It was early in the morning and mist was spreading over all the area of Montceau-les-Mines, almost hiding the surrounding landscape. Lacho showed up and we set off for… I had no idea for where exactly but later it turned out to be some piece of paradise inhabited by cows, horses, ducks, pigs, llamas, alpacas and… camels.

As soon as I got into the car, I saw what kind of person Lacho was - a 28-year-old traveller who has been going around Europe, integrating with locals and spending a few months at each place for 7 years. He set about showing me the local beauties. We climbed up a higher place where was a small stone tower with porcelain maps and one can get a 360° view of all around. The landscape was terribly beautiful - everywhere around there were hills covered with meadows, where white cows were chewing their cud peacefully. Here and there one could see small groups of stone houses, whose huge yards were divided by hedges. And everything was floating in a sea of mist.

Twenty minutes later, moving down the narrow rambling roads as wide as a car, we arrived at the estate of Evlin - a Dutchwoman who has lived here for 9 years. She has 2 horses which she loves to ride. The house is big and made of stone, inside is cosy and the meadows with grazing horses and cows could be seen through the window. We had our breakfast and set out for another farm, few kilometers farther away. That was one strange farm owed by some Englishman who has lived here for 4 years. Besides the several cows, the two tiny pigs, one of which we chased with the car, about 10 ducks and one donkey, there were some really exotic animals which one least expects to encounter in France. And namely 7 young llamas, 5 alpacas and 2 two-humped camels - Zeus and Hera. A real zoo :)

Lacho found this place 6 months ago through that Englishman who was looking for some people to help him for the realization of his project. Now he stays sometimes with him, sometimes with Evlin. Also he helps one Swiss family in another neighbouring farm. He lives freely in the beautiful nature, having no commitments - so to say, he has managed to expel himself from the system.

We took the 13-year-old son of the Englishman and went back to Evlin’s farm, from where we took the bikes and started roaming about the area. An extremely cheerful day followed, filled with laughter and screams in the woods and meadows of Burgundy. Joseph was trying to speak Bulgarian all the time but “r” was difficult for him to pronounce which was provoking a hysterical laughter in all of us.

Kak sii, Mnogo hubavo, Nebeto e klasivo, Ayde batkaaa, Yebanyeeeee (TN: How are you, Very nice, The sky is beautiful, Come on bro, Fuck)… - that was the main repertoire for the day. At dusk we returned to the farm where Joseph gave me a detail information about all their animals and even showed me how to mount a camel.

Evening came to complete the nice day with an exceptionally beautiful sunset, after which we mounted our bikes and set out for the estate of Evlin who, to top it all, had a birthday. One of the two dachshunds of Joseph unnoticeably followed us and even if he looked like lazy and slow, he could go after us all along the 7-8 km distance. Lacho decided to put the two back flashing lights from the bicycles on him which was quite a funny sight and when we arrived at Evlin’s place we gave him as a birthday present :) Pablo, the son of Evlin, and Noah, the Swiss family’s son from the other farm, were still there. So we could sing “Happy birthday” in 5 different languages and after that we started dinner and champagne. Thus one incredible day in paradise passed. :)

In the morning Lacho woke me up saying: “Hurry up! We missed the sunrise, the sun has just come up the horizon.” After that he started the car and drove me up to 1-2 hills, from which we could see the sea of mist where the hills floated… and the cows.

After we had our breakfast, I packed and Lacho drove me to the hitchhiking place. He himself is passionate hitchhiker with much richer experience than mine. I was a little sceptical when he told me that one would not wait more than 15 minutes, but he was absolutely right. I waited only 4-5 minutes and the third car which passed took me and drove me about 50 km away - left me at one petrol station on the highway.

Here the task was a little tricky - I needed to find something to take me beyond Lyon, for which I read that it was the hichhikers’ hell if one should go out of it. I waited about an hour and a half until an Italian with a hippie look and a minibus stopped. In the minibus it was a real big mess but he was going as far as Montpellier which is a little after Avignon where I was off to. He told me he worked for 4-5 months in Denmark, where salaries were very good, and the rest of the time he spent travelling round the world with his minibus. Been in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, all over Europe and now he was about to travel around Western Africa. He told me all that while driving without a seat belt and rolling joints and tobacco cigarettes. :) He was travelling with his girlfriend who was crawling at a 10 minutes distance after us with something like an old camper.

I decided to get out at one petrol station before Orange, which is a little before Avignon. The sun was going down and the place turn out to be not good for hichhiking to Avignon. I called Joro with whom I hade an appointment in Avignon and he came with his car and drove me to his home.

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