Belogradchik

  I don't know if you've ever had this experience, when someone tells you about this just sooooo extremely cool and awesome place were you just have to go. Then you go there, full of expectation, waiting to see, to live, something mind blowing, and... Blaah! You just felt disappointed. I've experienced it a couple of times. No, it's not that the places have been bad, it's just that we people have all kinds of tastes, I like this and you like the other thing, and she... so on, and so on... The thing is that nowadays, when someone tells me about a great place and uses a lot of superlatives when describing the destination , I'm a bit of a skeptic. I try not to have too many expectations if I decide to go there. You know, a pessimist won't be disappointed, right? Then an exception, Belogradchik. A friend of ours told about this cool rocky place a couple of years ago. Two weeks ago we finally decided to visit the place. My expectations? A couple of big rocks and that's it . What an awesome, cool place! If you've never been there, you just have to go there. The couple of hours we spent there were just too little to fully explore the 90 km2 of interesting and outstanding rocky landscapes, so I hope that next time we will have more time. So... If you are moving around the northwestern part of Bulgaria, don't miss Belogradchik. But remember, this is just my opinion.

   

Above the clouds you'll find the sun

  Maybe, hopefully not, but probably yes, the last really warm day of the fall. Sunny and clear day, so what could be better than to climb a mountain. Peak Zvezdets was our goal. Lots of cool views, cows, and eventually the last macro photos for this year. A sad thing was that we didn't have a single plastic bag or a basket with us, there were parasol mushrooms everywhere.

"Dancing bears"

  Had a chance to spend a couple of days near Bansko, Bulgaria, between the Pirin and rila mountains. Instead of photography, it was mainly sunbathing and swimming in the pool. What we wanted to achieve was a good rest and I think we managed quite well. Even though we wanted to rest we still thought it might be nice to see something interesting while there. Quick search on google and we found out that there is a town called Belitsa nearby and a short drive from this town, up in the mountains there is a bear sanctuary for the so called "dancing bears". You may ask what are "dancing bears"? Long story short, one more example of human cruelty towards animals. There was a time when some people "taught" bears to "dance". All this was achieved by means of cruel torture, the teeth and the claws were ripped of, the nose was pierced so that a chain could be attached to the animal for more control, and then there was the cruel schooling process with violin music and torture. Then this "fiddler" would walk around with hes "pet" playng his violin and people would give him some money because of the "funny show" with the "dancing bear". The good thing is that it's now forbidden to keep a wild animal as a pet in Bulgaria, this is from year 2007, but the park in Belitsa has been working since 2000 saving bears. At the moment there is 26 bears enjoying their well deserved retirement with the help of the Four Paws International and Brigitte Bardot foundation. No more "dancing bears", and that's good. I'm not very fond of zoos, but this place in Belitsa was for sure worth visiting (I really would say it's a zoo. More likely a place were bears have a safe haven from bad people), and I highly recommend everybody who's moving around in southern Bulgaria to go there. Even if there's a lot of bad people out there abusing animals, this kind of places show that there still are good people too, people who are interested in the welfare of not only people, but animals too. Here's a few images and a video clip in the end, and I'm pretty sure that when you see the behavior of the poor bear you agree that it isn't normal. Not all bears were acting like this, but this one was and it was very sad too look how cruel captivity has left its marks on it.

                                                    Lot's of climbing. Wear good shoes!


                            

                    Here's their facebook page: www.facebook.com/DancingBearsPark?fref=ts

A project for July 2015

  Time flies, that's for sure. Now it's almost the end of the January, but sooner, and I emphasize the word sooner, or later you realize that now it's here. And you ask, "What's here?". The 2015 special convention of Jehovah's Witnesses of course. There will be some, not just only one, and one is to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria. I'm pretty sure that brothers and sisters are pretty excited and eagerly waiting for this special occasion. At the local branch office of JW, the brothers are having lots of work to be done before everything is ready. There's coming delegates from other countries too. Something about 5000 delegates, what I've heard. Nice. Meanwhile the publishers in the congregations were asked to think about something nice, which they eventually could give as a small gift to the brothers and sisters attending the convention. As a photog. with a few photos in the archives, I thought a postcard might work as such gift. This is how it looks. What's left is to make an order.

      

A short trip to gods bridge in vratsa

   In hopes of finding at least one last snake for this year, a caspian whip snake, if possible, we drove all the way to the town of Vratsa. Lots of voles, but no snakes. The place were we went is called gods bridge, a natural phenomenon of lime stone. The lighting conditions were not the best as you can suppose in a cave, were the shadows mix with sunlight. A big test for the dynamic range of any camera. I tried to solve the problem with my SB-600 strobe, but you know, a tiny small flash in a big dark cave like formation... dark. So, anyway here's a couple of images from this interesting place...