music with very funny lyrics. At a certain moment the happy chariot stopped to give a ride to some cyclists and, as there was no place inside, they stood on to the back of the truck. To make their ride easier, the driver of the moment took off one of the speakers and put it on top of the cabin, so that the whole valley could now listen to the latest hit of John Doe. It is impossible to describe the way small things like that make up a trip wonderful. Reaching the pass, we got off the merry truck and started walking along the foothills of the Maramures Ridge, which was filled with pastures, sheep and cattle. When reaching Fantana Stanchii Hut, opposite the map directions, the man there showed us the direction we should have followed; we were to dramatically (for us) find out later that they were both wrong. After following an old trail (probably unused since the area became so close to the border), we got in the middle of a delightful and welcoming (but nevertheless shaking and scratching) sea of juniper bushes. Tall junipers. Dense junipers. Green junipers. Moving junipers. Junipers that made the wind cease and the sun burn even stronger, making the resine melt and stick to us. We would make a few steps and then fall, getting up again and, the very moment we thought we are back to the vertical, we would stumble and fall again, swallowed by that living mass of the shaking spirit. Eventually, after a serious struggle to get on a view point, we reached a peak and, with one foot on a sronger juniper and the other one twisted on a stick, I could see the future: kilometers of junipers. So we decided to go straight down in the direction of the Vaser hydrological bassin. A coupld of hours later, after covering 100-150 meters, we reached a small stream, which eased much the going down. We found the military designed trail in the forest. Sunset was getting close, so we started to look for a camping place. Abandoning the path, we reached a clearing and we noticed a dim light in the opposite side. Thinking it was a tent, we went there, to find a truck with strange plates: neither Romanian, nor Ukrainean, nothing understandable. The truck full of wood had the lights on, the door was open but there was nobody in the vicinity. We shouted and made noise, but nothing: it belonged to wood smugglers. Only when we loudly decided to camp there, three men appeared, asked us what we were looking for, chatted for a while and eventually, realizing we were not after them but after a night's sleep, they showed us to a small hut hidden in the forest and told us we could stay there until morning and even use their food stock. Then they got on the truck and left. Thanking them, I realized, not for the first time though, that everybody in this pit called Earth is human after all and all there is need for is to know how to talk to people and take people for what they are rathern than judge them, for nobody is perfect. The following day we started again, following the path. Some hours later we reached an open area, where the ridge was followed by a grassy stripe cut off across the forest and the junipers: the neutral stripe of the Romanian - Ukrainean border.

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The narrow gauge train, Coman, Romania

the Romanian side 03

Every 200-300 m. or so there was one pillar on each side of the stripe. On the Romanian side they were painted in green and white, bearing at their upper end the Romanian flag painted over the place where the communist coat of arms had once been. On the Ukrainean side the pillars that had once been red were now painted in blue and yellow, with the new coat of arms of Ukraine on top, covering the former red star. Either countries no longer were what they had once been, but we were to soon find out that the new paint did not entirely cover all that red past in both cases. As the ridge was covered in junipers, it was only possible (and even there, not a heaven) to walk on that very neutral stripe and so we did. When we reached Ihnitessa Peak, we stopped for a sip of water and some pictures. Soon we noticed that two people were coming after us in a quite high speed; they were both dressed in blue camouflage uniforms: Romanian soldiers. They reached us and took a deep breath:
"Romanian border police, your documents, please"
Then the story started with things I had already known. It was forbidden by law that anyone but the border police patrools to walk on the neutral stripe. We were supposed to keep at least 20 m. from the stripe inside Romanian territory. Of course we should have, opening new paths through the junipers and clearing the forest. The answer was simple:
"As walking in the area except for the stripe is not possible, you shouldn't have come here. There are laws. We only make sure they are respected. Now you have to join us and you risk a penalty of ROL 1,000,000 - 10,000,000 (USD 30-300)." They had their side of rightfulness, and we had ours. Yet our side was not protected by any law, only by the desire to hike those mountains. So there was a need to backup our case, in order to have one and not surrender. Blaming it on the map which showed, to our salvation, a non-existent path on the Romanian side (which we had not even looked for), playing the innocent and expressing our full respect for the law, we eased the situation and made them - nice people, after all - a little more comprehensive. After all, they were the ones carrying guns and not us. The orders they received from down were clear though: we had to join them to their commander and later on an inspector would come to see what and how will happen. Oh dear me... But they were nice enough (thank you, men!) to give us a tour of the ridge further before going down, also telling us military stories and alot of things about the wild herbs that grow in that area. In the evening we reached Coman, their headquarters and also the end of the narrow gauge train we were supposed to have taken the day before...isn't life strange? Thank God we had not taken that train, for, if we had taken it, they would have turned us back without having the opportunity of walking on the ridge and...fighting that sea of junipers. We camped in front of their building and a middle aged, very smily inspector indeed came in the morning and decided in 5 seconds that a warning was enough. So we could pack and got on the...train that was to make 6 hours over 50 km., with a steam engine, stopping every now and then from its fulminant 10 km./h. speed to take wood or workers, to drop something or to be refilled with coal. The railway was the only way to those places, with no road along and therefore it was also used by families that had offroad cars or vans and modified their wheel system to fit the rails (changing the tires with train wheels). As there was only one railway, these vechicles had to move one at a time, so the train had to stop for a few times and wait. It is good to know in a standardized and globalising world that some things happen when they can, without a precide schedule. We finally reached Viseu and found a guesthouse, as we wanted to depart the following day for Poienile de sub Munte, a village next to the border in the northern side of the same mountains and a base for hiking towards Peak Farcau, lying fully in Romania this time.

