Going to the watering hole and visiting Curly

Today we decided that it was a good time to head down to the other part of the nearby forest and get some fresh spring water with Chechi and Baba Gani. Again, we grabbed up our little walking sticks (its important to have one while walking around the village and forest because of the snakes...smacking the grass as you walk). So we headed down past the village center and downt he little path leading to the other side of the mountain on which Fazanovo was sittuated. With the three dogs on our heels, we walked down to the spring and filled up. Not without a couple of stops here and there for me to run off the path and photograph some trees and beautiful colors of moss.

After filling up the jugs, we decided to leave them for a little while and continue on to where there was a clearing in the forest and we could see the beautiful colors of the changing season in the trees.

In the meatime we were picking herbs alongside the path. I headed down the little slope in the clearing and saw such beautiy in each and every plant, they are so simple yet complex. See, Fazanovo is on top of a mountain, but its more of a cliff, its all thick stone not far under the dirt. Here the stone was protruding through the forest floor and small plants were finding little nooks and cranise for them to find life in, and emerge through cracks and little moss patches.

Getting our fill of beauty, we decided to head back to the spring and head home, as we had plans for the evening. Grabbing up the dogs we headed back and took a little break at an area the hunters had built for cleaning of animals and cooking. The dogs were very excited about this stop and ran frantically around playing and biting at eachothers ears.

At that point from the forest emerged the strangest thing...at least it looked like it from afar. It looked like a tree, or a pile of tree branches was actually moving. As it got close I realized it was an old hunched over woman with a huge pile of green tree branches over he back. An axe in a her hand. She stopped and talked to my grandmother for a while, trying to convince her to give her one of the dogs, so she could chain it up by her chicken coup so the foxes wont eat them. At this my grandmother kindly told her to go to hell, that her dogs are not hers, and not hers to give. They chose her, not the other way around. They are wild animals that will never be chained. After the lady got the point, she headed back through the forest, not following a path, just continuing through the thick trees.

Leaving the forest behind us we got the car and headed out to visit the other Mitaka a.k.a. Curly, he is a close friend of the families and he and his wife own a couple of bungalows in the small village of Varvara, right on a cliff overlooking the black sea and Varvara marina. He has about 4-5 bungalows which he rents out during the fishing season to various fisherman, his crew, or gypsies that want to learn to fish. Almost all the boats docked there were his, and he lent them to other fisherman and gypsies and took a cut out of the catch. His boat, the one he used, is called The Mutang, a beautiful sleek and fast boat.

After the quick greetings, we headed up to his dining "room" which was basically a covered area outside right on the edge of the cliff where you looked over the marina and all the boats and black sea.

Mitaka and I disappeared after the greetings, and headed over to the beach, as on the beach you could find conch shells, as well as beautifully colored rocks. Once we had our pockets heavy with treasures we headed back up to the cliff to enjoy some drinks and a couple of laughs.

Curly would watch me take pictures, and with every shot he would yell at me "stop it you paparak!" haha. And I kept catching him in the pictures just as he was yelling that at me. A great night of sweettalk and great conversation and drink. We picked up and headed home, tired from the day and ready to sleep.