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Fagaras Mountains |
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When the flock passed me, I realized that the smoke lint suddenly became a small white cloud. It is not good, I said to myself. I hurried to see what it was all about. The smoke came from a rather lonely tree, about 100 yards away from the rest of the forest. At its base there was a hollow, and in it someone masterfully arranged a handful of twigs, splashed them with a blackish oily liquid, for better burning, and kindled the fire. The twigs were half burned, which means that the fire was not there for more than 5-10 minutes. The tree, a huge old fir tree, with cracked, filled with resin bark, burned about 6 feet above the hollow, and the flames went up another 6 feet. Fortunately, the first branches were very high, the fire didn’t get yet to them, otherwise the fir needles would have burned like a torch. The fire in front of me was obviously no match for my natural capacity to extinguish a fire, I had only a half a liter bottle with water and no tools of any kind. I took then a large tree branch I found on the spot and with it I cleaned the hollow of burning twigs. With my improvised club I started to hit the tree bark, to loosen the burning parts. I think that someone up there was looking at me and helped me, I didn’t believe at the beginning that I will be able to suppress the fire, more exactly the flame. Because the fire continued inside the tree, where the hollow extended and through cracks in the tree I could still see rising smoke. I said to myself, let’s go for help. I continued my climb to the Sambata chalet, I had about 10 minutes to get there. Very shortly afterwards I met two tourists that had a two litters bottle of water. We returned together to the scene of the crime, we poured their water on the tree, to no avail. We tore huge leafs of burdock root that we tried to stick into the crevices of the tree, no result. Then, like in cartoons, a bulb lit up, what about calling 112, the emergency number. To my surprise, my cell phone worked on this remote mountain. And to my even greater surprise, the reaction was very prompt. I received many phone calls, from firemen, policemen, the mayor of the village of Sambata, all inquiring about the situation. After about half an hour of descent we met two rangers that climbed at high speed the mountain trail. Shortly afterwards we met two other rangers. Later I found out that the poor rangers had to stay up in the mountain till one a clock in the night. They had to find an ax to carve the tree and remove the core of it, then to stay and be sure that no trace of fire remained. Who set up the fire? I think I know, but this is not so important. Important was that I was able to pay to this mountain at least part of the huge debt I have to it, my childhood memories and the lifetime lessons I learned here.
/*********************
People? If someone wants to rob you, it is simpler to do it on an empty street in a city. Why to bother to climb a mountain to rob me of my backpack and my food? Animals I saw plenty in all my trips, bears, wild boars, lynx, but I was lucky enough not to be attacked. You must avoid at all cost the cute and fluffy animal cubs, mummy is surely close by. And to make noise, so that animals know that you are approaching and have time to run. Only once I was very frightened, and this was entirely my fault. I came out from behind a rock without making any nose, only to find myself in front of a large lynx, the size of a German Shepard. I froze, my knife was in my backpack, I had no stick, I could only byte, and here I was in a clear disadvantage. We studied each other for several minutes, very long they seemed to me, completely motionless, not even the eyes, until by mutual consensus we agreed not to attack each other. In fact the lynx left the scene first, it could be called that I won.
I spend my childhood summers in Dragus, a village at the base, the place where my father was born. I had here a freedom hard to imagine in a city, where my mother was always worried that something could happen to me. My uncle and my aunt worked in two other neighbor villages, and they had to start walking to their job very early in the morning. This left me and my cousin and good friend Mugur to do whatever crossed our minds. In the morning we ate a thick bread slice with a large cup of fat buffalo milk, then we started wandering, eating whatever fruit we could get, and there were plenty. I do not know many city guys that could drink a pint of very fat buffalo milk then to eat fruits without having a severe diarrhea fit; we had nothing. On the fields around the village I learned how to walk barefooted on a manually scythed wheat field, where every wheat stem is in fact a one or two inches long prickle, ready to stick into your foot if you do not have the technique of proper walking. And here too I became accustomed to the farm animals, familiarity that I could say I partly lost. A large number of buffaloes existed in the village, probably they are more adaptable to a mountainous region. But buffaloes, contrary to cows, are rather aggressive animals. In my childhood time, Fagaras Mountains were a place where anticommunist partisans had their hiding places. Sometimes the dirt road in front of the house was enveloped in a cloud of dust as military trucks with soldiers drove to the mountain to fight the partisans. Even today I remember the ferocity of the buffaloes running after the trucks and hitting with their curved horns the wooden sides of the trucks. In spite of this, we children had no fear of the buffaloes. Near the village there was a quick river mountain, with cold, crystal clear, but unfortunately for us very shallow water. There were some few deeper holes, but