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Vanderel Lake and Farcau Peak, Romania

the Romanian side 04

We spent the evening walking across the town and enjoying a lazy ale in a local pub: the Inn between Two Rivers, a traditional Romanian controversy: a traditional wooden building with lots of carvings, bearing local symbols, but raved by a noisy and totally unsuitable dance music. The following morning we started for the early and only bus to Poienile, where we first encountered Mother Russia, as the village had a quite big Russian community, so its name was also spelled in Russian on the plate by the entrance. The first neccessary step was the "Sector", a mysterious term taken from a James Bond movie and meaning nothing else but the Headquarters of the Border Police for Poienile de sub Munte Sector. Taking law much more comprehensively, the people there said that, as far as they are concerned, we can walk on the border; but they emphasized that this does not cover the situation where we meet Ukrainean guards. So we could, unexpectedly, walk from Farcau Peak to Pip Ivan and further to Bistra Village. They registered our IDs and we could go. We were given a ride by a sand filled truck and, as there was no place in the cabin, we had to sit in the sand, with alot of dust covering us everytime the truck would pass over a bump in the dust road. And then the lazy hike started on a steep trail through the forest, until we reached a sheepfold and entered the pasture. An hours later we reached Varghiris Lake, just under Farcau Peak, where we met a large group of hippy-like, happy Czechs that were bathing. They were coming from the Pip Ivan alongside the border.
"The only problem was that at a certain moment we saw a car and we jumped into the forest." We weren't to be that lucky, but we were to be lucky anyway.
We hiked the peak, which provided impressive views towards the Maramures and the area we were coming from, as well as Southern Ukraine; we could also see Hoverla Peak in Ukraine, with a black cloud on top. On the very peak there was a cross, just like on many other peaks. The Czechs had inlayed their names on it and hung a can of Gambrinus beer on it. I do not know why, but it feels much worse to find something like that, spoiling the place and the local people's simple, but true belief, than finding a mountain of garbage next to a frequently used camping place. We came down and went on towards the main ridge and the border again, reaching it 2 hours later. After a short hike on the border, we could see the reason for which many people get in trouble up there: on the Romanian side there was a hardly noticeable path among bushes, high grass and junipers, while on the Ukrainean side there was a dust road. While Romanians were probably patrooling by walking for miles through that forest and among bushes, the Ukraineans were patrooling in cars, thanks to good old USSR. The Ukrainean road was bordered by an electric fence, no longer in use. Not much later on, we noticed a car on the dust road near Mica Mare Peak. We went a little down on the Romanian side and camped between the bushes as it was almost dark anyway. The following morning we started along the tricky Romanian path until it vanished.

