Belogradchik

Nature made a castle in the Bulgarian mountains.  All the Romans did was put up a little wall.
Imagine, looking at these spires of sandstone, that they are the towers and gatehouses of a citadel.  In the evening light, high above the town of Belogradchik, we stood on the balcony of an amazing creation.  Yes, it really is a castle.  Yes, it's been fought over for two millennia.  Yes, it's only a pile of rocks.

In the northeast of Bulgaria, twenty square miles of land bristles with odd, red and yellow rock formations.  They crop up in pine forests and beside rivers, on the outskirts of villages, bordering fields and up against houses.  The village of Belogradchik sits beside the biggest and most astonishing cluster, the reason for the towns existence.  Driving in from the plains beyond, it rises like a huge crown against the sky, its sides fissured and golden.  It's immediately evocative.

Some stones have been named - Adam and Eve, The Bear, The Pine - and given stories.  One legend, recounted on an information board, recounts how a local nun "wasn't able to hide her beauty under her frock."  One thing led to another and she and her shepherd lover and newborn were all turned to stone.  So too were the monks in her monastery, for forbidding her love.  It's a slightly confusing story.  Another tells of the Rebel Velko and his exploits fighting the Turks for independence.  A very convoluted mythology has sprung up around a schoolgirl, a bear and a lecherous dervish.

It seems impossible to believe, but the small wall there between the rocks - not much bigger than a small house wall - was all it took to create a fortress.  Belogradchik Castle (Белоградчишка крепост, also called "Kaleto") rises in a nearly perfect ring, like something created by magic in a fairy tale.  To the west, the land is a little higher, and a few low walls were added with time, but the original fortification was just a little caulking in a crack, basically a door shoved into the only approach point.  To the south and east, the walls rise almost two hundred feet, unbroken.  The view from the top is phenomenal.  To look out from the pinnacle is to see an ancient land, first-hand.

The regions towers were formed over millions of years, as softer rock around them was washed away.  The sandstone itself has been kind of "glued together" by a silicone type substance that preserved some stone but let others erode.
It's interesting to see one or two pop up along the roadsides, but to really appreciate their beauty one has to take in the whole expanse.  The best view is from the fortress, looking out over the eastern slopes.  Pillars and outcroppings march into the distance, filled in below by pines.

The Romans built the first known wall in the first century, some time before they erected the better known fort at Bononia (which forms the foundation of Baba Vida castle).  At the time, the region was a backwater, too far from the Danube to be easily accessible and quite unfriendly to Roman rule - the original castle lasted just a few centuries.  But the place was too magnificent to let lie, and both the First and Second Bulgarian Empires used Belogradchik as a northeastern base and the Ottomans made it the capital of their Kaaz region.

Once one has passed through two low gates, walked up the steep path and entered the fortress door, there's nothing but stone.  It seems more like a hidden canyon than a castle.  A few steps inside, there is only limestone and grass, a few twists of brush, rock rising on all sides.  Further in, the view opens up, the mountains reappear.

We spent about an hour climbing the rocks and poking around as the sun got low.  When we left, the ticket-seller was standing by the lower gate, waiting for us.  She had me help her pull the heavy door shut and get the chain in place before we waved goodnight.  Over dinner at a Mexane garden, we watched the rocks burn redder and redder in the evening light.  It's more spectacular than anyone could have dreamed up, a natural wonder.

Coastal Drama on Gozo

Walking down towards the Azure Window we were in awe of the scenery - and the crowds. It's amazing that people take bus tours in such a small country, especially on Gozo. But they do. Even though you can walk across the island in about two and a half hours, or take a public bus anywhere in about fifteen minutes. They're carted from place to place, let off to take some pictures, then herded back together and driven somewhere else. Unwilling to go more than a few yards from his bus, one American man whistled at another tourist who was in front of him. When the tourist didn't move, the man snorted. "Now I won't get a good picture," he said.

The Azure Window is probably the most visited natural feature of this green little isle, and for good reason. Notice the scale - there's a person on top, there in the picture - and the setting. But it's hardly the only beautiful, interesting bit of coast.

