It’s a rainy day in Transylvania, not the kind of weather recommended for the type of activity we’d had in mind for today. Actually we find ourselves, after a change of plans, hours of backtracking away from where we need to be, just to begin. That’s why we are vanbound, watching the rain bead up on our windows, while playing a cutthroat game of Nine Man Morris. Our old sailor mate Alan made our board by hand and our playing pieces are stones and shells we collected in our travels.
I guess it all started years ago when I saw a Top Gear television show where the admittedly insane hosts pronounced the Transfagarasan Pass the best sports car road in the world. I thought, “In Transylvania? Best in the world? Someday I’d like to give that a go.”
The change of plans bit of this story is that we’ve found as we travel the world the phenomenally profound power of movies and television is astounding. Turns out the Top Gear pronouncement turned the Transfagarasan into a slow motion funereal bumper-to-bumper creep over the pass. However, the nearly identical Transalpina Pass is as close to the original experience that Top Gear loved but not nearly as crowded. At least that’s what our friends claim.
That brings us to the “sportscar” bit of the story, and a six meter, 3.5 metric ton, six-speed Fiat Ducato RV hardly qualifies. Escape Velocity does have new Michelin tires but sometimes you just have to “run what ya brung.” But not in the rain, and that leaves us playing Nine Man Morris waiting out the weather in the van.
In the morning we find ourselves completely enveloped in a pea soup fog. Well, this is disappointing. It’s not actually raining but it might as well be. We expect more of Transylvania but decide to stage EV two hours closer at what we’ll call the starting line for the Transalpina. Visibility is far from ideal so we pull into a parking lot and make lunch. And wait.
It was like Christmas morning while trying to convince your parents that it’s really light enough outside to start opening presents, and besides I think the fog is lifting slightly. Now we can see people off in the distance hiking past our parkup.
Long story short, it was deemed safe enough to start. Gemini and Moonbeam, our mischievous resident little people, once again bequeathed special dispensation for spunky fools.
As I found the rhythm of the Transalpine curves and switchbacks, the skies were definitely lightening a bit.
The serpentine, well engineered Transalpina road, it turns out, is fun at any speed.
I confess that there were times that Marce didn’t seem to enjoy the experience as much as I did.
She did mention something about palmsweat.
As a rule I do not ride EV’s brakes when descending a hill because I may need them more at the bottom. I suppose, in those who are susceptible, this practice might cause palmsweat. However a 3.5 ton vehicle can pick up speed at an alarming rate which forces one to use the binders and lower gears, judiciously but periodically, allowing cooling in between applications. While in a “cooling period” we rounded a blind curve and suddenly the sinuous curves and back to back switchbacks, not to mention spectacular mountainous scenery, after 150km suddenly came to an end. It was time to test the theory. The brakes were more than up to the demand and in a flash we pulled into Marce’s tiny park-like lot, and EV’s engine was switched off.
We found that we were surrounded by cherry and Mirabella plum trees. What a celebration.
Sometimes life is just a bowl of cherries.