Shaken AND Stirred

     The following morning власник Андрій's wife, whose name is also Надя, greets me with a cholesterol-laden Carpathian breakfast that at once entices and repels me. Yet on this trip, I am sure to accept hospitality and eat what is given to me. In this instance, three fried eggs (Ukrainians call them scrambled eggs for some reason), two sausages, a salad of parsley and an unidentified violet-colored mountain herb, sliced cucumber and tomato, cheese pancakes with homemade raspberry jam, and an espresso. Смачного, bitches!

     The hostess Надя interests me. I did not once see her without an apron on and sweat on her brow, and she did not sit still for a single moment. She speaks an urgent blend of Ukrainian and perhaps Austrian, with the cadence of the Swedish Chef. Blonde haired and blue eyed, she strikes me as the typical Гуцул woman.

     After breakfast, our merry band of Мандрівники assembles: Андрій, the owner of Гуцулія and today's tour guide; Віктор, an older man with grey hair and a prominent mustache who chain smokes incessantly; Марія, cosmopolitan thirty-something professional photographer from Kyiv; Стьопко, Надя, and myself.

     Андрій is vague about where we are going. Maybe he himself is not sure? He is a severe, confident man with a solid build that reminds me of the mountains where we find ourselves, and of Дідо. He speaks deliberately and in a deep voice that hints of German enunciation. "Їдемо," he commands in a silky Germanic baritone. We obey as we pile into two cars.

Morning at Гуцулія

     We drive through the Bukovel Ski Resort along winding mountain roads, stopping along the way to snap photos of the morning fog looming silently in the sleepy Carpathian valleys. Туман в полонинах пливе... 

Impossible not to think of this song...

Fog in the Carpathian Valleys

     We keep driving, and driving still--through tiny villages, past roadside grazing cows, young men walking barefoot wielding sickles, old men steering wooden horse-drawn carts overloaded with hay. We drive through Яблуниця, Лазенщина, cross the border from Франківський Область into Закарпаття, and pull over next to a World War II era memorial to fallen Soviet soldiers in the village of Ясіня.

We covered a lot of ground that day...

A weapon used by the Soviets to liberate Ясіня from the Germans

Names of Soviet soldiers who perished defending Ясіня from Hitler's Army

     Up to this point, I am not sure about the extent of our mountain climbing excursion. So far, we have only been driving, and I have little to no idea what is going on. Андрій tells us to wait, and I watch him cross the street and flag down a skinny man wearing a Ukrainian Army uniform. They stand on a bridge talking, but the details of their conversation are muffled by all forms of traffic noise: work trucks, tour buses, bicycles, horse drawn carts, old Volkswagens...

The crossroads in Ясіня, with a prominent memorial to the Heavenly Hundred

     Андрій tells us to move our cars to a gravel lot outside of a Гуцул restaurant. After a few minutes, an olive green post-Soviet van pulls up, with the skinny soldier behind the wheel.

It rides as smooth as it looks...

     The man's voice is distorted; it sounds like he may have had a tracheotomy, though there is no physical evidence thereof. He tells us that for a fee of 100 hryvnia each, he will drive us to the foot of the mountain Драґобрат, but we have to pay up front because he has to put gas in the van.

Circa 2016; Ukrainian currency has depreciated since the time of writing...

    We oblige the shifty soldier, Стьопа of course paying for Надя and me at his insistence. The soldier gets back in his army-esque vehicle and drives away. What just happened?! Is he coming back?!?! Андрій seems pretty calm. Hopefully that means that he knows the skinny fellow--though their interactions suggest that they are strangers.

     After the better part of twenty minutes, the van pulls back into the gravel lot. The soldier gets out and opens the side door of the van. In his über-raspy voice he instructs us to get in. The interior of the van is sparse--all metal--three bucket seats on one side facing a bench seat on the other. No seat belts. There's a window that separates the driver's cab from the rest of the van... kind of like a limousine, but uh, not really. Doors shut, ignition, and we're off.

     We drive along the roads of Ясіня until we come to a dirt driveway beside a little shack and park here. A barefoot, shirtless boy rides up to the van on a motor scooter and hands the shady soldat a red plastic container full of gasoline through the driver's side window. The soldier cranks the engine and we're off again.

     Although it was sunny when we left Гуцулія, the sky had grown overcast and rain drizzled intermittently. I gazed out the window as we drove, reading signs along the way: Рахів, Чорна Тиса, Драґобрат... When I saw that sign, I recalled Андрій saying that name to the driver. Dragobrat--that must be where we're going.

     After a few kilometers, the soldiers bangs a sharp right from the semi-paved road onto a completely rustic road. It could not even be called a dirt road, since the mountainous terrain was all rock and shale. To the left of the van was a precipice, and to the left of that was a rocky, rushing river. The ferocity of the rapids suggested that it had rained recently.

     "Там водичка чистенька," Надя said in a hushed tone, if not to me then to herself. She often speaks her observations quietly; she says them out loud, but in a whisper. I'm not entirely sure that she is aware that she is doing it.

     There are several details to point out about this 11 kilometer leg of the excursion. a) This "road," if one might call it that, is extremely rocky (read: boulders and shit), and there is no guard rail. b) Once again, this van is not equipped with safety belts. c) Come to find out, it is not equipped with shocks either.

   The pseudo military van wheezed and groaned across the rocky terrain, taking hairpin turns up the winding mountain road that lifted one side of the van off the ground, then the other. At other times, пан Солдат forced the van up over boulders--real shit--lifting then dropping the van and its contents (ie. us!!!). All I could think to do was to laugh at the ridiculousness of this ride. "Такого в Америці нема!," I quipped to Стьопа. He laughed, flashing gold teeth and dimples.

     Eventually, we arrived at what looked like a hotel or a ski lodge. "Are we getting out here... please?," I wondered to myself. Alas, skinny soldier just kept on driving. That scenario repeated about three or four times more: ski lodge, are we here?, nope, keepa movin'. All the while, we bounced around violently inside the van; Shake it up Baby played on repeat in my head. Again, I laughed.

Undisputed Classic

Or, if you prefer...

     Нарешті, we pull up to what seems to be the final ski lodge. Soldier stops the van... could it be? Андрій, who was sitting in the passenger seat, frees us from the back of the van. I should kiss the ground. "Буду пішки йти звітси," Надя announces resolutely, "Більше не буду їхати!" I concur, Надю, I concur.

I'll walk from here... it's cool.

     We get out of the van, still vibrating internally, and take a look around. Snap a few photos. We wait--for something. "Ну, поїхали," commands Андрій. Wait, what? We're getting back in the van?! "Ще один километер," he says. One more kilometer? Really, I am willing to walk that kilometer. Yet we all obey, and back in the van we go.

     At this point, we have ascended above the tree line, so there is nothing to mask the precipitous view if one were to look down (I did). The lifting, dropping, and rocking of the van is more ominous now. I am laughing no longer.

     Just when we think that we can't maintain anymore, der soldier stops the van, this time for good. This is the starting point for the hike. Андрій and the soldier with his distorted whisper exchange cell phone numbers. Overheard from Андрій: "То як я знаю що ти по нас приїдеш?" "Приїду, приїду... не переживай." Andy, we just trusted this guy with our lives on the ride up here, and now you're not going to trust him to come pick us up?!

Ukie ATVs

     After that treacherous leg of the journey, we thought the rest of the trek would be cake. Then, I looked up and was confronted by the looming Carpathian peaks of Близниця, Жандари, and Драґобрат.

Triple Threat...