How not to move to Bulgaria Part 3

One final check at the Romanian border where again we are warned out how dangerous Bulgaria is and we are across the border in Bulgaria. Yippeeee.

We need a vignette for the van so I queue for twenty minutes to purchase one whilst at the border, don't want to get a ticket on our first day. The smirking teller then informs me that he cannot issue me one here but that I should get one at the next garage which is only 5kms away. All the tellers are laughing. I think they are playing games but who cares, we are on the way home now. We are tired, emotionally and physically but are all coping exceptionally well considering the last few days dramas. 20km later we find a garage that sells Vignettes so are legal at last.

The roads in the Vidin region of Bulgaria are poor to put it mildly. Nasa could train the drivers of the lunar vehicles how to negotiate craters on these roads. Sat Nav is now working again and shows that at our current speed it will take 6 hours to get home for a less than 100km journey.

The driving is tiring and you have to be so alert so as to avoid every pothole you come across. Going through a village I have no way to avoid this crater and our van hits it at only 10kmh, but that is enough to bring a loud snapping and scraping noise from the rear of the van. We grind to a halt once more. The opposite leaf spring has snapped. In hindsight we should have had both springs replaced in Hungary but we didn't. Are we destined not to get home? Just then a van with a trailer pulls up and says that he has a colleague who may be able to rescue us. He gets straight onto his phone but then drives off. Did he arrange our rescue? Who knows but at least we have our very own Bulgarian angel in our friend Monica. One quick call to her and she is organising everything. We will be recovered to Pleven where our van will be unloaded onto another van and we will be taken home. The van will then be repaired and we can collect it later in the week. During our wait t be rescued another local bus also is damaged by the same pothole so I don't feel so stupid. Again there are wild dogs in the village so despite all the lovely countryside we cannot get the dogs out of the van. But Monica is amazing. Everything happens exactly as she planned and at about 2am we finally get home!!

over a metre wide and 40cm deep equals a broken leaf spring

 

A now familiar sight on the roads of Europe. Our van broken down.



Home at last and Pamela opens goody boxes that our family has given us. We are so lucky!!