{"id":308,"date":"2008-07-02T16:54:10","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T14:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2008-07-02T16:54:10","modified_gmt":"2008-07-02T14:54:10","slug":"blagoevgrad-bas-the-nature-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/02\/blagoevgrad-bas-the-nature-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Blagoevgrad – Bas the Nature Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next day I took the bus to Blagoevgrad. I wanted to visit a friend in Strumica, Macedonia, but because I couldn\u2019t get a hold of him, I figured I\u2019d play it safe and postpone the trip there, but at least move closer to Strumica instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

The busride was amazing. Listening to Shpongle<\/a> and my own psychedelic ambient\/chillout set<\/a>, I gazed out of the windows at the most fantastic scenes of nature. I sat in meditative position and I felt so at ease and ecstatic at the same time, that I was sad when the busride was over after two hours. I wanted more, but it was not to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

I walked around Blagoevgrad for a while, because the hotels in the Lonely Planet<\/a> guide were a bit expensive and I figured I\u2019d find something cheaper. After a while I submitted to the fact that it was either going to be calling a hotel from the Lonely Planet guide, or walking around with my backpack in sunny and hot Blagoevgrad and eventually melting to death. I chose the former.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I paid the 20 euros, but I had a great room and an awesome laundry service for what turned out to be E2.50. After a shower, I went out of the hotel and walked around a bit again. I decided to take a road up a hill somewhere and then I saw a muddy\/sandy mountain road. I told myself to take it. I had been so happy listening to music and watching the nature from the bus, now it was time to go into it!<\/span><\/p>\n

I started walking up. Started taking small paths, the smallest I could find\u2026 I went uphill, far away from the busy town. At some point I came across a deserted playground. There was a construction for kids to climb on which was submerged in plants. Then there was also the slide without stairs. Very spooky. My trip continued upwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

I walked up and up, started sweating heavily, figured I didn\u2019t want to waste another clean shirt again, so I took it off. Then at some point the slope was quite steep and I found it helped if I ran up at those parts, because of the momentum. Soon I was running happily around the hill while shirtless. Back to nature! Then I realized I knew nothing about nature, hills, or mountains, and I should be a bit more careful. This is when I stopped to consider if I wanted to go up further or not. As I was standing still I suddenly noticed a lizard on the ground next to me. I took some pictures from quite close, but then got too greedy with my space and it ran off.<\/span><\/p>\n

I headed back down. At some point I decided to put my shirt on again, since I was getting closer to the foot of the hill and I was no longer sweaty. I put my shirt on and suddenly a bunch of goats come by, followed by a dog and half a minute later another dog and a goat herder. Awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went back into town. Went to the fancy place with the pretty people I saw earlier and had a great freshly squeezed melon juice. Then I got a message from Mite, my friend in Macedonia. Tomorrow at 5 o\u2019 clock, I\u2019d be taking the bus out of Blagoevgrad to Macedonia.<\/span><\/p>\n

I took it easy that night and went to bed early; one hour after midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you wish to stay up to date about my travels, you can subscribe by RSS<\/a> or email<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Pictures soon, I promise. Within the next 2 or 3 days!<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next day I took the bus to Blagoevgrad. I wanted to visit a friend in Strumica, Macedonia, but because I couldn\u2019t get a hold of him, I figured I\u2019d play it safe and postpone the trip there, but at least move closer to Strumica instead. The busride was amazing. Listening to Shpongle and my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[408,402,74,407,391,409,406,1030],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-travel","tag-back-to-nature","tag-blagoevgrad","tag-bulgaria","tag-hiking","tag-holiday","tag-hotels","tag-nature","tag-travel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basbasbas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}