Next country...Bulgaria

Monday, March 15th:

Today the journey continues to Edirne, the former capital of the Ottoman Empire. I take the bus for 75 TL (about €8.00).

No accommodation can be found on Couchsurfing and trustroots.com ☹️. I think due to Covid 19, I am not getting any response or rejection on these platforms🙄 I decide to look for accommodation on the way. In the afternoon, after about five hours of travel, we reach the bus station of Edirne. A minibus takes me to the city center, where I find a small guesthouse after a few hundred meters of walking, a budget accommodation for 60 TL (about €6.00) per night. The owners, a Turkish-Moroccan family, are super lovely. They invite me for tea and dinner. The next day, I visit the city with one of the three brothers. We visit, among other things, the Selimiye Mosque, a gigantic structure🙉

Today, Wednesday, an exciting day follows😀 I leave the guesthouse at 9:30 am. With a backpack of 20 kg on my back and a small one in front, I walk about a kilometer to a major road that leads to Bulgaria. After a few minutes of hitchhiking, a young man stops. No English... only Turkish 🤭 He gives me a ride for a bit. I keep an eye out for another lift for the last 5 km. And there it comes. A big truck... Mercedes😀 with a Turkish driver. I have often wished to be able to ride in a huge truck🙏😅 After taking off my shoes (according to Turkish custom😃) and putting my luggage on the driver's bed😂, we continue to the border. My driver will continue to Germany tomorrow morning, he says... so I walk the last few hundred meters to the border on foot 🇹🇷 🇧🇬

Now comes the interesting moment... After 5 1/2 months, I am leaving Turkey. My three-month visa has long expired. The friendly Turkish border police officer wants 1480 TL (about €140) from me. I explain to him that I can't afford to pay. 'No problem...You can leave, but you cannot enter for the next five years.' If I want to enter earlier, I can pay the fee at the Turkish consulate and get a visa to enter Turkey. Well, great... then everything is fine. 

As luck would have it, I meet a young couple from Germany here at the office of the Turkish border police officer. They have been traveling with an old caravan since September... and to my great joy, they have a seat available in their car, and I can ride with them. They are continuing to Albania, but we have a part of the journey together. So now I am in Bulgaria. I am very excited to see and experience what this country has to offer. 

After about 80 km, we reach the town of Haskovo. Now it's time to exchange money, get a SIM card, and go to Lidl😂😂😂 When we see the sign 'Lidl', we decide to do a little shopping tour there as a souvenir from home. 

My new travel friends bring me to the train station, from where I can continue to Plovdiv an hour later. 

I finally arrive in Plovdiv at nightfall and find an affordable hostel on the pedestrian street.