Twenty One Days on the Danube to the Black Sea | A Journey of Endurance and Grace

[Christine]

... Hi friends, I've spent the last two days writing up the more than 50 pages including photos that journal our voyage. Having grown impatient I decided to make my first entries here on the forum. The last days were the most revealing and I hope to finish writing later today.

Thirty hours on a plane from Central Mexico to Bucharest, Romania seated in a suspended space of time only aware of the hour when I needed to make a transit from one plane to another … Arriving late I am greeted by the face I love so much, loaded into a vehicle and whisked out of the city to Giurgiu, a small hotel room and much needed sleep.

Semi awake the next morning we re-sort our baggage and prepare for the first day of our river journey. After a quick breakfast and shopping we take a crazy taxi ride as the driver didn’t have a clue to where we wanted to go so we finally use Google maps (which became my best friend later on this journey) to find a remote beach on the Danube. The day is spent assembling the Russian made kayak, with seemingly hundreds of interlocking tubes since I could be of no help I sat waiting and wondering, my silent engaged observer content to be going somewhere unknown.

Cristian assembling our kayak we named sometimes Betty sometimes Blue.

Full Moon, our first night on the water slipping into silver

It was late afternoon as we took to the water, the full moon rising as night was slowly approaching, the shine of the smooth water reflecting the sky was my first glimpse of what was before us. Cristian paddled the three man kayak through the night as I curled best I could in the seat at the bow of our craft lulled into a transcendent sleep as the sound of oars and water claimed me and settled me into a state of deep inner peace. When I woke it must have been 3 a.m. as I felt the kayak glide onto the white sand of a river island where we set our first camp, the moon still lit the sky and everything took on an ethereal glow as we slipped into our tent wrapped our arms around each other briefly and then fell into a deep sleep.

The squawking of river birds woke us in a few hours time. As we shook the sleep from our eyes, we brewed a pot of coffee with its ever welcome scent and first hot sips rising us further awake. By this morning all the time-lag has left and my brain returned to a coherent, I am here! state of mind. I recalled that yesterday I had spied the first of the kilometer markers letting us know that we had at least 488 km to the Black Sea! That number didn’t mean much until later in the day.

Having packed our gear on board the kayak we began our in unison paddling down the slow moving river. The Danube is very low due to drought in this portion of the world while it rains torrentially elsewhere. These first hours are both wonderful and daunting as I realize the speed at which we are traveling, I content my inner dialogue with letting it know that we are in flow, are going to take it easy one stroke of the oar at a time and let each day reveal the next course. As was to become our rhythm we stop occasionally and then keep pushing on until we feel the tiredness set in so we scan the river banks for our special spot for the night. This night as we turned a bend where the river divided we found a precious sandy inlet with trees and lots of dry firewood. Without words we set our camp in the shared communion of motion. Cristian finally says, “I want to stay here for ever and ever.” I nod knowing that we won’t stay but share the sentiment of the quiet, the natural world around us that speaks on the wind, the crackle of the fire and the sound of water gently lapping the shore is all we need to be content.

We try fishing and I laugh inside watching our valiant impatient attempts. The one thing I know about fishing is you have to have the right bait and lots of patience. Ah well, perhaps luck would strike.

[Fred Steeves]

Sounds like quite the journey Christine, looking forward to further updates. All the way to the sea is a fine destination!

Sitting here sipping the morning coffee getting ready for another typical day at the job site, you've reminded me of a couple similar river trips I was part of as a 14-15 year old teenager. Having become a bit of a wild child, my parents had put me into this troubled youth program that lasts about a year, and you live out in the woods with other like kids along with the counsellors.

One of the main things they strove to instill was real life skills, and the ability to work well with others to achieve a common goal. A mainstay in the program to do this was to take river trips, and long ones too like the one you and Cristian are on. 10 kids, two counsellors, and 4-5 loaded up canoes. Did three of them all together, 18 days, 21 days, with the last being 28 days on the Suwannee River in Florida, all the way down to where in deltas out into the Gulf of Mexico.

So I know what it's like, and I wish y'all an unforgettable experience!

P.S. The more pictures the better

[maggie]

I remember reading some time ago that you two were dreaming this trip on a post somewhere. I wish you happy days and many fish caught and interesting adventures!

