In Bulgaria a lot of nature’s wonders are attributed either to God, or The Devil. There are at least three devil’s bridges, and that are just the ones we came across. I guess if you put some effort in it, more can be found. Close to Yagodina there was a beautiful walk through a gorge that went up to a waterfall. There was also the opportunity to walk back to the van via another route, so we went for it.
This walking “path”, is quite rightly called the Devil’s track. And it has -surprise- also a Devil’s Bridge somewhere along it’s course. Some of the bridges and ladders could do with some maintenance…
It is a very interesting section to walk, with a lot of bridges and ladders to pass the gorge and reach the bridge, a natural rock arch. This section wasn’t too difficult.
We decided to walk a loop and go back clockwise. To do this we needed to cross the river and the man made bridge to do so was washed away… Fortunately the water level in the river was low, so we walked barefoot through it.
Then the path went up, up and up with an average of 70% or so. The word devilish comes to mind. It was very hard work to get to the top. A good thing perhaps that we didn’t know the worst was yet to come.
And of course the path had to go back down again. A warning would have been in place, because this was one of the most difficult sections ever encountered by us. In the Alps it would probably have been secured as a Via Ferrata. Going back via an alternative route meant at least 7-8 additional kms to walk, and it was late in the afternoon already. We decided to go on. It was difficult with a lot of steep descends, following a very narrow track, along a rock wall that went straight down. At a few places the safety features such as a rope or a railing where missing, they had already fallen in the deep abyss.
We had to do some parts, shuffling forwards on our butts as the steep and narrow tracks along the abyss were covered with (rolling) stones, round sticks and slippery leaves. We don’t have any photo’s of the most difficult parts because we had other things on our mind… We took our time and we made it safely back. But this 2nd part of the route was a real challenge. It had taken us 5 hours to complete the route of 6km. The first part of the route, along the gorge up until the washed away bridge was great. The second part, well… lets say devilish! To our opinion the second part of the route should either be repaired or closed off.
