¡A Las Montañas!

Lacul Rosu (Red Lake) near sunset

One of the benefits of being involved with a Bible school ministry is that you get to travel to recruit students! And since were were a mere 3 hours away, why not stay an extra day and climb a mountain while we're at it?

Ceahlau, rising to a grand 1,907 meters is the tallest peak in northeastern Romania. So of course that's the one we climbed.

Having very little experience with mountains, save only the lofty peak of Rib Mountain, I didn't know quite what to expect. (by the way, I googled "Rib Mountain" and found out from the DNR that "this billion-year-old hill is one of the oldest geological formations on earth." Enjoy the oldness, you Wausau-dwellers! Dinosaurs probably walked its hiking trails during the Ice Age!)

Early Sunday morning, we piled into the van, packed our suitcases and various "necessities" around us and took off for a little Baptist church in Bacau, the technical reason for our trip. The padding on the pews didn't do much, but on the bright side, it was the second time I'd heard the sermon, so I understood it pretty well. :P

After church, one of the members escorted us to his place of work for lunch: Betania, a foundation that works with handicapped children. It was delightful to step inside and be instantly greeted by some familiar faces in the form of none other than Tom and Jerry!

We also met Emi, who is an aspiring guitarist, I believe...he has a hilarious little act he does with that pink guitar, ending with a pretty impressive finger-picking sequence, complete with appropriate sound effects, something on the order of "Tsak, tsak, tsak!"


Sunday afternoon, we left Bacau and drove through the Romanian Keys--not cute little islands like the Florida Keys. The Romanian Keys are deep and spectacular gorges carved deep into the sides of the Carpathian Mountains.

The switchbacks were tight...and there were no trucks allowed. But somehow a Turkish semi slipped through, and his presence was the source of some excitement. Some of the turns were so tight that traffic coming from both directions had to stop and wait for Mr. Semi to get around the turn. It was an excellent exercise in breath control. I thought of you in the Rockies, Mom, and for your sake, I'm glad you weren't there.

Finally, we arrived at our cute little hotel/bed & breakfast. They call them "pensions" here...

We had three rooms all to ourselves--a double bedroom, the orange and red swirly room, and a bathroom.

We also had three skeleton keys for our three rooms. The second day, when we got back from climbing the mountain, the hotel owner came running up to us and kindly told us that one of our doors had been unlocked all day and we should check to see if any of our things had been stolen. She had been unable to lock the door, because we had taken the keys with us, and she didn't have any duplicates. Later that night, we accidentally discovered that the keys were interchangeable...as were most likely all of the keys for the entire pension, considering that our room key was marked "bathroom" and the bathroom key was marked "upstairs kitchen"! Oh well. As far as we know, all of our stuff was still there. :P

The actual climb was quite an experience. At first, everything was fascinating, and the breaks were shorter and farther apart. By the time we were forty minutes into the climb, we were feeling like veterans as we hiked up the grassy slope to the cabana.


We refilled our water bottles at a "natural spring" and resumed climbing.


One of the little dogs from the cabana decided to follow us up the mountain. We named her Snickers, because Justin had some in his backpack and they were all we could think about. I remember quoting Gimli many a time, "Just keep breathing, that's the key!"

Every now and then we came across a small cross planted in the ground, something like those alongside an American highway with a small inscription in memory of some tragic accident that had occurred there. Lest you get the wrong idea, there were three--not like one every 50 yards. An elderly man had a heart attack, a young man had a tragic fall, and the third one we only saw from a distance.



We stopped near the top for lunch, and it was cold! Never, ever in my life have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches tasted so good. The poppyseed pretzels weren't bad, either, and the Snickers were well worth the wait.


At the top there was another cabana where you could sit down and take a break if you needed to. Coke at the top was the same price as at the bottom. :)


We didn't hang around long, because we wanted to get back to our hotel before dark, so we set out again, choosing an alternate trail for the hike back down. Climbing down a mountain is not as easy as it sounds. This particular trail was more "advanced" than the trail we took up the mountain and included two or three "danger spots"...usually a mountain stream that had washed away the trail and had to be carefully crossed. Guardrails? You've gotta be kidding.

We finally made it to the waterfall, where we spent a pleasant five minutes trying to sit on the big log that had fallen across the stream without falling in the stream (trickier than it looks!).

Some half an hour or forty minutes after the waterfall, we ran out of water. No big deal...technically, we were close to the end. But we'd been "close" for an hour or so, and the signs that indicated how much time was left to the end of the trail seemed to be an hour apart but only go down in 15 minute increments. In the end, we spent the last hour talking about all the wonderful foods and vegetables and nuts and flowers we'd plant in our ideal gardens. It helped pass the time, and kept our minds off the endless trail! At last we heard the rushing of the stream that ran near our pension, and suddenly those last 50 meters weren't so hard after all.