Post by Adr1an on Nov 13, 2020 4:04:37 GMT -8
Hello to you! 
I am sharing a story that happened to me few years ago in the central part of Romania.
I was with a friend hiking through the region known as Transilvania exploring the ruins of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of the ancient Dacia, and its surroundings. By the evening, we got to this small town named Haţeg. I was aware that Romania has the highest concentration of bear population of all Europe and the fact that on the hills and mountains near the town may be bears passed through my mind. We thought that maybe if we put our tent close enough to the town we would be safe from any unpleasant visit of bears. So we did. We camped just at about 100 meters from the nearest house, which was also the official town border limit. Near the main national road, in an orchard. We thought we are in a safe area so we decided to cook something as dinner in front of our tent before sleeping. We cooked and we had a nice dinner. Around 9 pm it was getting dark and foggy, so we cleaned our tools, packed everything and got inside our tent with the purpose to rest until morning. Few hours later, around midnight, we heard some dogs barking in the distance. This made us curious so we listened more carefully for few minutes. We soon realized that this sound of the dogs barking seemed as if the dogs were getting closer and closer to our tent. About 10 minutes later we had the feeling that the dogs were just near our tent barking. All of a sudden we heard the sound of a bear growling. That was when we felt really scared. So we just decided not to make any sound at all that may tickle bear's curiosity to find out what is inside the tent. We could hear the bear walking all around the tent and sniffing. After few minutes the dogs stopped barking and it seemed like they went away. We were now alone with the bear around our tent, walking around and sniffing. It was obvious at this point to us that we made the terrible mistake to feel ourselves confident enough to cook in the place where we were sleeping thinking that bears would never come so close to a town. We really felt defenseless at this point and we were just wishing that the idea to find out what is inside the tent would not cross the bear's mind. After about two hours that seemed like an eternity, we were still inside our tent and we didn't hear the bear walking and sniffing around. We were too scared to open the tent to see if the bear was still there or not, so we just decided to try to sleep accepting whatever may have happened to us during the rest of that night being aware that against a bear a human with empty hands cannot do anything. We were really lucky - the next morning around 7 o'clock when we woke up we still didn't hear anything, so we slowly opened our tent to look outside. There was nothing. So we packed our equipment and went to the closest bar in the town where we had breakfast
Adrian
www.HitchhikingTips.com
I am sharing a story that happened to me few years ago in the central part of Romania.I was with a friend hiking through the region known as Transilvania exploring the ruins of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of the ancient Dacia, and its surroundings. By the evening, we got to this small town named Haţeg. I was aware that Romania has the highest concentration of bear population of all Europe and the fact that on the hills and mountains near the town may be bears passed through my mind. We thought that maybe if we put our tent close enough to the town we would be safe from any unpleasant visit of bears. So we did. We camped just at about 100 meters from the nearest house, which was also the official town border limit. Near the main national road, in an orchard. We thought we are in a safe area so we decided to cook something as dinner in front of our tent before sleeping. We cooked and we had a nice dinner. Around 9 pm it was getting dark and foggy, so we cleaned our tools, packed everything and got inside our tent with the purpose to rest until morning. Few hours later, around midnight, we heard some dogs barking in the distance. This made us curious so we listened more carefully for few minutes. We soon realized that this sound of the dogs barking seemed as if the dogs were getting closer and closer to our tent. About 10 minutes later we had the feeling that the dogs were just near our tent barking. All of a sudden we heard the sound of a bear growling. That was when we felt really scared. So we just decided not to make any sound at all that may tickle bear's curiosity to find out what is inside the tent. We could hear the bear walking all around the tent and sniffing. After few minutes the dogs stopped barking and it seemed like they went away. We were now alone with the bear around our tent, walking around and sniffing. It was obvious at this point to us that we made the terrible mistake to feel ourselves confident enough to cook in the place where we were sleeping thinking that bears would never come so close to a town. We really felt defenseless at this point and we were just wishing that the idea to find out what is inside the tent would not cross the bear's mind. After about two hours that seemed like an eternity, we were still inside our tent and we didn't hear the bear walking and sniffing around. We were too scared to open the tent to see if the bear was still there or not, so we just decided to try to sleep accepting whatever may have happened to us during the rest of that night being aware that against a bear a human with empty hands cannot do anything. We were really lucky - the next morning around 7 o'clock when we woke up we still didn't hear anything, so we slowly opened our tent to look outside. There was nothing. So we packed our equipment and went to the closest bar in the town where we had breakfast
Adrian
www.HitchhikingTips.com