Near Xlendi and its perfect natural harbor, the coastline takes on a strange, rough/smooth mix. Gozo - like the rest of Malta - is mostly limestone, and the softer varieties of the stone are carved and rubbed smooth by the waves. Here, in a cupped hollow of rock, someone had cut a door.

On the opposite side of Gozo, at the base of a long valley, Ramla Bay's red sands stretch in a perfect crescent. The sand is as soft and fine as down, the color is beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight - though, admittedly, more deep orange than red.

This was, according to tradition, Odysseus' view for seven years as a prisoner of the nymph Calypso. Her cave is supposedly tucked into the cliffs that rise to the west of the beach. When we were there, few people were in their swimsuits. A cold wind was coming in off the sea to the north, and the water was frigid.
Near Dwejra, the fishermen earn extra money by taking tourists on short boat rides into the caves that dot the cliffs there. The ride begins in a sort of small, pondlike lagoon that the locals call the "Inland Sea." Between the lagoon and the real sea, a high cliff runs - there's a narrow passageway, though, just wide and high enough for a small boat to pass through. On the other side are a few other grottos, mostly uninteresting other than being watery.
Fungus Rock, a high-sided bump of land near St. Lawrenz, is one of the only known places in the world where a type of rare plant grows - not actually a fungus, but somewhat resembling a black mushroom. The Knights of Saint John jealously protected the rock during their control of the archipelago, and thought that the plant (which they named "Maltese Mushroom," and is now called Cynomorium) had powerful medicinal qualities. They built a rickety cable car basket from the nearby cliffs to the top of the islet, and smoothed the sides of the rock to discourage thieves of the plant - it was thought, at the time, to be unique to Fungus Rock, and the Knights treated it like a treasure.
On a walk, also near Xlendi, we found these old salt trays. At least, we think that's what they are. Among them, cut into the rock, was an open cistern that drained a cupped slope of limestone into a shallow pool. The water there was sweet, but these square, dry indentations had a thin powder of salt at the bottom.

Malta is beautiful, but much of the main island is clogged with buildings and motorways. Escaping across the channel to Gozo feels like going to the country, even if it's only a relative sense of calm.

If you go to the Azure Window, make sure to clamber around the rocks, down to the shore and along a narrow path towards the arch. There's a hidden, small cave there, where the view of the Window is spectacular. The sound of the surf against the rocks is amplified by the hollow, and the waves come almost right up to the floor of the cavern. When we were there, two young Gozitan couples sat drinking beer and staring out at the dramatic scene. For a while we were alone with them. Then a few Spanish tourists showed up and we left.

Here's a video of our trip back through the cave from the open water into the Inland Sea. We were alone on the boat except for its reticent pilot and a french woman.

The Last Armenian Great Lake

Armenia once had three big lakes. Lake Van is now in Turkey, Lake Urmia is now in Iran. That leaves only one - the high-altitude, brilliantly blue Lake Sevan, the jewel of the Lesser Caucasus.

To Armenians, it's a treasure - though this time of year, it's mostly ignored. The strange thing is, the country almost lost this lake too, but not because their borders were redrawn.
In the early part of the twentieth century, a group of Soviet scientists convinced the central government that something had to be done about evaporation. Their theory was that less water would be lost into the air (and more could be used for agricultural purposes) if the water levels in certain lakes were lowered.

Sevan was a prime target, and was actually used as an example in an initial proposal. While some twenty-eight rivers and streams feed Sevan, there is only one outlet - it's estimated that as much as 90% of the lake's water loss is through evaporation.
Between 1933 and 1949, a tunneling and channeling project lowered the water by about sixty feet. The original plan was to plant walnut and fruit trees on the newly-dried land, and to establish a fishery in the water that remained. The trees never worked out, the fish did.

What the soviets didn't count on was the blossoming of a domestic tourism industry that has redefined Sevan's shores. Quiet during these winter months, the area around the western edge of the lake becomes the most visited in Armenia during the summer - something that would have been unimaginable when this was a USSR borderland.

