Danube1

Danube1
To get to the Danube delta we drove northeast towards the Black Sea on a small bus with our guide Laurentsio, who is young and very confident and a self proclaimed expert on many things. he gives us a running commentary for most of the trip. The seaside town is Costanza. The town on the Danube River is Tulcea and this is where our boat awaits us. The first part of the journeying across flat country covered with either sunflowers or corn, one for oil and not sure about the other. We pass through a couple of small towns or villages and horse and carts were very common. Every village has a church and in all cases the churches are very fancy compared to the houses, which are mostly smallish and one story. this is the case except for the town which Laurentsio tells us is kind of owned by the gypsies. He says that if you had a car stolen in the UK it is probably here! Sure enough you can easily see loads of cars with UK license plates. Laurentsio has strong opinions on gypsies, some good and some bad, and he shares with these with us, where they came from (India), why their culture is different, why there are so many in Romania, why it is impossible to assimilate them, and many other things. In this town there are many very large ugly houses that are definitely different, with these big front doors with panes of rounded glass that had a very shiny effect. L said these were all gypsie houses as this is what they liked to do with their money.
L also hates idiots and there are a lot of them in Romania, especially government officials, bad drivers and kids who vandalize. If he had his way he would take care of them with a baseball bat. L is also a biologist, and he does know his stuff. he was born in the Danube and will die there and would sell his family to protect it!
Our group of 8 is now 9 as we have been joined by young Pierre from France who was also at the COP. Others are Sandra, my Scottish friend who I see in Switzerland every year, Max and Pierre from Australia, Randy from Canada, Lisa and Mathew from Kenya and UK and Chris from UK.
Once our things are on the boat we do a short reccie in the town and there are a few photos of a typical Saturday afternoon in Tulcea.