The second part! Oh boy!
Slovakia:
Early on Thursday morning, Shannon and I left Budapest for Bratislava, Slovakia. Trying to find the proper bus top in Budapest was a little tense, but after asking a few people, we managed to get there.
When we arrived in Bratislava, it was cold, raining, and dreary. Plus the bus station was just outside of the old part of town, in an area with slightly dilapidated gray buildings. Needless to say, Bratislava seemed very depressing at first. However, we met up with our Couch surfing host, Michal, who took us into the old city centre and Bratislava was really very nice in that area. There was an old medieval castle perched atop a big hill, overlooking the Danube river, which was pretty neat. Also, Bratislava has these strange bronze(?) statues of men doing random things around town. For example, one of these statues is sitting half inside a sewer grate, as if he is supposed to be climbing out.
After wandering about town for several hours, we went back to Michal's apartment, which is in a little town outside of Bratislava called Pezinok. It had been a few days since I had taken a shower last, and I wasn't feeling very spring fresh, so I asked to use his shower. The door to the bathroom wouldn't shut properly, but I gave it a good yank and I managed to get it all the way shut. Very bad idea. In yanking the door shut, the metal mechanism that the door knob controls had somehow jammed, so that when I turned the knob, the metal bit wouldn't slide back into the door. After alerting Shannon and Michal to my unfortunately hilarious situation, we tried to figure out how to get me out. We tried removing the knobs, and trying to move the bolt with my pocket knife, but it was stuck good and there was no way to take the door off the hinges. In the end, the door had to be pried open, gouging out the frame and destroying the metal bolt in the process. I felt pretty bad, but Michal and his mother took it in good humour. She said she needed a new door anyway and that I did her a favour.
Michal took us out both nights with a bunch of his friends in Pezinok, who are awesome people. They gave us gratuitous amounts of Slovakian wine, which was pretty good. So far, the trip felt like it was shaping up to be pretty good!
We left Pezinok/Bratislava on Saturday morning and headed East, to a town called Spisska Nova Ves. This part of our trip was supposed to be the camping portion, as the Slovak mountains are in this region. After a long train ride, we arrived. The camp site we were supposed to stay at is called Podlesok, just outside of town. Getting there, however, proved to be quite a task. We wandered all over town, trying to find someone or something that could tell us how to get to the camp site. However, the farther East you go, the less likely you're going to run into someone who speaks English. Eventually we learned there was a bus that would take us to a little village close by, and that we had to walk the rest of the way. At this point, it was almost 6, it was dark, I was tired, and we didn't know exactly where we were going, so I made the executive decision to check us into a hotel instead. Sunday, we tried again, with a little more success. We found Podlesok camping, which is right below the Slovensky Raj (the hills where we wanted to go hiking), but the campsite was closed. So we wandered a few kilometres to a village we passed earlier and managed to find a place that had a private room, dropped our stuff off and headed back out to Slovensky Raj.
The hike was incredible. Slovensky Raj was very beautiful, and the trail was an adventure. It was definitely designed for hikers, that's for sure. There were places that you could cross the river on these little wooden bridges, which was pretty neat. There was also parts were you had to ascend the cliffs on these built in metal ladders, next to still partially frozen waterfalls. It was amazing.
After a few hours of hiking, we went back to our little private room in the village. The next day, we hopped a bus from Spisska Nova Ves to the city of Kosice, the second biggest city in Slovakia. We didn't originally plan on staying here over night, but we wanted to make sure we were in the right place, with enough time to catch the bus to Ukraine. Kosice was a pleasant little city, I wish I had have had more time to explore. Instead, we arranged our transportation into Ukraine and took it easy for the day at the hostel, perhaps in subconscious preparation for Ukraine.
Alright that's probably enough for now. Part III: Ukraine (alternatively, "why I hate the Cyrillic alphabet")
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