The trout are a staple - we had lunch at one sleepy canteen and were given basically this one option. Heavily seasoned with paprika and onions, grilled and served with lavash, it was even better than we expected.
Since the 1960's, there have been various efforts to replenish the lake's waters - the effect on its environment has been disastrous and the irrigation projects weren't as successful as the scientists had thought. Also, the level continued to drop. Adding to the worry about Sevan was the failure of similar projects - most notably the Aral Sea disaster - and the now understood possibility that the water would disappear entirely.

Two large inflow channels have been built in the past thirty years, though water from one hasn't begun flowing because its source is in Azerbaijan (and the political situation between the two countries remains icy). Still, the lake's level has remained mostly unchanged, which Armenia actually considers a moderate success.

Recently, there has begun to be opposition to replenishment. Because so much of the region's tourist infrastructure has been built right along the shore, rising waters would mean huge property losses.
The land around the lake has been inhabited for millennia, and some of the country’s most important bronze age and medieval sites are near the shores. Covered by orange lichen on the outside and by carved crosses on the inside, tiny Hayrivank Monastery was once just feet above the waves. Now, it stands on a rocky knoll high above the water, marooned behind a line of beach huts and scrubby grass.

The early Armenian name for the Sevan meant "black Svan," because it was darker than its sister waters to the west. The color of the water is very pretty, made even more cobalt because of the white mountains on the northern shore and the light blue of the iced-over bays.

Even though Sevan is now only about seventy percent as large as it once was, it's still among the world's largest lakes above 5,000 feet. As we drove along the southern edge a few boats crept along the surface, far enough out that it was difficult to keep track of them. The mountains faded into the distance, the far shore dipped below the horizon. It was difficult to imagine all of this as a dry valley, just as difficult to imagine the houses and hotels submerged and gone.

Desert Mud Volcanoes

When we returned to our hotel this evening, a man asked us why our shoes were so muddy. "Oh," we said, "we were just at Gobustan."

"Ah," he said. "Mud volcanoes."

Gobustan is a nowhere town about an hour south of Baku, not far inland from the oil rigs of the Caspian. Beyond the cement buildings, some kilometers of dirt road lead to this - a strange and lonely group, gurgling in the desert.
Azerbaijan has more mud volcanoes than any other country on earth (you knew they had to be hiding somewhere, right?), with over three hundred sites in all. There are several types and classifications, but seemingly little interest in them. We spent about an hour at the cluster - supposedly the most famous in Azerbaijan - and saw nobody. On the road we passed no other cars, only a few shepherds and a boy twirling a stick.

This is the top of the largest cone, which is about fifteen feet tall. There were large, satisfying bubbles in its ooze.
The volcanoes are apparently seasonal, and the "eruptions" are sometimes more impressive than the bubbling we witnessed. The action on the day we visited was limited to bubble-and-seep, but at times there are real geysers of mud and, occasionally, flames.

A strong wind was blowing, and we had a hard time hearing above it, but the gurgling was still audible. The wet, plopping noise is amplified somehow, as though by an earthen drum.
On one side, somewhat separate from the cones, was a bubbling pool, more watery than muddy. Called a "salse" pool, it was the most active of Gobustan's features.
The volcano action is produced my methane gas under the earth's surface being released through small holes in the ground. Mud from a large, semi-liquid aquifer is brought up with the gas. It's cool to the touch - there's no pyroclastic flow or molten lava, no steam. Just slow streams of brown mud. Built up over centuries, the ground around the volcanoes is constructed of many layers of the stuff, in various degrees of solidity. Older mud is cracked and hard-edged, younger flows are still liquid.
Warning signs, in Azeri, probably asked that the site be respected - we couldn't read them. Sadly, there are tire tracks from 4x4 vehicles around the periphery, and some trash stuck in the flows.

We left feeling more bemused than anything - Gobustan isn't that impressive, but it's almost a new concept. Cold, muddy volcanoes? They highlight the otherworldly feeling of the desert - the wind and distant mountains, the scrubby growth, the burbling mud, the distant-planet texture of the earth.

(Our shoes are still muddy, it's very tough stuff to get off.)