Sofia, reminds me of a girl I once knew - Sunday 29th September

My stays in cities were beginning to follow a formula. Find a hostel with breakfast included, friendly guests and decent facilities. I stayed in Sofia in a hostel called Hostel Mostel. Not sure who came up with the name. Perhaps a 6 year old. But it was comfortable. I spoke to a few of the guests. Again, I tried to stay clear of the ubiquitous Australian tourists, and I seem to favour more stranger looking folk. Ones who have some intrigue about them. Such as the 50 year old chap sat in the corner. It turns out he's from Iran so I grilled him on tips and information about his country plus he gave me some contacts to follow up with.

A cool concrete monolith.

There was a bar crawl as standard, which I tagged along with as it's the best way to familiarise yourself with the city. It turned out that I was far from familiar with the place as I spent about an hour trying to get home at 4 in the morning. Thankfully there were plentiful refreshment stops on my aimless route. 

Inevitably with 4 hours sleep my plan to leave Sofia the next day didn't happen. I instead headed off into the city with a map, a packed lunch and a throbbing headache. I'd always had an interest in Sofia and it was on my list (imaginary) of city breaks. Mainly because I knew the beers were cheap. I would describe the place as a mix of imposing but now strangely beautiful communist architecture, Ottoman mosques and European churches. There was a particularly cool bohemian place called the NDK, the National design centre where I found a shop that sold items made from recycled rubbish.

Some suitably communist themed statues. They love it here, as do I.

I sat on a low wall to eat my lunch and watch the world go by. Just as I tucked in a homeless man who was heckling everyone plonked himself next to me and spoke at me for a bit. Everyone else was looking at me and him with concern but I didn't care as I didn't understand him. He wanted some cheese so I tore off half a loaf, cut him some tomato and cheese and made a sandwich. We sat together enjoying our lunch in a very surreal way. The odd couple. I'm not sure who looked more dishevelled to tell you the truth. 

Lunch date.

So after a wild evening of sat watching football and eating Bulgarian bourbons I went to bed. After leaving the next morning I realised I'd forgotten my wallet so had to turn back after 15km. Finally on the road properly, it was pretty hilly, but long gradual climbs for the first 50km out of the city. It was again on the main E-80 highway out of town so I was stuck on then hard shoulder. This continued for the rest of the day, a total of 150km and eventually arrived at a pit stop just outside of Plovdiv. It was a pretty filthy diner where I had a burger and parked my tent up just round the back in a field. I could hear dogs barking everywhere and to be honest, the other night's run in had affected me and I was on edge. You never know if the dogs are in a garden or roaming free. I went to bed reading my army survival guide and it taught me some useful things about staying calm in a situation and generally dealing with stress. I'm going to need it I think for the rest of the journey.

Picturesque eh? Is that a Nobby or a Stobby?..

Sun going down behind me. The hazy sunsets are starting to look much more Eastern. I'm definitely moving out of Europe. I only realised yesterday I've changed time zones too.

So I'm up to 3,800km and only a few days from Istanbul. My plan is to stay there for a week or so to sort out my last visas. It's a massive place so I'm sure I won't be short of things to do.

Righto, laters