Day 1 - the only (other) FJ40 in Bulgaria

It’s the evening of Day 1, after eight hours of driving. Since leaving Burgas, the Bulgarian-Romanian Friendship Expedition has done 257 kilometres. We made good time on the first-class road from Burgas to Karnobat and again from Shumen to Ruse, but on the second-class roads through the mountains, we were often down in first gear avoiding the pot holes. We follow Highway E2 into Ruse on the River Danube. It's our last stop before the Romanian frontier. We're hoping to find lodging at The English Guest House which we discovered on the Internet, but we have forgotten to note the address. The highway ends at a T junction in the city centre and we pull over and start looking for directions. We text our soul-mate Nadia, who is monitoring our progress from distant Dubai, to ask her to search for the guest house on Google. By amazing coincidence we have stopped next to one Angel (that's his name). Angel has spotted our car, he calls his friend Blago and says, I've seen another car like yours. Blago says what, it must be the only other one in Bulgaria, let me speak to the driver. Angel says, I think he speaks English, and Blago says, put him on anyway. This we learn when Angel comes over with a mobile phone, he says, my friend Blago wants to talk to you. We introduce ourselves to Blago on the cellphone, he wants to meet and we agree. By now Nadia has found the address of the English Guest House and sends us a text. It's at 34 Rayko Daskalov street by the Danube. Angel leads us to the Guest House, we are lucky to find that there is a room available, with hot water and a television on which we can watch the World Cup. We check in and shower, we call Blago and in a while he comes over with his wife and daughter. Blago has three old Land Cruisers - an FJ62 for city driving, the promised FJ40 (it seems that ours might be the only other one in Bulgaria) and the third is a diesel BJ40. In Blago's FJ62 we drive to his building somewhere near the Friendship Br...

Channel: Vimeo Video Length: 2m 44s Date Found: Mon, Dec 13 2010 6:02 AM Category: Home Video Date Produced: Thu, Aug 19 2010 3:53 PM View Count: 0