[LostNFound]

Oh to float the river in calm and peace. To move through the moments, to feel the life as it builds in the eddy's and flows, May it never cease.

https://youtu.be/IDaJ7rFg66A

Such a wonderful gift for you and Cristian.
Thank you so much for sharing

Steven

[Christine]

Maggie, Fred and LostNFound ... thank you so much for your comments. I guess I wasn't clear that we have finished our Danube journey and I am now in Bucharest finding a gracious space to write the whole of the trip up. What a task that has become due to my Word app going on the blink and irrelevantly crashing causing the loss of many hours of work. I have worked around it and will post our journal in installments.

I've missed our small forum during the past month and am so pleased we are still sharing with so much harmony. Some new vistas are opening for us all while chaos is making waves elsewhere.

Much Love,
Christine

[Christine]

... continuing

We don’t hurry our departure the next day as we bathe in the warm water and re-accommodate our supplies in the kayak. The sun grows hotter and so we eventually push off. Through the lens of my left brain I watch the kilometers go by too slowly while my right brain and body engage with the river that flows beneath us, my senses pick up the river’s dance, the varied movements both side wise to shore and then surprisingly up and down, a sensuous snake like movement of undulating waves. Sometimes it feels like we are paddling up hill then the long slow downward slide, realizing that this motion can only be felt by being so close to the water, the Kevlar covering of the kayak is only a few millimeters thick so it puts me in almost direct contact with the water.

Days and Nights Slide One Into The Other

The day slips by, timeless until hunger lets us know that a shore break is needed so we slip into Bulgaria the closest shore and nearest village. No border patrol, no check points, a moment experienced as a world without borders just as it should be. We find a simple riverside café where we order fish and chips which we washed down with cold beer, its scorching hot today and this moment is embraced for its comfort and the friendly service of the man who attended us.

Paddling at sunset we scan the shore for a campsite.

Six Days On The River We Meet Adi

There have been moments when I question why we are making this trip as the physical challenge of hours of rowing began to show on my body, the hot sun has now tanned my skin and the encampments are a routine of unpacking and repacking. Not unpleasant but am feeling challenged to let go further of any and all expectations, let go of a sense of obligations from across the world that plague me in moments of tiredness. I allow myself to slip into states of consciousness that only experience the now moments, the one row at a time beat and then the resting float.

We stop counting the hours, the days and the kilometers. When the mind stops all chatter what is allowed is a state of eternal presence and every action becomes one of grace, this is beauty in motion. Seamlessly we move through the day, at moments laughing for we use the language of the child that only we know or pointing out something we spot hiding in the bush or moving across the water, we see our first water snake slither in front of the kayak, as soon as we focus our attention on his silent movements he senses us and moves away quickly … this happens every time with the snakes as the apparency of the connection through the airwaves of spirit is revealed.

We are on a part of the Danube where there aren’t any villages close by as the afternoon grows long. I am tired as the day before I got a headache from the relentless glare of the sun on the water boring deeply into my skull … recovered now though my body is seeking refuge and comfort. We’ve also experienced the first strong headwinds that make paddling an exercise of willed strength, missing one stroke and we are blown backward on the river. What surprises me is how strong my body is and how much it relishes these moments of endurance, I’ve learned to be so grateful for this.

The river banks are high on this bend so we know we have a paddle ahead when we spy in the distance a few men standing on a cliff bank, they are waving at us and beckoning us to their shore, this is irresistible and so we ground our kayak, climb up the steep bank hanging on the tree roots and a well placed knotted rope. We are greeted by a rotund man named Adi whose laughter is as big as his belly. Within fifteen minutes we are seated at his makeshift kitchen table with a bowl of hot Romanian stew, huge slices of polenta, fresh cheese and shots of homemade sour cherry liquor being poured.

This is grace and you simply can’t say no to her. Both Cristian and I are mostly vegetarian and its been years since I’ve eaten a meat stew, it is a split moment of knowing that says go ahead for to refuse this meal would be to counter the gifts offered. I won’t go to philosophy here but I will simply state that it was the cleanest best stew I’ve ever tasted, there is a huge difference when one cooks with what is given from nature and not purchased in one of those horrible super markets of slaughtered animal flesh… we thanked our host profusely and were offered a bed for the night which we accepted.

Adi, retired sailor, excellent wood fire chef and host.

There are others visiting this fishing camp, a sea captain and a friend … a few locals come by and to our delight one man offers Cristian the opportunity to ride his horse. Another gift as Cristi has never been on horseback a dream fulfilling and a fine rspirited animal could not have been delivered.

Happiness sparks the air in moments like these.