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Horses under Farcau Peak, Romania

the Romanian side 05

The border entered the forest now and the neutral stripe even was hard to be followed because if the muddy and grassy area filled of nettles and fallen trees. At a certain moment we gave up and went on the Ukrainean dust road. It felt like heaven, but not a very lasting one. After having done 2 km. or so, we heard a car and saw it rapidly coming towards us. We jumped in the forest, ran across the neutral stripe and immediately hid under a fir tree. A car passed on the road and stopped a little further up: they were obviously after us and I can hardly think they were to invite us for lunch, even if it was about 1 PM. A second car soon passed by too. Then we could hear voices and steps on the stripe. They stopped just meters from the fir tree we lay behind:
"can you see anything?"
"No"
The two meters that separated us from the Romanian pillar, the few moments that separated us from their arrival and that God-given fir tree sheltering us, as well as the fact that the soldiers respected the law and did not make even one step in Romania, saved us from a certain fine and a long deportation via Valea Viseului, the closest legal border crossing. After their departure, we continued by going down into Romania and then trying to keep the same altitude, jumping over fallen trees, falling in mud and cursing bushes or nettles. Eventually we found a very narrow and not always clear path probably used by sheep following shepherds, by wolves following sheep and by sheepfold dogs following wolves, respectively by bears chasing all of the above. The path stubbornly followed the ridge and the border at 50-100 m. After a slow and painful hike through the forest, we reached the border again and the - hooray, hooray - pasture: we were at the bottoms of the Pip Ivan Peak. To the SW there were some sheepfolds on the Romanian side and about 200 m. in front of us, also in Romania, there was a poor and small wooden hut, probably built long ago by the border guards. As clouds gathered and a storm soon started, washing off our wounds created by mankind and their useless borders, we chose to stop for the night there. Soon after the rain started, three young people came speaking Ukrainean. They were backpackers just like us and, when hearing that they were no longer in Ukraine, they wanted to run away, but eventually we managed to make them stop, telling them that Romanians will not bother coming all that way, as their headquarters were far, and anyway not through that rain. We all settled around a makeshift table and they put on some food: half a kilo of rice which they boiled and added one tin of beef, mixing everything with about half a kilo of smashed garlic. I thought I was not able to eat that, but, after a few sips (or rather gulps) of their vodka, I could see the whole world from a different perspective. First, one never refuses a drink from these people, for otherwise they get offended; well, this also happens in Romania, what can we do, we are all savage and still live in the Middle Ages... Then, whether they give you a cup full, half or they only put a few drops of whatever, you have to drink it all of a sudden, for otherwise they think you do not like it.

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Farcau Peak, Northern slope, Romania

the Romanian side 06

And then, when you think "I'm doing well, keeping my national honour high", they put you another one. After two rounds or so, we decided to go down to the sheepfold and get some cheese, which we did and when we returned, the Ukraineans were standing around a fire.
"How could you set a fire out of those wet pieces of wood?"
"Only idiots make a fire out of dry wood."
The evening faded out with Ukrainean songs, vodka and, more than anything else, with a big and mutual cheer meant to wash off taboo stories and preconceived ideas, as well as the language barrier.
The following day, after breakfast, we splat, as they were going the way we came (hmmm, lucky people, they could follow the dust road), while we had a peak to hike. It was very sunny and hot while we hiked along the path (pretty clear now, as there seemed to have been more hikers interested in this peak) that cross-crossed the border again. Fortunately, the dust road was down at 1600 m. and we were in the open, so we could see the "enemy". An hour and a half later, we got on Pip Ivan, with great views to the area. Once again, the Hoverlawas covered in clouds. We continued on the border for about 2 hours, on a ridge that was rocky at times and bushy at other times, looking very deserted and far away from everything. Just when leaving the border, we met a signpost saying "Attention: state border". Well, it was a bit late, indeed, but it was still nice they told us in the end we had hiked on a border. We got off the ridge to the south and, as I probably chose the wrong valley to go down, what seemed to be a narrow path in the beginning, soon faded out and we had to fight through fir trees, going down on a steep slope covered with a slippery dead leaves layer. After about 2 hours, we reached an abandoned forest workers' hut and a poor dust road that had not been used for many years. The heat, the vegetation that had grown on the dust road and the few things reminding that this place was once probably frequently crossed by people, made Dracula's crappy castle and legend look silly in comparison to a real and unexpected life experience. One more hour and we reached "civilization": the border police hut, where we had to be registered and then we could go. It was getting hotter and hotter as we were going down. We reached Bistra Village and, after eating or rather gulping a few apples picked from a tree by the road, we found the railway halt. The first train that arrive had us on board and we took it to a bigger station where "fast" trains would stop. We were lucky that the train to Bucharest was late, so we could get on that, bribe the conductor, as there was no time to buy tickets and there was no need to make him go through the painful (and expensive, for us) activity of issuing tickets on board. We got off the train in Salva at about 10 PM of so and we were supposed to wait there for 2-3 hours. We soon noticed that we had run short of Romanian money and - of course - big banks, ATMs and non stop exchange offices (if ever) had not conquered that remote little village.

