Today was a traveling day that got me close to Fagarasi Mountains – my second set of mountains. I woke up at 6:15 and took the microbus to Ohaba de Sub Piatra, where I arrived at 7:00. Then I took a train at 9:01 to Deva, which is a bigger town, and arrived and 10:20. I wanted to get a direct train at 11:50 to Avrig, but missed because of my mail experience (see next). Since my backpack was rather heavy and I heard that the Fagarasi mountains were harder to hike (as indeed turned out to be the case), I decided to mail to my parents’ friends the tent, and some other gear and change the designation of my trip from a tent oriented trip to a cabin oriented trip (this was not possible in the Retezat mountains).
Mail experience:
So I got a taxi driver to take me to the mail center, where my adventure began. When I wanted to mail my stuff the mail person said I needed a box. So the cab driver took me to some supermarket where I got a box. Then once at the mail again, the person said I needed to close the box somehow. So of the cab driver and I went to get some tape. Then upon my return she said that all printing on the box needed to be covered. So I taped some paper on those. Finally, when I thought I was done the person said I needed to close the box with a string. So I got that too. But by this time it was too late as the 11:50 train was gone. Still the adventure was not over. I had to fill out some form in Romanian, and while I can sort off read Romanian this was way beyond me. Additionally, the mail person refused to accept the fact that I had no “From” address. I had to explain to her I was a tourist but to no avail. The compromise was to have the ”From” address match the “To” address.
Eventually I managed to mail the stuff. Next, I got some supplies (i.e. food) and also bought some socks, a T-shirt, and some sheets. The idea behind the latter was that in the cabins one is provided with blankets etc., but these are not clean. Thus I figured why not sleep comfortably with sheets rather than in a sleeping bag.
At 14:40 I got a train to Vintu de Jos and arrived at 16:05. At 16:25 I got another train to Sibiu that arrived at 18:39. Sibiu is currently the cultural capital of Europe. All I got to see was a pharmacy downtown where I went real quick to get some cold medication. At 19:16 my final train ride left and I arrived at Avrig at 20:20. Then I had no choice but to lodge myself in a hotel for 80 Lei (about 35USD). At least I had a good shower…
A couple of notes:
1. The whole trip today got me about 150km (or maybe more) eastward.
2. I was wearing my flip flops the whole day as my boots were still wet :(
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