they were already occupied by buffaloes, they needed too some refreshment. We, 10 years kids wearing just briefs, got between the buffaloes and punched them to go away. And they did, I cannot understand how these huge aggressive animals tolerated us; when they stood up they were twice higher than us. With adults, especially with those that showed fear, they behaved differently. Once when my mother came to the village, she got afraid of a buffalo and ran, with the buffalo chasing after her. My mother got into someone’s court, then into the house, and the buffalo still followed. Fortunately the lady owner of the house was inside, she knew how to master the animal. Of course my mother never found out what we did when she was not there. Dragus was very close to the mountain, only 4 km to the point where the climb starts, and it was normal for us from time to time to go to the mountain. Only for us, differently from tourists, this road was no adventure, just a little bit longer walk from the village. We climbed cliffs on trails imagined by us on the spot, we ate huge blackberries, as you cannot normally find in the places where everybody goes, we walked past caves heavily smelling of bears, we went to the shepherd’s cottage where we got samples of cheese. Sometimes things didn’t go exactly as we planned. Once we climbed Indian file an almost vertical crevice in a rock and someone in front moved a small bolder that fell on the head of someone under. Fortunately the one hit hasn’t lost his balance, he would have been crashed if falling on the rocks below. Some other time we were just on the top of the mountain and suddenly we saw a thick fog enveloping us, white bails of thick smoke, swiftly running past us carried by the wind. With the fog came the cold, a piercing cold, and we didn’t dare to move too much, knowing what deep precipices existed around us. Fortunately for us, after some time there was a clearing in the fog, and we could see our way down. There is a God of children. /************************** There is something else for which I am thankful to the Fagaras Mountains: the spirit of people that is partly preserved up to these days. In my case the spirit and the history of these places have been better transmitted thanks to my grandfather, who was the village teacher and had the passion of history. There is probably a mountain person specific way of thinking, accustomed to a heavy toil existence. Difficult access from outside and relative poverty led to increased independence, the neighbors didn’t want so much to conquer them. The mountaineers could keep their freedom longer and they always wanted to fight for it. This phenomenon is obvious in Swiss, Vermont or Norway. Dragus, Sambata, Lisa and other close villages had an additional advantage. The mountains constitute the natural border between Transylvania, dominated by Austria and Muntenia, conquered by the Turks. For the protection of the border the Empress Maria Theresa created border regiments out of the local people. They had obligations, they had to buy arms, take care of them, have a horse and patrol the border. In exchange they had many benefits, they had their own mountain for timber and pasturing, they had the right to have their own mill and they didn’t pay taxes. One of my ancestors served as a trumpeter in this regiment, stood out in the fights against the Turks and was knighted. As the time passed, the existence of special rights citizens was regarded with aversion by authorities, they wanted to increase their power. Especially the Hungarian nobility that started to have an increased role in the Austrian empire, wanted to extend their estates. The people from Dragus actively opposed any attempt to limit their freedom. In 1848 my ancestor Spiridon took part at the Revolution that extended all over Europe, chasing away the Hungarian grafs and he had to flee with his family to Muntenia for many years. His son, Dionisie was arrested one month in 1896 for supporting a Romanian candidate at elections. In 1917 he spent one year in prison on the reason that he hid Romanian soldiers. In 1916, my grandfather Vasile guided Romanian troops across the mountains into Transylvania, received a death penalty from the Austro-Hungarian authorities and fled to Moldova till the end of the First World War. (I need to mention, even if the connection is not obvious, that my long history of my family with the Hungarian authorities, left absolutely no trace of antipathy toward the Hungarians). /********************* Probably it is no pure coincidence that I took part at the Romanian Revolution in 1989: genes, histories told, stories read. Equally explicable could be my adventure spirit planted deep in my soul, my tenacity and my desire to be ready for events that are not immediately under your eyes. The places where we come from and where we grow influence us, model us more than we think. The Fagaras Mountains will always majestically rise high their peaks to the deep blue of the sky deep inside myself, in the secret world that I carry with me. Dorel Jurcovan 8/15/2007 |
At
first I saw onl
I
climbed to the place where I discovered the fire near Sambata chalet
starting from Sambata monastery, just at the foot of the mountain. The
standard climb is two ours and a half, it took me double, I have to admit.
On the trail I met several tourists that asked me “Alone?”. One of them
continued “Are you not afraid?”. “Why?”, I replied amazed. “People,
animals…”.
Why do
I feel in the mountains differently than other people? Fagaras Mountains
are the highest mountains in the chain of the Carpathians, a place loved by
experienced tourists and climbers. For me these mountains and the villages
at the foot of the mountains mean something totally different, a natural
extension of a playground of my childhood.