Tumba Trails

This weekend, I traveled to the other side of the country to a village outside of Strumica where another volunteer lives in Novo Selo.  He had organized a hike first to one of the famous waterfalls, Smolari, and then up the Tumba trail; which when you reach the top, you can see Greece, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.  We started early on Saturday morning, after a big French toast and coffee breakfast. We went by taxi to the waterfall. According to my Macedonian travel book: "In the corner of Macedonia equidistant from the borders of Bulgaria and Greece is the village of Smolari, above which is a 40m drop of the Smolari waterfall. It is a small site set in beautiful surroundings and the half-hour hike to get there is along well-maintained grounds."  It was a perfect day for a hike.

 We started off with a group shot.  You can see that everyone is happy and ready to go.  At that point we were all very optimistic about what the day would bring.

Me with the Smolari waterfall.

They were brave enough to climb down a little rope and stand infront of the waterfall. I was the photographer that stayed on the bridge and just watched.  After everyone got their pictures, it was time to start hiking.  We first took a 30 min detour, aka we got lost, and ended up climbing, with our hands, up what we thought was the trail. As I was climbing up what looked like a wall of nature with my hands, trying not to look down, my first thought was if the whole hike is going to be like this I was not going to make it. But then we realized that we were not going the right way, because we could not find any of the markers on the trees, and then climbed back down the wall of nature.  After my legs stopped shaking, we were off on the correct path which was normal. It was just a dirt path but it went up the mountain at less of an incline.

There was a road that went up the mountain but it was shaped like a snake. In order to make it to the top in time we had to take the paths that went straight up.  The path and the road intersected along the way.  By taking the path we were told that it would take 7 hours to get to the top.  I went as far as I could, 3 hours into it we were standing on the road and I was looking at the next path that we would take and how steep it was.  That was when I called it quits.  I was wearing sneakers, which for this kind of hike will only get you so far, and I know that I am fine going up, but I get scared when I'm coming down.  So myself and 2 others continued up, but on the road.

We wanted to get to the mountain hut, which was around the half way point to the top, but we got lost. At one point the road forked and we started off in one direction, which was the right direction, but when we did not see the road curve up we thought we went the wrong way and back tracked.  When the others got to the mountain hut, 2 others called it quits, the came down on the road and met up with us and the 5 of us worked are way back down the mountain while the remaining 3 kept going towards the top.  Here are some of their pictures from the peak of the mountain:

 The pillar at the top of the mountain.  The beaken that says "You made it!!!"

 The 3 from our group that made it all the way to the top.

This was the other group. They did it the weekend before us.  Robert, the volunteer that lives in Novo Selo, did this hike 2 weekends in a row and went to the top both times.  Unbelievable.

Once the 5 of us got down the mountain, we took a taxi back and tried to figue out who would get the shower first.  We relaxed, started to prepare the fixings for dinner, pizza!!, and waited for the remaining 3 to come back.  They had said that they would get back a little before 7pm.  5:16pm they were walking through the front gate.  They made it the rest of the way with little to no breaks and then on the way down they "ran".  When they came in they said they felt great and none of them had any blisters or were swore.  The rest of the time we all just hung out and relaxed.  I did not concur the moutain, but that is perfectly fine. I like my feet firm on the ground where they belong. I think I am done with excursions for awhile.  The next adventure I will plan to take will be to the lake about 10km from my house.  Thats more my type of excursion.