I can say with certainty that none of those people have ever been on the Black Sea coast in November. It’s freezing cold here. This is the type of cold that can only be found on a chilly beach in the middle of the off season. It’s a pretty town but everything has been shut down and boarded up for the winter so I feel like I’m staying in the residential portion of an old, abandoned amusement park. The umbrellas have been stripped of their cloth, leaving only heavy rusted iron skeletons. The only thing of value left in most outdoor bars and cabanas is the concrete seating areas and shell of the bar, all covered in bright paint the color of summertime.
I think that the tourist season must have recently ended because the highlight of my day was watching someone clear out their bar for the winter. The bar was located on the top of a rocky cliff so their moving technique was awesome: they simply threw all their cheap furniture and junk out of the window and onto the rocks below. Chairs, broken tables, bamboo thingies, lampshades and other items were simply cast off like an Anasazi spring cleaning[1]. For about 5 minutes I sat on the beach and watched all these items smash on the rocks below.
In hindsight, I might have witnessed the Bulgarian Mafia ransacking a bar….
Anyways, I’ve spent my time here walking around, taking pictures and walking around a bit more. There isn’t much more to do here. There are a few overpriced restaurants and cafes but that’s about it. Any public place I spend a bit of time in, I can’t help but feel like I’m intruding on these people’s lives. The economy of the black sea coast is heavily dependent on tourism (e.g. Sunny Beach has three times more hotel space than the beach can accommodate) but it’s obviously a summer time thing. From my interactions I can’t help but feel like I’m strangely out of place and out of time. I get concerned and confused looks like I’ve shown up right at the final buzzer of a sporting event or just in time for the curtain call of a play.
Tonight I’m staying in a simple guesthouse. The place is in Lonely Planet and it consists of 3 cold rooms on the second floor of an older couple’s house. It’s outfitted with creaky doors, strange plumbing and skeleton keys for the rooms. Nice. After ringing the doorbell a few times and waiting a bit, I engaged in a scene that I’ve reenacted in almost every city I’ve stayed in across Bulgaria: A strange man or woman approaches you on the street and motions at the place where you’re staying. He then tries to tell you (usually in Bulgarian punctuated with wild hand gestures) that it’s (a) expensive, (b) cold, (c) noisy or (d) filled with gypsies. What strikes me is that they’re not trying to sell me on alternative accommodations but they’re just trying to scare me away. For Sozopol, the man in question went for a combination of options A and B. This was a bit of a bummer because the ones who skip A B and C and go straight for the gypsies are by far the most entertaining of the bunch. Old ranting and raving bigots tend put a lot more heart into their practiced attempts to dissuade you.
Other Sozopol highlights include the taxi drivers waiting for a fare at the Burgas bus terminal. One the drivers I talked to actually lives in Sozopol. We communicated enough that I know he’s a bit shady and he knows I’m from California. An hour after I arrived, I found him back here hustling for fares in the central square. Every time I pass through the square he sings out “CALI-FORN-YA!” and points me out to his friends. I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit patronizing but I can’t help but smile and bust out a jiggy dance move for him.
I’m a good ambassador.
Most of the buildings here are made of wood. I like this because I’m sick of concrete by now. I might find the time to rant more about building materials in a later entry. For now, all you need to know is that I have a sinking suspicion that you can learn a lot about a people by how they build their homes and infrastructure. I’m going to have to fight the urge to throw a brick through every CVS or Walgreen’s window I see when I get back.
Finally, I’ll leave you a with an idea that is totally removed from travel and anything else I’ve talked about here. While hiding from the cold in a nice café I finally had the opportunity to read the transcript of Malcolm Gladwell’s talk: Age Before Beauty. It’s absolutely beautiful and completely inspiring. I think he’s about to publish a book on Genius and his talk ties in with the subject. If you’ve ever been interested in the difference between greatness achieved at a young age vs. greatness achieved later on in life go and read it. Absolutely fascinating.
And with that, I slip back into the dimly lit cold streets to find a store that sells Chocolate and Rakia: a nasty and cheap liquor made from grapes, plums and whatever other fruits a distiller might have lying around. One US dollar gets you approximately a half pint of 80 proof liquor. I’m not an alcoholic but it’ll help warm up my cold and dim single bedroom.
[1] The area below Mesa Verde yielded a gold mine of broken Native American artifacts because the Anasazi simply threw their trash and broken wares down the hills behind their settlements.
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