World Travel Stories

Tag: 1500+

  • Banderishki Lakes

    Banderishki lakes, Pirin NP, Bulgaria, visited July 2021.

    20210715_120947

    Starting from the Vihren hut near Bansko , one can visit many beautiful lakes in the Banderishki circus.  Very easily accessible are the Okoto (Eye) , Ribnoto (Fish), Muratovo and Shabeshko (frog) , Dylgo (Long) lakes.  One can make a full circle including all or some of these lakes depending on time and level of your fitness…

     

    20210709_105621Great views of mountains all around and an opportunity to see some wildlife like mountain goat, frogs, birds, butterflies,…

    Ideal picknick and relaxation spots, a bit cool for swimming but it can be done as we could witness.

  • Muratov

    Mt. Muratov , Pirin NP , Bulgaria, visited July 2021

    20210715_110552

    Mt. Muratov (2669 m) is easily reached from the Vihren hut, after a walk to the splendid muratovo lake and a hike up the Banderishta porta to reach the summit of Muratov .

  • Vihren

    Mt. Vihren, Pirin mountains, Bulgaria, visited July 2021.

    Mt. Vihren (2914 m) is the highest mountain in Pirin National Park in Bulgaria, and the third highest peak of the balkans, after Mt. Mussala (close in Rila NP) and Mt. Olympus (Greece)

    20210713_113731

    The peak is very accessible and easy to climb from the Vihren hut using the classical south face route (aka the Royal route).  Other routes exist that are more challenging , via North face or narrow rims (like Premkata and Koncheta)…

    The peak is entirely Marble rock.

     

    The picture shows the North face as seen from the “big cauldron”.

     

  • Climbing Mt. Sinai

    DAHAB – SINAI, OCTOBER 2004 – We were staying for 5 days in Dahab in Sinai, on the Red Sea coast.  From Dahab I made a trip to Sinai mountain, which is an hour or so away, and climbed this holy mountain… at night !The reason many people climb this mountain at night is obviously to see the sunrise at the top, which is, I must admit, absolutely stunning.  Some people tend to forget that it gets cold at night in the desert of Egypt, especially on top of a mountain.

    Mount Sinai (2285 m)
    The stairs on mount Sinai
    Our trip started at the hotel at 23:30, I had taken a short nap before I went to diner, so we went shortly after diner, already in complete darkness, on the road with the small bus that would bring us to the base of the mountain.  The temperature was a pleasant 27 degrees Celsius.  When we arrived at the parking lot near the Saint-Catherine monastery, we started walking the ‘camel route’, which is the easiest way to get on top of the mountain.  There exists also ‘stairs’, some 3000 of them, which is not only the shortest route but obviously the strenous route and at night a little bit dangerous route.  After escaping from the camels – obviously someone taking the camel route wants a camel …? – we arrived after an hour or two at a small tea house nearly on the top, we drank a tea and ate a sandwich, and were ready to go the last part – here you have to take the last part of the stairs route, which took another half hour.  We were the first persons on the top this night, so we had a good spot to sit behind a rock, protected from the wind, and I started to get dressed for the night, which means get out the gloves, woolen hat and down jacket out of my bag… The temperature : near to zero degrees Celsius.  It was a clear night, and it was so quiet up here – till the masses arrived… it was getting soon too crowdy to stand and more and more people were hiring blankets from the bedouins, some people were only dressed in T-shirts , shorts and slippers…
    Sunrise
    Sinai mountains

    The wait till sunset was still a couple of hours, but the spectacle during the last half hour when the sun slowly came from behind the mountains was spectacular.  After the last stars were gone, the mountain silhouets were becoming visible, but only faintly – it took still quite some time till the sun was appearing, first as a tiny dot , then in all its grandeur and brightness.  The mountains were coloured in red all over now and only at this moment one could see how fantastic this point was we were standing…  Most people hurried down immediately, I stayed a while to enjoy the feeling, and to go to the worst bathroom of my life on top of Mt. Sinai (highly not recommended).

    Saint Catherine Monastery
    Saint-Catherine Monastery

    The road down was easy and no problem at all for me with the hiking boots, the ‘hikers with the slippers’ had more problems.  And it is getting hot very soon ! When we arrived at the parking lot again, we waited to be allowed inside the Saint-Catherine monastery, which is an orthodox monastery and has a nice collection of old icons – too bad the monks don’t allow you to look carefully and the lighting is really bad inside.  Also inside is the burning bushes that Mozes encountered.
    A great way to end the climb of a holy mountain.
    By the way, after you have visited the monastery, there are some cafés around, so relax, have a drink and wait till your bus arrives.  Another refreshing experience.

  • Monument Valley , USA

    monument valley, september 1995 – If you like ‘Western’ movies, you’ll surely know the landscapes of Monument Valley NP in Arizona.  Most of these movies were filmed over here, and you can even visit some movie set ‘ghost towns’ in the area.  It’s a great experience to camp in this desert of red rocks, buttes and mesas.  This is Navajo land.  The Navajo native Americans still live on this land.  While most of them have a way of live like most of us – that is, they wear western clothes and have a ‘regular’ job – they still try to preserve the culture of their ancesters.

    It was early in the morning.

    Before sunrise.  We had an appointment with Tony, our native jeep driver, which would guide us for the day into Monument Valley, show us the land he loved so much , and much more… The first destination was a viewpoint, where according to Tony, the sunrise was the most beautiful.  We drove into the dark on the jeep tracks – I wondered all the time how he knew which way to go, because most of the (moonlit) views appeared similar to me.  The place was called the ‘Totempole‘ – as all rocks had a name for him, a lot of names were invented just for the tourists, the Navajo had their own names. Sunrise was soon there, and the view of the rising sun next to the ‘totempole’ was indeed spectacular.  Minutes later it was full daylight, and another hot day had started.

    Totempole at dawn

    Arches

    Tony took us to many other places, like ‘artist view’ (the most used view in paintings, photographs, and in movies), the ‘moccasin arch’, and numerous others from which I forgot the names.  He also showed us several plants growing in the desert and pointed out animal tracks.  Next thing to do was to hike to the top of a mesa.  Like real spidermen and -women, we used the rope net – Tony didn’t need this, he attached the net for us.  On top, the sight was like that of a moonlandscape.  It was getting hot already; Tony learned us how to use ‘natural cooling’ by laying down on your back onto the rock.  Later we were back on the road and drove into the arches landscape.  We stopped by a kind of a cave.  Tony now played on a little drum (made of the oil filter of a truck and animal skin) and sung a traditional song.  He learned us how to dance like the natives and we all tried this together.  It was a nice moment of the trip.  To finish the jeep tour, he took us to a traditional hogan, where we could see a woman spinning wool.

    The Hogan

    Traditional Hogan Camping

    Another day in Monument Valley, we all went to go horseback riding.  This was the typical ‘tourist thing’ to do, and the horses were very tame.  I had never been on a horse before, but this was really easy : the horse just followed the path it knew very well.  I guess this was not at all typical for the ‘real wild west’ , as we knew from the movies…   It is true that mass tourism over here spoiled the real experience, but what I remember the most were the evenings on the camping site.  Camping between the buttes and mesas is really spectacular, and at sunset I watched for hours the ever changing colours of the rocks.