Monday 24th September 2018

What a brilliant couple of weeks it's been (hence my total blog absence recently) having one of my nieces and her partner come to stay. I think they sort of wanted to do Bulgaria in a week (try a year guys) but since the weather was so beautiful we focused on visiting many of the most scenic places in this region. The one I'm going to tell you about was our day at the Devetashka caves and Krushuna waterfalls, as they were places new to me as well.

The Devetashka caves are in the Lovech region, and evidence shows they've been used by people as a dwelling place for thousands of years, though more recently as a storage depot for fuel and food during communist times, and as a film location for The Expendibles 2.

There's a car park just near the ticket kiosk and a little souvenir stand, and then you cross the footbridge over a river before entering the caves. The height of them is quite immense, and the air was full of the cooing and flapping of dozens of pigeons who were perching in little rocky holes and ledges way up high. When you first stand there it's hard to take it all in - you're in this cathedral like dome with the sun filtering down through holes in the roof, lighting up lush greenery which has sprouted up all along the little stream which flows out of the caves. If I was a cave woman, I'd live here too!

As you can see from the photo there are numerous openings in the roof of the cave, so it's probably fortunate that the hillside above is jam packed with scrubby thorny bushes. Can you imagine going for a stroll through the countryside and then suddenly finding yourself on the edge of a drop like that! The holes are referred to as the eyes of God, though the ones in my photo turned out a little more sinister.

Apart from the pigeons the caves are also home to literally thousands of bats. The information board mentioned four species but I've read elsewhere that there are 15 types of bat resident here. As you go further in away from the entrance you can hear them squeaking and occasionally one will fly out of one hole in the roof and swoop into another. At the very far end there are no more roof openings so the caves are in total darkness, and that's where the majority of the bats roost during the day. We had a little sneaky peak in there and saw bundles of furry bodies hanging from the ceiling, clumps of maybe 30 or more little bats all cuddling together as they sleep.

There's a really strong smell from the bat droppings and the floor is littered in it (ah the temptation to bag some up for the garden!) along with one or two remains of dead bats. We found this little fellow still clinging to the wall, though now making a tasty meal for a spider on him.

Although there are a few bats flying around in there in the daytime they don't really become active till after dark. We asked the woman at the souvenir stand if it was possible to return late in the evening to see the bats flying outside. No problem, she said, there's a guard dog but he's very friendly.

After the caves we drove a few more kilometers down the road to Krushuna, and after stopping for some lunch, which we ate surrounded by at least 7 cats and one dog, we then headed up to the waterfalls. They're quite easy to access along a tarmac path which passes a hotel, swimming pool and various cafes. At the start of the trails there's a map showing the different waterfalls and caves, and the paths which lead there. We decided to head up via one path and come down via the other so as to see everything.

The track was pretty steep at first, but then you soon come to where the little cascades begin. First we came to where a stream was coming out of quite a wide cave, then later on there was a waterfall cascading down a rock face. If you dashed through (icy cold!) you could stand in the little cave and look out through the fingers of moss hanging down and the pouring water. Then it got a little tricky.

It seems the path from there on was no longer accessible which meant we'd have to go all the way back down to the start and then up the other side to see all of the features. Or we could create our own path...

Well we didn't take that bridge, which didn't seem to lead anywhere anyway, but headed off down a trodden path towards the main waterfall. This was in the theory that a path means others have gone that way and so presumably it leads somewhere.

We had a ladder to climb down and a slightly less broken bridge to cross, then found ourselves on a rocky mound looking onto a deep pool which the waterfall was pounding into. Leading across the pool, just beneath the surface of the water, was a narrow rocky ledge, and on the other side we could see the end of the proper path we could then take to get back to the car. Just one problem. There was about a seven foot drop to get to the rocky ledge, and not much in the way of foot or handholds.

Luckily one of the guys with us managed to lower himself down that way and then it was my turn, with him helping to guide my feet as I clutched at some very flimsy saplings on the way down. The rocky ledge wasn't slippery, fortunately, so it was just a case of maintaining balance as I walked across, then an easy climb up onto the wooden platform where the proper path was.

Doesn't look so impressive from here, but maybe the next picture with one of the guys having a swim from the ledge will give you more of an idea.

Okay still not impressive, but I felt very Bear Gryllsy at the time!

There were more cascades and beautiful blue pools on the way down, so it was well worth the little scramble to get there.

By the time we got to the car it was getting dusk so we decided to head back to the Devetashka caves to see the bats actually flying about. We arrived in darkness though the bright moonlight meant we could see where we were going. True enough there was a guard dog though he was clearly tethered up and only gave a few half-hearted woofs. There were now bats flying everywhere, and sometimes quite close to my face, though never touching, and instead of pigeons cooing, the air was full of high-pitched squeaking.

We went in and my niece and I chose to lay down on a relatively poop free bit of ground where we could see the stars through one of the 'eyes' and listen to the bats swooshing all over the place. It was quite magical.

Now and then on the ground I could see something glowing, and it turned out to be little rocks. I'm not sure if the rocks themselves were phosphorescent or if it was some kind of coating from when the caves were used before, but they glowed very brightly after being under torchlight. Something else to watch out for on the ground were numerous frogs and toads hopping about, so we walked very slowly to give them a chance to get out of the way.

As we were walking out to go back to the car I was just imagining how perfect it would be to spend an entire night there, tucked up in a sleeping bag, when suddenly a security guard stepped out in front of us. Uh oh...

The first word out of his mouth was 'globa' which means 'fine' at which point I decided I didn't understand any Bulgarian at all, so after grumbling at us for a while he waved us on our way. Phew, but I guess that means no sleepovers with the bats.