Desert island

 Tuesday 19.5. St. George

The sun woke us. Sea was still there – and some cows having their breakfast at the beach. How I love this place!

We became hungry again, so we headed to the camping area where we ate yesterday. It felt as if the place had been moved... With food we got also a shower and electricity to our phones.

What should we do and how we should do it? A bit of research ended up with a result that we should live from St. George back to Tulcea today or after two days. The plan was to stay in each place one night, maximum two. But if we stayed there, we would have good time to rent a boat and take smaller trips on the Delta. Man of the camping area could also have taken us somewhere but he was expensive.

In the harbour we talked with a man who arranges boat trips and has bed & breakfast. Two travellers from UK were now staying with him. We took the man's phone number and address.

A small shop provided us ice-cream. I felt good but not very active. I wasn't so worried about the boat, we would find some way to go. Ida was more enthusiastically activating me and Anne.

We noticed a group of Russian-speaking people (at least it sounded like Russian). I went to talk with them, and they said they would have lunch and leave after that. If we'll wait at the same place, we could go with them.

We weren't so sure if they were serious but we walked around near the ”meeting place”. We sat on a bench and a cute grandmother, bunica, talked with us:

- Is this your luggage?

- Yes.

- Bravo copii, bravo!

We are volunteers.

Bravo!

We are from Germany and Finland.

Bravo!

We will travel around.

Bravo!

We are around 20 years old.

Bravo!

Etc.

After talking with her we moved near the boats. We made the Serious Delta Trip Extreme Backpacking plan. It included eating fish, eating fish, swimming, eating fish etc.

Suddenly I saw some people near the bench. The group was there! They said they are leaving right now and if we want we can come with them, they have some extra places in their boat.

I ran quickly back to the girls, we packed and reached the boat. It looked small but was quite big. They were Ukrainian biology / geology students getting to know with Black sea and Danube. Now we were going to some nature protection area and after that they would drop us out in Crisan, which was on our route map. I like all this so much. From uncertainty to travelling with some Ukrainian students to place which has seen its best days decades ago.

The island was... impressing. It's really close to Ukraine, an old soviet village. First thing we saw were huge empty grey beton blockhouses. Abandoned, cold, sad they looked at us and we them. Dry ground, long grass. The route from this place to the actual blooming area was long and hot. For me, person of winter, this temperature without any shadow was a bit too much. But what can you do but continue?

The place was beautiful with trees and plants. Worth walking of course but I would have given almost anything for a big pool of snow...! I don't know if it was really so extra hot but it felt like that.

On the way back to the boat we took different route and passed the area where people are living with their cows and other animals. The local shop and day bar was nice and obviously Ukrainian is still spoken there widely (and I noticed that ”40” in Ukrainian is how it should logically be also in Russian but of course it's an unlogical word in Russian). Some visited the church.

That was an experience about nature protection area in Romania. It was also a really close touch to history's dark side.

Platform to Crisan

The boat stopped for some minutes for dropping us there. Also this trip was funded by European Commission. Multumesc mult!

There was a big blue house. Is this Crisan? Fortunately there was a man who adviced us the way – the only way. Crisan is one of the villages with only one long road by the river.

Motel was too expensive, but the staff was nice and called to a woman who has gazda (bed & breakfast at her home). Her daughter came to pick us up and we got a room. There was also a barking dog in the garden, on the way to the toilet...

We took a walk forward on the road but some not-so-small-and-nice dogs made us return. We spent some time sitting by the river and enjoying.

We agreed a private boat trip by phone in Romanian! The man spoke also German but I think the understanding was better in Romanian. Tomorrow morning we would have few hours in the beautiful Delta – and after that it would be time for new place.