Romania, Day 5

After getting back at 5am, Jeff (who volunteered to drive amongst crazy Romanians) and I headed to Cluj-Napoca airport to pick up our rental car. Upon arrival at the airport, we could not find any sign of our rental company and began to feel a bit anxious. To make a long story short, the rental car agency had gone to our hotel, while we had gone to the airport. So much for communicating! I have to say that I was getting really frustrated by my interactions in Romania - nothing seems to go smoothly!

We did eventually get everything sorted and Dan, our rental car agent, turned out to be really quite nice. He even helped us drive out to the edge of Cluj to find E60. We successfully made it into Turda, but were unable to find Piata Romana. There are, according to The Rough Guide to Romana, blue and red markers indicating the hiking trail to Turda gorge. There were none to be found. We drove to a hotel and asked for directions. We were provided a map and general directions of how to get to the area. We never did find the gorge. In fact, we ended up on a road, the A3, which doesn't exist according to any maps we have. The A3 does not have any exits and we ended up back on the western outskirts of Cluj, even further from where we started. What the hell?!?!?! I was annoyed, to say the least. At least the drive was absolutely stunning. The following pictures were taken by Mallory, because my camera died!

We made our way back down E60, and after deciding we didn't want to attempt to find a gorge that doesn't seem to exist, we would hike in another area along E60. We parked next to an absolutely beautiful lake. We started the climb up into the mountains across the road from the lake. After about 20 minutes, we saw a shack and a small boy, and a rather large herd of horses. We walked past the shack and saw a rather vicious looking dog and decided it would be in our best interest to turn back and run! To our horror, a Roma gypsy starts walking towards us yelling in Romanian. He finally realized that we were Americans and appeared to be angry and annoyed that we were on his land, but rather amused. From then on, we stuck to areas we knew weren't occupied by Roma. We hiked around a huge lake and had lunch lakeside.

After lunch, we ended up hiking into the local village. The village was quite odd. There would be brand new houses that were large and gorgeous, next to shacks that looked like they would collapse any minute. Most of the homes also had bathtubs outside - ???? Also, many had animals, such as dogs, pigs, horses, goats, chickens, roasters, etc. As we walked through the village, many of the locals stared at us. Some appeared friendly so we waved, and they waved back. Meanwhile, others would stare but refuse to directly look at us. I went to the local magazin desperately in search of water and managed to conduct my transaction in Romanian. In front of me, a tiny 7 year old girl bought two packs of cigarettes.

We then found a path that went up into the hills overlooking the valley. There were absolutely beautiful butterflies, and Mallory managed to get an amazing picture of one.

On the way back from hiking, we stopped at Cora for supplies. Security stopped us at the entrance and insisted in putting our hiking satchels in plastic bags and heat sealing them shut. Cora charges you for each plastic bag, but wastes how much plastic on sealing your larger belongings in bags???? I bought a new camera at Cora, seeing as there is no way that I could continue on my trip without taking pictures. I was so pissed about the whole camera situation though. We drove back quite content that we didn't have to walk while carrying a ton of groceries, blasting Romanian techno.

We decided to take full advantage of having a car and decided to shower and get all dressed up to go out on the town. Shortly before leaving, we received a phone call from our rental agent, Dan. Dan said, "We have problem. I make celebration with family. I am drunk and cannot drive car. I pick up car in morning. I trust you." LOL!!! We ended up going to Cafe Umbra de Noapte, a goth/industrial caffe quite close to our hotel. I was thrilled to have my first taste of absinthe. I had no idea that there was such a ritual involved in preparing the drink. I had two different kinds, Black Ruckus and King of Spirits. Black Ruckus was definitely my favourite.