Water, water, everywhere

It was a lovely crisp morning and I was on the road real early, by around 6:30 am. It was to be a challenging climb, into the Apuseni National Park, however, the quality of the road was amazing, it was just a few months old and it was built to last a century or so. There was hardly any traffic and I met the first two bikers (the only ones so far, I am on my fourth day), it was a young couple from Arad.

The climb ended and what came was riding next to a bunch of meadows and pastures, flocks of sheep, at one time, not less than 5 dogs were chasing me, even though I did not have the intent to steal, eat or damage the sheep in any shape or form.

I arrived at the tiny village of Padis - and was super-mega hungry and ordered am omelette out of four eggs. Something must have been lost in translation - luckily - what I got was much more than that. It was four poached eggs, all right, but next to that was salami, ham, some meat, feta cheese, tomatoes and pepper. I am still kicking myself for not having taken a picture of that. We can safely say it was the best breakfast I've had in the past 20 years. I drank a liter of some local fruit punch, had some home-made jam, rounding it off with coffee and felt like in heaven. The entire thing cost me just over Eur 10 or so, but it was worth much more, should I say it was priceless.

At the restaurant, I met yet another young couple, who gave me tips to go to, they told me to leave the bike and just hike. I followed their advice and it was a brilliant one...they said they have been coming to this place for the last four years and still can't get enough of it - and I understand why.

Let me just steer you towards the main highlight, it is called Cetatile Ponorului (Csodavar in Hungarian, it's a lot shorter). It is a cave with an entrance of 80 meters in height and 30 m in width - one of the largest ones in the world. And there is water everywhere you look - and then there are surprises like it suddenly disappearing - whoosh - it became an underground river, all of a sudden.

I hiked down right to the entrance of the cave, but was a bit uneasy to actually hike in, with my bike pants, work-out shoes. However, there were a couple of folks I saw just emerging from the cave.

Guys, this place is a must-see. You meet shepherds taking their stock through dried-out riverbeds (the valley sometimes gets so much water that the water level goes from a few centimeters to five meters), caves and rock formations carved out by water.

Another highlight was the kind old lady from whom I bought some salted goat cheese (almost two kilos for Eur 4...), I am still munching on it. We both had a good laugh when I managed to slip and land right at her foot. But everyone is nice there: I took a road with a huge round-about, then realizing my mistake, I hitch-hiked (not much of traffic there, though) and first car stopped and took me back to my bike.

It was time to leave after a few hours and it was not a pretty descent. The perfect road led only to the summit, after that, it was a rocky, unpleasant ride, on rocks, in mud and it was quite grey and gloomy. I had a conversation in French with the attendee at the National Park Service Center, we seemed to have understood each other.

From there, it was yet again a strong, in fact, a very strong ascent above a lake, not only the gradient was not in my favour, but also the lack of blacktop (asphalt). I almost never do, but I shoved my bike for about 300 meters - and then it was squeetching brakes all the way down.

Finally I got to the town of Poiana Horea, the good news being that it was yet again a paved road, and even a nice (OK, not very nice, but good enough) surface. Cruising downhill for the first time that day (and not trying my best not to fall on a rock) was fun, but it had to end, so it was back to climbing mode. So it went till about 9 pm, by that time I was pretty wasted, when I reached an artificial lake called Fantanelelor, I believe. There I spent over half an hour looking for a place to sleep; there was a sign saving B&B 300m, and all I found was dogs trying to kill me. Then I finally rang the bell of a house and an elderly gentleman came and told me that there was a hotel just a short distance uphill; which I did not see until then.

I paid less than Eur 20, for a nice room - I believe I was the only guest at the hotel, so I am sure I had the best sleep that night.