ASCENDING MT. CARAIMAN Dear International Living Reader, "Add vinegar," he said. "It's better." I wasn't sure how much my breakfast of cow intestine soup would be improved by vinegar, but Mirel insisted. As it turns out, he was right. The soup was surprisingly subtle and had an…interesting…texture. It was hearty mountain food--just what we needed for our upcoming ascent of Mt. Caraiman. Busteni is 150 km from Bucharest and 25 km from Brasov in the Carpathians (Transylvanian Alps, known also as the Bucegi Mountains). The village itself is at 3,640 feet and combines traditional Romanian scenes such as the taverna patio where we were having breakfast, open to the brisk mountain air, with luxury resorts for tourists here to benefit from the area's tonic climate, reputed to be high in ozone and good for what ails you. The area is also home to ski resorts for skiers who are willing to settle for the "little alps" at prices much lower than they'd find elsewhere. Although there's a cable car to the top, Mirel and I started hiking. At the edge of town a small road turns to dirt and then into a path over a snow-melt river and begins winding upward. The hike moves from deciduous forest to mountain grassland and is at times riotous with wild flowers. It's occasionally strenuous and precipitous--we passed dozens of crosses and memorials--but accessible to anyone in decent shape, despite all the chains placed to assist climbers having been stolen by shepherds. Allow a day to make the full ascent. A mountain hostel at the top of the trail (1.5 miles) serves as a staging ground for hikers traveling farther across the Transylvanian plateau. We stayed the night for a few dollars U.S. and spent the evening eating chocolate and drinking locally made beer and plum brandy (hauled up in the cable car) with groups of Romanian, Swiss, and German hikers. In the morning, we made the short hike to the Heroes Monument, a 40-meter-tall steel cross dedicated to the soldiers who fell defending Romania against Nazi Germany. Flocks of the black goats the mountain is known for bounded away as we approached, clinging to rocky ridges invisible to me. Atop the ridge we sprawled on sun-warmed grass and looked down into a canyon that never gets direct sunlight and so is rimmed with ice and snow. Brasov was just visible in the distance. The walk back down took only a few hours, and we set out through Transylvania for Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad Tepes Dracul--Count Dracula. Joshua Marker
Agora International Press Corps Member
for International Living | 
