Our next adventure didn’t wait for us, which is why we had to write this post right after the last one. We drove through Romania towards the central mountain range of the Carpathians. As we drove through several villages, we realized that Romania is a paradise for storks. In another town, we saw an abandoned tram. It was probably abandoned. We spent the night near a railway track in a secluded valley. The next morning, a tram with graffiti all around drove by that looked just like the one we saw the day before. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capture it on camera. Near the railway, we also found a young dog who was very frightened by our approach. We saw signs that a shepherd used this lonely place, but he hadn’t been around for at least a day, which is why we chose to leave food for the young dog. We still had some left over from our dog-feeding mission in Morocco.
After hitting the road again, we finally reached our destination: Transfăgărășan. It is probably the most popular road in Romania because of its spectacular curves. We saw more tourists on that road than anywhere else. But our car didn’t like it. On our way to the pass, we had to repair our temperature meter. It was worth the few minutes it took to fix the expected broken wire. However, it didn’t change anything. The meter constantly moved upward as we ascended. While we stopped for a short cooldown not far from the top, we realized that the engine was already close to boiling. After waiting a moment, we climbed the last few curves to the pass. It was too much. We saw and smelled steam. When we opened the hood, a fountain of steam shot out. The cooling system had blown up.
Fortunately, it was just a small hole that we were able to repair without disassembling anything. Since we can repair tires and tubes, we used a patch to close the hole. Let’s call this hose a tube, so this patch must be meant for that purpose! To be safe, we wrapped something around it to prevent it from expanding further. It seems fine for now, but we’re keeping an eye on it. Well, and then there was this car. It was parked next to us. It looked terrible after the fountain partly collapsed on it. We were so lucky—it was just a rental car. Instead of getting angry, the owner, a tourist from Israel, gave us some of his freshly baked Kürtőskalács, which we call “Baumstriezel” in Germany.
But another crazy thing happened. Right before we started descending towards a lake where one might find bears, two cars arrived. They were the two Swiss brothers we had met weeks before. They were the same brothers we met right before our intermezzo with the police in Switzerland. It was so crazy and unexpected that we would meet again somewhere! On top of Transfagarasan! None of us could believe it. After talking for a while, we finally drove down. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any more bears besides the small one we had seen earlier that day. But that was fine. This was a crazy day, with or without bear contact.
