Bear Nation: Looking For Bear In Harghita County, Transylvania

We met in a car park in Baile Tusnad. Then we went to a restaurant and ate. We drank some beer. It was very relaxed. We talked about the Aves Foundation, their organisation. We talked about the problems with the bear in Romania. We talked about the wildlife in general. They showed me copies of the magazine they produce. I took to them all immediately. My face still bore the scars of a party the night before, when I'd tripped-up and fallen over in the dark. I had these red, angry-looking scabs all across my forehead. In the restaurant I pointed it out (although it was obvious). "Palinka," I said. Attila said that Huni had said it was the first thing he had noticed about me when he had got out of the car, and that he had said the same thing. "Palinka," he'd said. "This man likes to drink." And they'd all decided they liked me too.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-1

The language as a whole sounds like someone talking backwards down a drainpipe. It's not an Earth language at all. It comes about from the natives having mated with aliens beings from Sirius at some point in the distant past. It has four tenses - past, present, future, and almost needn't have never happened yet - and all the different parts of the language - the tenses, the verbs, the various grammatical parts - are stuck onto the back of the word in a string of additional letters, meaning that all the words are at least a hundred and forty letters long. And that's just asking if you would like to have sex in the bathroom

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-2

I have to say I loved that Russian jeep. We were driving along rutted, skidding tracks slimy with mud, up fierce inclines, through stream beds laden with rocks, through thick undergrowth and dense funnels of foliage, with tree branches springing back and scraping the roof, bouncing over the broken landscape, and at no point did that sturdy Russian machine waver, not for a second. Sandor said: "they are cheap, so you don't mind if it gets scratched." I sat in the front next to Sandor, while Attila and Istvan sat in the back. We were all drinking beer.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-3

It was Attila who saw them first. He pointed them out to us, these shapes emerging from the trees, muscular and huge with hulking shoulders and craggy heads like great black rocks, with curling tusks and wet noses, snorting and trotting up the hill with a sort of hungry wariness, cautiously looking around them for any possible danger. They were a family group of about ten individuals, snuffling about and rooting in the soil for the corn.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-4

It was only as I was drifting slowly to a halt along the dusty track by the side of the road that I realised - with a sudden burst of adrenaline that sent my heart racing with a bang - that had they failed as I was coming down the mountain I would now be dead.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-5

And we'd get out and look at these soft-eyed, delicate creatures with the strange bouncing spring bounding about all over the place. This kept on happening. We'd leap back in the jeep and go sailing and swerving once more, zigzagging between trees full of blossom, over ditches and along tracks, and then into open country again, where we'd make new tracks in the dew. And then we'd skid to a sudden halt, and come scattering out onto the wet grass, where we'd look at another Roebuck pirouetting about on the hillside, while the gamekeeper made clucking and cooing noises in order to attract its attention. Which worked, it has to be said. The Roebuck would stop and stand transfixed looking at him for a second or two before beyoinging off again.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-In-Harghita-County--Transylvania---Part-6

These are European animals, not only Romanian animals. Once upon a time bears roamed all over these lands, including England. Bears and wolves and wildcat and lynx. They are our own wild heritage.

Maybe, when the human race finally wipes itself off the face of the planet by our own stupidity, by our short-sightedness and greed - which is a distinct possibility right now - then these Romanian creatures will be the ones who will return to fill the gaps. It is from Romania that the rebirth of Europe will begin.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bear-Nation-Looking-For-Bear-in-Harghita-County--Transylvania-Part-7

More about Romania by CJ Stone

• Beyond The Forest: Journeys to the Heart of Transylvania, Romania
  Transylvania is a country of miracles, of legends, of strange tales, full of mystery. CJ Stone discovers scepticism and the Milky Way and meets a statue of a multi-armed goddess-tree with a macabre tale attached.
• Borderlands: Bird Watching in Dobrogea, Romania
  Dobrogea is a distinct region of Romania between the Danube and the Black Sea. CJ Stone goes in search of birds and memories while contemplating the mysteries of communism.
• Bear Stalking: hunting with a camera in Romania
  There is now an alternative way to shoot bears. With bear stalking, the camera takes the place of the rifle, and the photograph takes the place of the trophy. And a picture of one of these magnificent creatures is an incredible prize.
• Landscape and Possession
  It is a landscape without possession. The land doesnt appear to be owned by anyone. Perhaps it is the landscape that does the owning: perhaps it owns all the creatures, human and otherwise, who dwell within it.