North Macedonia – Bulgaria – Romania

01

North Macedonia

Good to know

Skopje seems to have more statues than people. The building project “Skopje 2014” filled the city centre with columns, fountains and bronze figures. The biggest one is a rider who is officially not Alexander the Great, but simply the “Warrior on a Horse”. By the way, Mother Teresa was born here too.

02

Rila Mountains

Good to know

The Rila Mountains are home to Musala, at 2,925 m the highest peak of the entire Balkans. Right next to it lie the Seven Rila Lakes and the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria’s most important monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

03

Meeting Lukas

04

The Buzludzha Monument

05

Stuck in the Mud ...

On my way to a nice, lonely beach in Bulgaria I had to pass some muddy stretches ... and got stuck. I made it through the first one, but was stupid enough to drive through the second one too – even though I could have gone around it ...
And I got. S T U C K. I tried everything to get out: forwards, backwards, everything ... but nothing worked. The truck just sank deeper and tilted further sideways – and it was already evening. With the truck leaning at a 10° angle, I decided to go to bed and carry on the next morning. Sleeping at that angle wasn’t exactly comfortable, but not terrible either.

The next morning I gathered lots of branches to give the tyres some traction again. I also used the sand ladders, but nothing helped ... luckily a nice man came by to help. He was super friendly, his daughter translated everything over the phone, and he promised he wouldn’t leave me alone until I was out.

I’m not sure whether it was his doing or just a lucky coincidence, but a man with a tractor came by and pulled me out without any problem. The tractor driver accepted some money; the other man accepted nothing but a thank-you. Such friendly people.

06

Stuck in the Sand ...

The same day I got out of the mud, I drove on to another beach to have a relaxing evening. Still new to off-road driving, I was too lazy to let air out of the tyres for better grip in the sand. And got stuck again.

When I then decided to lower the pressure to 2 bar on all wheels, I made a mistake: one tyre went completely flat and came off the rim. In the middle of the sand.

It was evening again, so I started digging, but then decided to go to bed and find a solution the next day.
The next morning I got up at 7 am and first dug a hole to get better access to the tyre. Then I tried to pull the tyre back onto the rim with a ratchet strap ... that doesn’t work with truck tyres. Next I tried the brake-cleaner trick ... but seeing flames at the tyre of a vehicle I had spent 3,000 hours building was too much for my nerves.
So I decided to change the wheel. I dug even deeper, set up the jack, took off the wheel and replaced it with my spare. Around 1 pm I was finally ready to drive out of the sand ...

Later, in Varna, I visited a tyre shop to have the tyre properly refitted to the rim. They were very friendly and it was a good time.

07

Bucharest

Good to know

The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is considered one of the largest administrative buildings in the world – often said to be second only to the Pentagon. Ceaușescu had an entire district torn down for it in the 1980s. He never lived to see it finished.

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