Day 45
After 2 days off the bike I needed to get going again so I left Sofia in the pouring rain and headed South East in the direction of Plovdiv. My reasons for visiting Plovdiv were twofold, firstly I had read that this city was the oldest continually inhabited city in Europe and secondly, as I wanted to visit Greece, I needed to get tested for the alleged virus and a hospital in Plovdiv provided this service. I booked in to a modern hotel a short walk from the old town for 4 nights at about 30 Euros per night. While I waited on being tested I explored the city and found that the city had a lot of excavated Roman architecture still visible in the city centre.
On my travels around the city I also found a Trabant motor car that was still in daily use, once the most popular car in Eastern Europe but now just a working relic from the communist era.
Time for another rant.
So in order to get in to Greece I had to get “tested” for an alleged virus that I do not have, so against my better judgement I attend at a hospital in Plovdiv to be “tested”. I waited in a queue of other people outside a small hut in the car park, I handed my passport to the grumpy woman inside. I then had go to another window of the same hut, and a young nurse tried to stuff a long Q tip like swab up my nose. I only allowed her to put it about 1 cm in before I pulled away, she told me to do it again but I refused, so she just packaged it up and told me that I must return in two days for the results, oh and I forgot, that will be x amount of Bulgarian Lev please! The cost was about 100 Euros. Now this is where I have a little rant about the madness.
The PCR “test” which my sample was to be subjected to is a process where any DNA in a sample is amplified, and the more cycles the process uses, the more the amplification of the DNA. It is not a test for anything, it is a DNA amplification process and can not possibly be used to test for any illness, real or imaginary. However, once again the media has altered the public perception about this reality. In fact the Scientist who invented the PCR process publicly stated that this process was not suited for the “testing” for anything, but the madness ensured that his statements were not widely reported and when they were some other compliant scientist was rolled out to discredit him.
Anyway, two days later I go back to the hut in the hospital car park and get my results back and yes you guessed it! I was not infected with the alleged virus so it was now time to pack up and head for Greece. As the Greek authorities not only required a PCR “test” before entry, but also required me to notify them of where I would be staying for 2 weeks after I enter the country, I had to book accommodation in advance, not something I like doing but had I not received a clear “test” I would not have been allowed in to Greece and the cost of 2 weeks accommodation would have been lost.
More madness. Later that afternoon I left Plovdiv and headed West to the town of Sandanski which is about 20 miles North of the only border crossing that was open between Bulgaria and Greece, Promachonas. The road to Sandanski was spectacular as it wound it’s way up an down through the mountains of Southern Bulgaria passing through many Ski resorts on the way. By early evening I was settled in to a hotel in the town that I paid under 30 Euros for and was wondering what sort of pantomime I would encounter at the Greek border the next day.