It's not over yet !

    I woke up with that thirst you only get after a night on the beer ! There was no bottled water and I was unsure if I could trust the tap water for a drink , we were planning a rest day so at 09:30 it was still early but I needed liquids and some carbs , I grabbed some clothes it was strange putting on clothes that smelled of cigarette smoke ! I think it's strange for us now seeing people sitting at the bar smoking , not all the smokers here do it some do stand outside the bars , I went for a walk up the street from my brothers house having actually no real idea where I was ! but Bryan's house is in a little village on the outskirts of a town called drynovo which is also just a town on the outskirts of the city of velinka tornovo , it's a pleasant short walk to his local corner shop , the woman that works in it must be about 80 and can't speak a word of English , we spoke slowly to each other making lots of silly hand and head movements but my attempt to buy milk failed ! Still I had cheese and coffee sachets , we would have more luck in a bigger shop in the town , once we got to drynovo we went for lunch back at the pizza bar because the other cafes we looked at didn't have anything writte in English that we could choose what to eat or drink ,and at the shop we still didn't see milk black coffee it will need to be , there's lots of coffee machines at the street corners around here and those are reasonably tasty , I should maybe install one at polmont Main Street ! It was a Friday night and we weren't staying in to watch tv ,so we thought we would sample the bars in Bryan's village we tried a few bars in drynovo but it was too quiet for us there , so we drove into valenka tornovo (VT) we parked up for the night and just hoped the car would be alright , I was happy as I had my lonely planet guide for Bulgaria so we knew where the best bars and restaurants were and we opted for a cellar music bar called melon , the band were just about to kick off but we left before they started as it was too small and crowded we ended up at a bar called rock n rolla which was good and we got an excellent big pizza to share , we enjoyed our night out in VT and it was after 1am when we got into our tiny yellow bubble cab for the 12mile taxi ride home for 16lev (£6'ish) 

       We never heard Ian chap our door at 9am ! but I phoned him at 11for a lift into town to collect the car ,thankfully it hadn't been stolen clamped or towed away and we could set off right away on our planned journey up the shirka pass ! It was a beautiful day and the 45min drive to the shirka pass was lovely it's a long winding road through the woods with excellent views over the wooded mountains and valleys , it all went great until we gained altitude and we were then driving in fog (low cloud) , our plan was to visit the budludzha the UFO like building built be the communists , it's a wreck of a shell now and actually closed to the public and not shown in guide books , it sits at the top of a mountain at around 1300mtrs , the access road to it is being left to rot ,so the last 6miles of our approach to it was very slow and bumpy through thick woods shrouded in mist , there was so much fog we never seen the huge structure until we walked up the steps right in front of it ! There's a hole burst in the side wall to a stairwell and this is shared you crawl and climb through to get in , I had brought torches for us to get a good look round , it's an amazing impressive site and a real shame it's being left to rot , it was well worth the effort to go there and such a shame we never got some sunshine to see it in its true glory , we were really hungry by the Time we started the drive back down shirka pass we decided to just get changed and head out for dinner , 

        A bit more cautious with our parking this time we got a good space near the centre and discussed our options for the last few days over dinner and beers at the city bar a British biker style bar in the centre of VT , there's a big ex pat biker group here called the old bastards and they meet here at city bar , our options over the next 2,5days were ! stay around VT untill we go to the airport on Tuesday or have a night in Bucharest Romania Sunday or just have another day in V T and then have a night in Sofia before we fly home ? ! Cammy made the decision quickly apparently he was missing the road and wanted to go to Bucharest and he got on my mobile phone app and booked and paid the Accomodation , so we couldn't change our mind , by this time we were at a bar called vogue and my phone went ! it was Craig otherwise known as ju jitsu Jeff one of my brothers ex pat buddy's we were to go back to the city bar for beers with the old bastards , which was a laugh but that crew were heading home earlier than us they had been on the beer much longer than us and had a party to go to ( they did invite us ) we went to rockn rolla bar there was a band on in there and it was mobbed and good , then we went to piano bar to end the night with a kebab for the taxi home