Bear Nation: Looking For Bear in Harghita County, Transylvania - Part 5

For Part 4 follow the link

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

5.

It was the day after this that my brakes failed.

Between Odorheiu Secuiesc, where the boys live, and Lazaresti, where I was staying, there is a mountain. You go up one side of it and down the other. It's about 60kms, a good thirty of which are on a twisting careening mountain road, with hairpin bends overlooking sheer drops. Up and up and up, round and round and round, then down and down and down. After that you go through Miercurea Ciuc - which has a crazy bridge which is never finished, and where the by-pass appears to take you through some people's back yards - and onto the road to Baile Tusnad and Sfantu Gheorge. Lazaresti is about halfway to Baile Tusnad.

It was along this road that the brakes failed. There was a sudden smell of burning, and then, when I tried to brake, nothing happened. I went sailing on. I was approaching a village, so I geared down, and then pulled into the side, allowing the van to coast to a halt.

I stopped outside someone's gate.

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.

On the other side of the gate was a little boy on a bike. I tried to speak, but he ran away scared.

I rang Attila. A teenage girl passed and went to go in the gate, so I called out and handed my phone onto her. Attila spoke to her. I was trying to find a mechanic. She was too young and didn't have any idea what it was I wanted. After that I went through the gate where the father and mother were sitting on a step outside their house. Attila spoke to the father and then the father was ringing round for a mechanic for me. I wondered if it was possible to drive without brakes. I thought maybe it was, if I drove slowly and kept my distance and used my gears to brake. After that I decided to try my luck and try to get the rest of the way home. It was only once I started out again - having thanked the man for his help - that I found out I was in the next village but one to Lazaresti.

So I drove home without brakes, and then, the next day, I drove back to Miercurea Ciuc to meet Attila to get the brakes fixed. It was afternoon, and the drive was all on this side of the mountain: that is, it was all on the level. We left the van in the garage, and then drove back over the mountain in Attila's car. We were going to see bears in the wild.

It was at this point, as we breasted the peak and were coming down the other side, that Attila said, "Hell!" and pointed out the ominous black clouds sprouting rain that lurked over the distant hills.

"That's where the bears live," he said. "In the forest in those hills."

Back in Odorheiu we met up with Szabi, who had Attila's dad's Russian jeep, and Huni, who had his camera. The clouds were looming in the late afternoon sky, like huge black turrets, with the sun bursting out from behind them, sending sprays of silver light into the air.

Szabi said that this was a good sign. "Bears love rain," he said. He said that there was more chance of seeing them after a storm.

And now we were driving back along that same potholed road we had followed to see the boar, till we came to a valley and took a turn. The valley was deeply wooded and scattered with new Swiss-style chalet buildings. There was a stream running through it, full of tumbling water. We took another turn and were going up a hill, on a gravel path now, as opposed to a road. At some point we stopped outside a compound, and Szabi got out to talk with the forest warden. I was watching. Attila said, "don't look. Maybe they are doing some business." Szabi got back in and we continued up the track, which got steeper and steeper, till we came to a barrier. Szabi got out, unlocked it, got back in, drove through the barrier, parked up again, and then locked the barrier behind.

After this the Russian jeep was in its element again: a rutted forest track wet with leaves.

After about half an hour we parked up and stepped into the gloom of the forest-cathedral, hushed and shady. It was like we were stepping into sacred time.

We were walking in a line, stepping over tree trunks and wading through slurries of mud. Szabi told us not to talk. Eventually he indicated with a gesture that we were to stop. He got out his binoculars and looked into the distant clearing. He made another gesture, a flick of the fingers that said that we were to duck in behind the trees. Then he passed me the binoculars.

That's when I saw it, peering out from behind a tree as I brought the binoculars into focus on the sunlit clearing ahead: the brown fur tinged with black quivering with flies, the long nose, the tiny myopic eyes.

I gasped for breath. It was as if the breath was yanked physically into my body. It was my first sight of a bear in the wild.

After that Szabi led us step by cautious step from tree to tree. A twig cracked. The bear heard us and stood on its hind legs to sniff the wind. It was at least seven and a half feet tall. It seemed to be looking straight at me.

I was caught out in the open. I was crouched down in the undergrowth holding my breath. Luckily bears have bad eyesight and the wind was in the wrong direction. It went back down on all fours and continued its feeding.

The process took about fifteen minutes, stopping and starting like this, ducking behind trees, melting into the undergrowth, but eventually we made it into the hide on a raised platform, from where we could see the whole clearing, with the bear and a family of wild boar snuffling and feeding, not more than twenty feet away.

As the bear approached the boar would scatter. He was definitely the king in this realm. You could tell by the walk, muscular and ambling, full of regal self-assurance.

The rain had stopped by now, but the bear was still wet. It shook itself and raindrops sprayed from its back. Szabi said it was a young male, about four or five years old. He handed me the binoculars and I watched it with intense fascination for at least thirty minutes. I couldn't take my eyes off it, not for a second. After that it slowly ambled its way from the clearing and was gone, closely followed by the boar.

Huni said, "you were a little bit afraid I think."

He must have heard the intake of breath.

But I wasn't afraid. I was awestruck. I was wrenched to the very roots of my being at my encounter with a creature of such awesome, majestic power.

I'm using a lot of superlatives here. They are all true. It was as if a part of me leapt from my body in that instant and went to join the bear in the wild.

Was this a "spiritual" experience?

Of course it was.

Take that expression "an intake of breath" for instance: it's another term for spirit. Spirit is breath. It is inspiration. In that moment I breathed the spirit of the bear on the wind. The bear and I were in communication. The word "spirit" is from the Latin and means breath or air. Every inspiration leads to expiration: to expression. I am expressing my feelings now. What is spiritual is the silent, invisible communication between beings carried on the breath of the wind.

Just like this story.

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