Until Smolyan we´d survived with only our Freytag and Berndt 1:3.5m Europe map to guide us on our way. Then we made the fateful decision to buy a local Bulgaria map. To Melnik this gave us the choice of 2 routes: 35kms on a yellow `category 2` road, or 25kms on a white `other` road. Naturally we chose the white road.
Having spent a few days in Melnik in March 2007 at the start of our trip we were looking forward to returning to our friendly guesthouse and had visions of sipping the delicious local wine before the sun went down.
It didn´t turn out quite as planned. At 20:30 it was dark, we´d travelled at least 35kms from the junction and we were still nowhere near Melnik. The white road had tricked us by being rideable at first before deteriorating into a rocky and sandy track that had us continually pushing. None of the junctions were marked on our new map and with no locals around we were left to guess the right way at junctions. And guess we did – wrongly. Eventually a shepherd set us on the right track but by then it was getting late and on discovering that our cheap Chinese lights were virtually useless (when mounted they had 2 positions, both of which pointed at the sky) we resigned ourselves to another night in our tent. As we set up camp at the side of the road we were virtually crying with frustration.
The next day we were in Melnik for breakfast, and to our delight found out that the previous day had been a national holiday and all hotel beds in town had been booked up. Even unwise shortcuts have silver linings…