Over the Transfagarasan to Argesch

So we continued over the Southern Carpathians towards Wallachia. The mountains still lay mighty and imposing in front of us, and we enjoyed 2 days in nature in the Romanian countryside, with late summer fields, cows in the village and on the road... This reminds me of a funny anecdote: In search of a place to spend the night (which we often find through an app (Park4night), which couldn't help us much this time), we tried our luck with mapsme, the offline version of Google maps... and let it navigate us to a selected point. The first surprising thing was that the officially numbered road suddenly turned into a very small (and very uneven) dirt road, then suddenly half disappeared into the grass (which didn't discourage us, because sometimes that's how it is in Eastern Europe...) and then simply ended in the river. While my navigation system was convinced that there should be a bridge there, we were now somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Romania, at the river, looking at a decommissioned movable ferry (see photos). Stupid. And that even though according to the navigation we were only 1 km away from the destination. So we went back and looked for another option.

To cross the Carpathians, we chose (thanks to some tips from Romanian friends of mine, Anne) the Transfagarasan Pass, one of the most beautiful roads in Romania. We were advised to go up as early as possible, because the hiking trails and parking lots would otherwise be completely overcrowded... and it was also the weekend, so it was worth coming early. We took a short hike to a beautiful waterfall and bought Romanian sweets (white nougat and chocolate) and pastry pretzels at one of the many tourist stands along the road, and then we wanted to wind our way up the serpentines to the top of the peaks. On 3/4 of the way, we realized that our fuel was running out soon, considering the distance we had already covered and the masses of people who were all driving in the same direction, we thought, oh well, we'll make it up to the summit and then we can roll down into the valley. There is not a single gas station along the entire Transfagarasan, as the road is often closed for half the year due to weather conditions. Tip for those who might also want to go there: refuel beforehand! Well, it happened that the car didn't want to start anymore after a lookout (even though the fuel gauge was still less than 2 km away... but we were simply too steep). No problem, we had the spare canister with us. Although no funnel, but you can quickly make one out of an old plastic bottle and a spoon (keep the filler flap open). The only problem was that it was so incredibly windy, that I constantly had the fear that the car would be blown off the edge of the mountain (yes, I know, it doesn't go that fast). But it was so windy that we had to hold the doors very tightly and also all the stuff in the car, because it immediately blew out as soon as you opened a door somewhere. Losses to report: my beloved Australia tote bag (from Australia!) found its way to the freedom of the winds.. :( But we managed to pour the fuel into the tank and could also drive to the next gas station, then in the valley (but it was really far!)...

On top of the summit, at a beautiful lake, where the hell was already going on, we wanted to go for a nice hike, but we turned back after 15 minutes because it was simply too windy and you kept losing your balance, which was not advantageous for the path, which was very steep and often on scree and on the edge of the slope. So we enjoyed the view for a bit, talked about nature and the environment, tourism and Romania, and then descended again. At the lake, we collected a whole lot of garbage, because it was horrible how much damn plastic crap was lying around up there and people could just ignore it, take great 'winner selfies' and then drop even more garbage. I was about to explode and give a public lecture... But we decided on the quieter protest and started collecting garbage in front of the eyes of the many tourists. We were looked at quite strangely. But we could somewhat appease our conscience with it, and my fighting spirit was awakened to stand up against these plastic floods in the world.

One of the first places after the Southern Carpathians is Curtea-de-Arges, Argisch, where we had a date with a friend of one of my Romanian acquaintances. The night before, we spent wild camping again and were fully in camping life when suddenly the call came that a room in a guesthouse had been reserved for us. And not 10 minutes later, we were standing in a really nice and clean guesthouse room, organized by a woman we had never seen before. Delighted with the shower, we freshened up before Mariana showed us around the city. She is a former French teacher, so there were no problems with communication :)

PS: For those who may have noticed it annoyingly while looking at the photos: my (FloH) camera has dust particles in the lens, which is why unfortunately there is a shadow seahorse on many pictures. I am of course very happy about constructive hints.