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Pop Ivan & Pietros peaks,illegal view from Ukraine

the Romanian side 07

But people are people and we are all humans, the railways clerk doing for us what not even the World Bank or the IMF could not do there and then: changing 10 dollars into lei and allowing us to buy tickets, get food and beer, nevertheless remaining rich. There is a God after all. The otherwise small train station - a railway knot - was full of an international bunch: a French couple going to the painted monasteries in Northern Moldavia, a Polish guy and alot of Romanians, probably travelling to some village nearby or going for the early shift in some nearby factory. Eventually our train arrived with bad news for the tired hikers, respectively good news for the sociology fan: it was full of a huge group belonging to a Catholic organization that was going to Iasi, in North-Eastern Romania. So, for the first time in a long while, I travelled in a first class wagon, where we could find spare seats and also settle a small bribe with the conductor, for we had second class tickets and the official difference to pay was big enough to require him playing the exchange office. We fell asleep and only woke up a few minutes before the train stopped in Gura Humorului. We got off and, as it was about 5 AM or so, we went to sleep on the benches of the railway station. There was this bodyguard in the station asking everybody whether they needed advice or directions for their trips, as Gura Humorului is a starting point for the painted monasteries. It is nice to find out at times there are people that heartfully care about something, disregarding of what that something is and disregarding of a material interest we all seem to be obsessed by these days... When the time got more decent, at 7.30 or so, we moved towards the centre of the town that was slowly moving towards a new working day. Ignoring official and too expensive guesthouses, after asking in a few small shops, I found out that there was an old lady in the area usually renting rooms for the peasants that used to come to the market place. Getting there, we found the charming lady of the house, which lived together with her mother, son, daughter-in-law and nephews. She immediately stopped from whatever she was doing and offerred us a coffee with a motto: "life is bitter anyway, so the least we can have is sweet coffee". Also mentioning that she asked for EUR 3 for a room, she beat by far any fancy hotel with fake professional smiles and standard stays. After wandering for a few hours in the town, after spending the night in that lovely house, we woke up early in the morning and got a bus to Suceava. Reaching the bus station in Suceava, we noticed that the bus to Chernivcy was due in a couple of hours, and the "international ticket office" was closed until 9 AM, so, looking for a place to eat something looking like breakfast and preferably not still alive, we incidentally crossed the parking lot next to teh market place. Seeing our backpacks probably, a guy asked whether we were going to Chernivcy. So we had a small unofficial (and therefore appealing, just like all unofficial things) van going to Ukraine in half an hour, at the same price with the bus.

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On Pop Ivan Peak, between Ukraine and Romania

the Romanian side 08

So we left the luggage with him and went to search for food. Eventually, after checking many places which were all going to open at 10, we found an underground heaven, smelling like roast chicken served by a fat and cheering old woman. A few minutes later we were on board of the green van to Ukraine. A couple of lady smugglers came with two large and kitschy paintings and some other large packages. This was a good thing to know: there was no kitsch in Ukraine, so they had to import it from Romania. And then I wonder, why are all smugglers going on night trains in winter and on small vans with large packages, women? It is below men's pride and honour to stand the chilly weather and the demanding, greedy customs officers, bribing train conductors, carrying large parcels of God knows what and nevertheless bearing on their tired faces a shy, nevertheless sad smile telling their full story? I guess so, but I would rather call it not honour, but cowardness. Apart from the smugglers, there was an old and elegant lady going to visit some relatives in Chernivcy. Eventually we departed, making a detour, as one of the smugglers had more luggage to take from her host. Half an hour later, we reached Siret town, the last Romanian community, where one more stop meant buying two large bags of concrete. Then we stopped and passed pretty easily and events free through customs, with no big line or anything. Neither the Romanian, nor the Ukrainean border police officers understood where the hell we were going and especially why, but they both let us be; it is better not to argue with crazy people so that one can avoid starting a world war because of them; it has happened before and many have died.

THE SEQUEL OF THIS TRAVELOGUE LIES IN MY UKRAINE PAGE