Cristian riding Blondie, a contented man. We also went on a buggy ride pulled by two
galloping spirited horses, I named them gypsy horses.

Gentle sunset reflecting the peace of a perfect day.

[Spiritwind]

Loving your sharing Christine. I was hoping you would. I can almost imagine being there with you. We've had an ongoing discussion about what is real on another thread here, but this breaks right through all the words. THIS is about as real as it gets. Thank you.

[Sandy Clark]

OMG!! Christian>>>first time on a horse and BAREBACK!! You are one brave guy

What an adventure and 'awesome deep connection' with all that IS along your trail>>way to go you Two!!

Thanks so much for sharing and truly look forward to the next installment. Hugs

[Christine]

Loving your sharing Christine. I was hoping you would. I can almost imagine being there with you. We've had an ongoing discussion about what is real on another thread here, but this breaks right through all the words. THIS is about as real as it gets. Thank you.

Such a big question, what is real? I have come to my own realization that only the world of Nature and the Spirit of things is real, the rest we fabricate depending on the predominate agreements of what life is. There is no where else I would rather be than close to the Mother and living with her abundance for in spite of human's disrespect and abuses she is all giving and always has been. So much of what is happening with the fires and hurricanes is from my perspective the colliding of the 'collective coerced consciousness' with what must be rectified if we are to survive as a species.

[Christine]

The Days In Between

We set off around 10 a.m. the next day, never knowing what we would find downstream, not knowing that morning we were going to enter an industrial part of the Danube with big oil tankers passing or the slow moving barges being pushed to unknown destinations.
The wind picks up at times in hard blowing gusts then moments of calm but we paddle on. Landmarks are met and passed, we stop occasionally for supplies, a bottle of wine, some fresh vegetables and the fuel of the trip, beer and smokes.

This day is peaceful and so is our next two camps. Animal spirits greet us and show us the way of life lived simply. We meet a hawk perched on the branches of a half sunken tree as we pull camp, a dragonfly plays with us on a rest stop and then one big scare as a water viper that had made his bed for the night at the rear of the kayak decides hours into our paddle to show its self as it slithered out between Cristian’s legs … we didn’t jump overboard though that was the impulse, what we did do was straddled the kayak paddling standing on the side rails that held it together to get to shore.

Strong cross winds blew us ashore, nature letting us know we needed a stop. We met this
stallion who was happy for our company, the apple we fed him and he accepted my caresses
around his head and neck.

Cristi got out to walk the kayak upstream as the wind was blowing in strong gusts,
sometimes we just got tired of paddling so hard and only making 3 KM an hour it got
discouraging.

Dragonfly that played in the branches of a tree above our head for during the whole stay of
our rest stop while we dowsed and ate crackers with cheese washing them down with our last
warm beer.

I play with my iPhone and experiment with black and white images.

Viper on board! We had to unpack all our gear and Cristian took a long stick to force him
from his hiding place.

There he is hiding in the shadow a rather large one too. After pinning him with a stick and
many attempts to wrap him around the sticks he grew rather docile so we were able to tangle
him up and throw him overboard. This was the first of two events, the second much
scarier as the viper made his presence known by climbing up Cristian’s back under his tee
shirt and then down across the top of his legs, we had a much smaller and more hissing mad snake to
deal with but managed just when we were considering we would have to kill him.

I researched them on Google and from the best I could determine they are known as
Danube Delta vipers, poisonous though not usually deadly we still were cautious to
not get bitten.

We pull to shore for the night, unloading our gear and setting camp. I never took pictures of our dinners but I managed to make some darn good meals over the campfire with a small pot and cheap fry pan. This night as Cristi set tent I made roasted eggplant pasta sauce with spicy chilies thrown in. We opened a bottle of wine which with pasta made all the hardship of the day melt away as we laid down for the night in our tent home to the sound of popping wood in the embers of our fire.

Unloading kayak for the night.

A funny anecdote before I close this chapter. I was hanging up a line to dry the clothes that I had washed in the river while we floated, as we had found a high ground camp with lots of trees I walked a short distance and while tying the line around the tree trunks two things happen simultaneously, I heard a grunt of a pig then Cristian’s alarm that it might be a wild boar. Well, I stood my ground and as I did a wasp stung my leg, normally I would jump or flee but being stared down by a big sow made me stand still. Once we got past the startle we were visited by the whole group, seems we made camp in their nightly grubbing ground.

Piggies