Eastern Slovakia

My itinerary for Eastern Slovakia was very carefully planned - I even had a spreadsheet. Seriously. I had looked up all of my train timetables and bus connections. I had printed out a map of the trail that I wanted to take throught the High Tatras mountains - the red line, Magisterial Trail - and made all of my reservations at the mountain chatas (cabins) including vegetarian meal half-board (breakfast and dinner). The only thing that I didn't plan for was the snow.

I woke up Sunday morning at 4:30am, feeling surprisingly alert and ready to go. I made it to the train station with time to spare before the 5:40 intercity train to Poprad-Tatry. I tried to sleep on the train, but had trouble doing so because I was so excited to finally be going to the place that I had spent so much time thinking about over the last few months. I did doze off at one point. I know this because I suddenly opened my eyes to find an old lady laying on the row of seats across from me, staring at me. Ack! Let me explain. Slovakian trains along the main Bratislava-Kosice line are cabins with two facing rows of three seats in each cabin. I had a cabin all to myself since it was such an early train. I was stretched out on one row with my bag on the row across from me. The bag was apparently what lured my traveling companion. She passed my cabin, looked in, and thought, "My, what a nice place to prop up my congested chest." She then proceeded to spray me with her TB laden coughs for the next hour or so, smiling radiantly.

After 4 hours, we arrived in Poprad-Tatry. Because of my research, I knew to go upstairs to board the electric train to Tatranska Lomnicka, which would be departing in 10 minutes. I made it and had a very nice man translate for me while I bought my ticket onboard. After another 30 minutes, I disembarked at T. L. This is when things started to go off schedule. First, it started to rain. Not in the plan, but I had brought an emergency rain poncho, the same one that I've been bringing with me on trips for the last 5 years, never actually needing it. Well, its aversive charms had finally worn off. I put on the poncho and after eating breakfast (crepes with berry jam, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce) headed up the hill to the cable car up the mountain to Skalnate Pleso, 1788m. From there, my itinerary called for me to take a trip up the 2nd cable car to Lomnicky Stit, 2634m, take some photographs and then descend back to Skalnate Pleso where my trailhead was. Unfortunately, when I got to Skalnate Pleso, my trail was covered in 2 feet of snow and more was falling from the sky.

I had a brief moment of insanity where I actually thought, "hmm, I can do this." Then, I stepped outside and found out that my light trail runners offer neither traction nor waterproofing. Agh! I purchased a return ticket on the chair lift and glumly started thinking about Plan B. Actually, I didn't have a Plan B, because the trails had been open for over a month. How could there still be snow??? Anyhoo, back at T.L., I found the local internet cafe and began frantically searching out options. My first thought was Slovensky Raj, Slovak Paradise National Park. I knew that it was in the area and had great hiking. Sounds promising. I looked into it and it looked good. The best hiking seemed to be within striking range from a place called Podlesok. I made my way down to the train stop to find that the next train back to Poprad wasn't leaving for 3 hrs. Great. I could see that my string of bad luck was just starting.

After eating scrambled eggs that first came with chunks of ham (not on the menu) and then came seriously runny (hello, salmonella), I sat dismally at the stop with the other disappointed hikers. We got back to Poprad by 3pm, and I made my way next door to the bus station. There, I found a bus that went to Hrabusice in an hour and settled in to wait for it. I remembered from my research online that Podlesok was only 2km from Hrabusice and this seemed perfect. Unfortunately, when the bus came, the driver (through the international language of gestures) made me to understand that the bus didn't go to Hrab. on Sunday. I asked how close it went. He said very far. I asked if it was closer than Poprad and he said yes, so I got on. After riding for awhile, the driver let me off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. He pointed down the road in the direction that I should take and I set off into adventure.

The first bit of the trek was actually fun. The sun had peaked out and I was happy not to be waiting at a station anymore. At least walking, I was in control of how fast I was moving. The road seemed to have lots of signs for Slovensky Raj and I was confident that I would find the place. The countryside was gorgeous and I was going to take a bunch of bucolic photos. I started off photographing some snails crossing the road because they looked interesting and it was something to do. When my camera started flashing the low battery symbol, I decided that I might as well switch to my spare battery right then. That was when the new disaster struck. Somehow it had lost the charge. I was screwed. I had left 1/2 of my stuff at the hostel in Bratislava, to lighten my pack since I would be carrying it for 3 days of hiking in the Tatras. Hah! Not only was I not hiking in the Tatras, my 3rd battery, which hopefully had retained its charge, was sitting in my purse in the left luggage room at Downtown Backpackers, Bratislava. I had who knows how many pics remaining on my good battery and certainly couldn't pass the time in idle photography. Not to mention, I had done it again and had not brought my charger. I thought that 3 full batteries for a week and a half trip was plenty. Why take the risk of losing my charger? Now, I only had 2 batteries, one of which was currently unavailable. Then, it started to rain.

