Kom- Emine trail (E3) - Johannes` Story

We planned to do a long distance backpacking in summer 2017. It would be the first time for my daughter to go with us, and we wanted it being a good experience for her. We already know how exhausted you will get, everything had to be organized perfectly.

We had some debate about the country, but in the end, we decided to walk through Bulgaria. We already had been there to walk Pirin and Rila mountains two years before. Be bought a guide-book for the Bulgarian part of E3, called Kom-Emine. This guide-book mentioned the need to call huts ahead of arrival, as some of them would not be working, and some of them being missing.

We contacted the travel agency we used two years before, and they sent us to the Bulgarian bureau of tourism (BTS). BTS only offered a place in their guided tours. We kept on searching and finally found a company called Mad Max Hikers. This company does not own a home page, but exists in Facebook only. I don’t know much about Bulgarian companies, in Austria a company like this would not be considered to be reputable, but it was our only chance.

I wrote there on June 21^st and got a quick response from a guy called Christo. He introduced himself as a mountain guide and yes, he would be able to do so. He would also be able to organize all camping sites needed, so we would not need to carry tent and sleeping bags. I considered his labour being expensive, I know about salary in Bulgaria, but what else could we have done? "Booking the whole trip : 200 eur, Delivering tents, sleeping bags, water and food : 150 eur per day in western part and 300 eur per day in eastern part. Transfer from Sofia to Kom hut : 150 eur" (cut and paste from original mail).

So we agreed, because we had just 21 days left. Christo told us he had to start booking shelters immediately as they will get crowded very much. We also booked flights. Two days later we sent €600 to Christo, but he insisted in complete payment of €1250. This is not usual in central Europe, and does not make any sense to me, as his only risk would have been these €200 for phone calls, which was more than just covered with these €600 we sent. July 26^th he confirmed to have received the €600 and promised to start with his labour, but again insisted on receiving the missing amount. At this time my company had sent me to Spain, so there had been some misunderstanding between my wife and me.

Christo threatened with laying down his labour and sending back our money. That’s why we sent the missing amount, so we had paid €1250 to him by July 2^nd. Christo still was not satisfied as he had to pay two shelters in advance, but after some debate he agreed in receiving this money on a meeting in Sofia. He just then started booking shelters.

We arrived in Sofia on July 16^th. I sigh with relief as I already was sure to be a victim of fraud. We paid for these two shelters and a bus brought us to new Kom hut on the next day (July 17^th). We spent our night there. Everything really worked.

The next day we did our first stage, we should meet Christo near to abandoned shelter Proboystena. When arrived, we saw Christo and a second man. It was obvious they tried to erect a camping for us. However, they did not know how to deal with the tent, but being experienced hikers it was no problem for us. Food was OK, the night cold, but we have perfect equipment, so it was not a too big problem. Christo and his friend slept in an Opel estate car. Next morning we received breakfast and a description of the succeeding way. It was a more or less correct one from a car driver’s point of view, but distances had been completely messed up both, the total distance to Lakatnik and the relation between dirt road and asphalt. Despite he told us otherwise: Christo had never walked this part of Kom Emine (and it was one of the nastiest)

During the next some days everything went perfectly well. Huts knew about us ad served meal we liked. Our second camping had been planned for Leskova hut, but Christo could find a friendly and helpful guy to reopen this closed down hut. We paid to this man for both, food and shelter, so Christo owed us €150. Bad for us: Christo should have brought our provisions together with our Camping equipment. So we had no provisions for the succeeding days. Not an easy one, but we could deal with it. We would get our food and snacks only at August 3^rd.

We expected the camping on August 3^rd at Vratnik saddle being pretty much what camping at Proboystena hut had been, but it was different. This time, just Christo was there. He had no car, just some bags with food and low-cost camping equipment (not our high quality gear). This saddle is no proper camping ground, so we could not camp there, instead we had to carry this low cost camping equipment and food to an overgrown pasture. Christo deserted immediately after showing this place, we had to erect this tent, cook food and spend the night. Due to the bad quality of the equipment this was a horribly cold night!

Just four days later we should have another camping on Rishki saddle. But at this time Christo had already started his own tour, so he managed organizing a night in bungalows. So Christo already owed us €450, and he uncalled promised to pay it back to us after finishing his own tour in the end of August. There was another mishap with our last night on the trail: a planned night at hunting house Nesebar was not possible. We had been lucky: We had been lucky: We could find a pension, thanks to a Bulgarian hiker we met and made friends some days before. We arrived happily at Cap Emine on August 12^th.

We waited for our money to come. We urged several times, when suddenly on October 25^th Christo sent a mail:

Dear Elisabeth and Johannes,

 

We have been discussing in our club last weeks the refundation issue (our proposal to refund you part of the payment for your Kom - Emine trail) and this is to inform you that we have decided not to refund any money to you. The reason for that decision is that we did all possible to make this trip happens, and even that it didn't went as planned, it was even more sucsessfull and we desrved to be paid in full for our effort.

 

Please take this as finall notice on this matter. Wish you all the best.

 

Christo

 

Mad Max Hikes
Snow And Rock Tours
Sofia, Bulgaria
+ 359 884 538 673
madmaxhikes@abv.bg
www.facebook.com/madmaxhikes

 

We have tried to find Mr. Christo Vasilev since then to get our missing money. It seems not that easy to find Mr. Vasilev. Lately we found out neither is Mad Max Hikers a company nor is Mr. Vasilev a mountain guide. But we keep on trying to get our money!