6 miles later, I finally arrived at Podlesok, which rather than being a town near a state park, is in the state park. At a fork in the entrance road, I turned left rather than right and ended up at Podlesok Ranch, an amazing family-run hotel rather than at the autocamp cabins - much cheaper and much less atmospheric. I'm not sure whether that was still bad luck or if that was good luck. Either way, I was thrilled to be dry, fed and housed. My room had a flat screen TV, a private bathroom and wall lamps for reading. There was no one else in the room. I had a beautiful view out to a small creek, a wooded area, and the village of Hrabusice. I was fed the "coyboy's dinner" of local Slovak food which since it was homemade, was actually delicious. The blue cheese gnocchi was amazing and the piroshki were just fantastic. Paradise.

The next day, I got up for breakfast at 8am, then went back to bed 'til 11am, just to catch up on sleep and enjoy my solitude. I set off on my hike at 11:30. By 12 noon, I was in a small restaurant having missed the trail, gotten lost, spooked a deer and thought about what predators might be around, slipped on a wet rock and fallen on my face, then got caught in a torrential downpour. My luck hadn't changed.

In the afternoon, I walked into Hrabusice to the bus stop to try to get to Poprad to visit the NAY Elektrodom, my one faint hope of acquiring either a new battery or a charger. I walked through the rain to the stop, to find out that the next bus wasn't due to arrive for another 3 hours. I just could not do that again. My time is worth more than that. I managed to get a cab driver to agree to drive me to NAY, wait, then return me to Podlesok for the low low price of 650 Slovakian crowns. Since this came out to 32 dollars and change, it seemed a good tradeoff for an afternoon and evening of extreme aggravation. NOTE: If you intend to travel to Eastern Slovakia (I do not recommend it), get a rental car!!! Life without a car in SK seriously sucks. A 10 minute drive turns into an all day excursion. The only people who ride the bus are the Rom (gypsies) and schoolchildren. Everyone else has a car, so they don't care that there are only 3 buses per day to the most popular destinations.

Of course, NAY did not carry my battery nor a charger for my battery. This is the downside of having a brand-spanking-new camera. It just came out in March 2008 and has not made it to SK. In fact I have version 5 of my camera - they carry version 1. A wasted trip behind me, I had dinner, read, and went to sleep.

In the morning, I was determined to salvage something from this debacle. Come rain or shine, I was going to hike. I made it to Sucha Bela (Dry White Gorge), which is an amazing hike up a stream bed gorge that was running fairly high due to the very wet winter. The trail description said that it was technically difficult. I took this to mean that it would be very steep in sections and quite arduous. Well, it was steep, but it was also technically difficult. If you do not have either an excellent sense of balance or galoshes, don't make this hike. There were ladders, stepping stones, rolling logs that were covered in slime and were about 5 inches in diameter. It was exhiliarating! I can't say that it made the whole trip worth it, but it did make up for quite a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the end of the trail, because I wasn't sure that I'd have enough time before my bus came and didn't want to chance risking it. I turned around after the waterfall and hiked back down the same trail rather than around the top of the ridge and back down a different trail the way that I had planned. It was more important to me to make the one bus at 12:30 to Poprad and not have to wait for the next one at 4:30. The hike was still fab and my battery held out for a few pics of the trail and one of my hotel before finally dying.

I decided to scrub the plan to go to Spis castle (used as a location in Kull the Conqueror) and to catch my flight from Kosice to Bratislava. Instead, I returned to Blava a day early without trusting my bad luck on a plane. After all, what's the point of spending all day, numerous buses, a 45 minute hike out and another back all to visit a castle that I couldn't photograph. I wish that I were the sort of person to whom the picture doesn't matter, but I'm not and it does.

I made it to Poprad in time to catch the 1:51 intercity train back to Blava and called it a draw. Slovakia had not quite succeeded in beating me into the ground. I met some lovely people out in Paradise and had a fantastic hike. Even the 6 mile hike through the rain makes an excellent story. I was satisfied to call it a day.