I’ve always considered hiking a hobby of mine. We used to climb as kids the hills around my hometown with our parents and then, when we were a bit older, alone, my siblings and I.
After uni I got a bit lazy, but I would still go hiking form time to time with friends. Two of which were Jack and Mindy. Jack I’ve known since our second year of uni when we were assigned a project together. Mindy was Jack’s girlfriend. She also went to the same uni as us, but was a bit younger.
On one of our hikes Jack says to me: “we know the mountains here in Britain like the backs of our hands now. What do you say we climb some other ones too?”
“What? Like the Alps”
“Not exactly. I had something a tad further away in mind.”
“Like what? The Himalayas? Come on, mate. Why are you being so vague. Spit it out! The suspense is killing me.”
“If you don’t watch your step, you won’t have to wait for the suspense to kill you,” he said mockingly. “Mindy and I are going next year on holiday to Romania. To Traaanssylvaaniaaa,” he said trying to sound spooky, but failing.
“And what do you need me for? Are you afraid of vampires or something? Do you want me to check under the bed every night?” I said with a big grin on my face.
“Nah, mate,” he said laughing, “come with us on holiday. We’ll go hiking in the Carpathian mountains. It’ll be cool.”
“Why not the Alps? Those are much higher and better known.”
“And full of tourist traps. The Carpathians are the last wilderness in Europe. Those mountains are apparently still full of wolves and bears. Maybe we’ll see some.”
By now Mindy caught up to us. “Leave him alone, Jack,” she said grinning, “the man can’t help, if he’s afraid of the big bad wolf.” We all burst in laughter.
Somehow I let them convince me and next year we flew to Romania. We stayed in a city near the mountains called Brasov. We went sightseeing for a few days, then we visited a few tourist attractions outside the city, like the so-called castle of Dracula, even though the guy never even set foot there. We even visited a bear sanctuary, where former captive bears can roam freely. Apparently they can’t be released into the wild, not having the necessary skills to survive.
On Saturday we came back to Brasov and on Sunday we wanted to go hiking.
The plan was to climb the mountain and then camp near the edge of the forest. We were stupid like that. Of course we took every precaution against wild animals. We bought quite a few books on the subject and even consulted the local mountain rescuers. Jack hadn’t been kidding about wolves and bears. According to locals, sometimes bear come into the city and go through trash cans, like raccoons do in America. Only quite a bit more dangerous.
Bears are quite timid creatures actually. They try to avoid humans as much as possible. Sadly lately it’s getting less and less possible, with humans intruding into their habitat and bears catching on to the idea, that humans throw away a lot of food.
The Carpathians aren’t tall mountains. We got to the summit relatively quickly. The view was breath taking. I know you can say the same about every mountain, but every mountain is special in it’s own way. However, even though we were on the beaten path on a Sunday, we didn’t meet any other hikers. This was kind of strange at first, until we remembered that it was Whitsunday in Romania. Romania is a majority Greek Orthodox country. Greek Orthodox Christians don’t celebrate Easter, and Whitsunday consequently, on the same date as Catholics and Protestants, so back in Britain we had already celebrated Whitsunday a week before.
After getting to the summit, we rested a bit, had a snack and cracked a few jokes and beers. After we finished mucking about, we went on to look for a place to put up our tent, a bit off the beaten path. We searched for a while but we found a nice spot in an open place, quite a distance from the woods. By the time we finished setting up camp, it started to get late and we made a camp fire. We brewed some nice herbal tea an had another snack.
“So how do you like it up here?” Mindy said to me.
“It’s amazing,” I said. “Beautiful landscapes, fresh air, quiet.”
“I’m glad you like it. We like it too,” she added.
“Well I am a bit disappointed,” I said jokingly, “that we didn’t meet any vampires.”
“It’s not too late,” said Jack, “we’re still in Transylvania, still in the wilderness, nobody’s around to hear you scream. In a way it’s kind of like space that way.”
We both burst into laughter. Mindy, however, wasn’t amused. “Shut up!” she said. “Don’t talk like that!”
“We’re just joking, babe,” said Jack, “you know there’s no such thing as vampires.”
“No, I don’t,” she said worried, “I really don’t.”
Jack looked at me questioningly, as to say, “What’s gotten into her?” I just shrugged and said “It’s getting late and I’m getting tired. I think I’d better go to sleep.”
“Right behind you,” said Jack.
During the night I woke up to answer the call of nature. I looked at my phone, it was 3 o’clock. After I finished my business, I heard some humming from the direction of the forest. I turned around to see and before I could even turn, suddenly the humming turned into clear singing. It was such beautiful singing and so strange at the same time. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard. It didn’t sound exactly like western church chanting, it didn’t sound like blues either or like oriental music and yet somehow it sounded like all of them at once maybe with a bit of heavy metal thrown into the mix as well. There were no instruments, just voices, and those voices sounded angelic and demonic at the same time. It was amazing how they combined chanting with mournful cries with metal-like growls. And all of those, as strange as it may sound, were in harmony with each other, peppered from time to time with liberal amounts of disharmony, making the whole thing quite literally mesmerising. At first I couldn’t see who was singing, but as I continued to listen, the singers slowly became visible. They ware a rather large group of young women, all naked, their curvy bodies thrashing around in some kind of ecstatic dance.
I entered some sort of a trance. I came out of the trance only then I was just a few meters away from them. They were still dancing in a circle but they weren’t dancing on the ground, like they were before, now they were floating almost a meter above the ground, dancing in midair. Two or three of them broke away and were gesturing me to join them in their dance. They were so beautiful. Every part of their body was perfect. Their skin was glowing in the moonlight and their hair was waiving in the wind, like they were in a shampoo commercial.
I really wanted to join them. My feet were moving forward, but something in my mind was screaming “No, turn back!” With great effort I managed to stop myself form moving towards them. I turned back and ran away. Suddenly the singing stopped and they all started shrieking. It was so horrible, I had to cover my ears.
Soon the shrieking stopped. I was thankful, but they started to chant angrily, what I can only assume was a curse. They hadn’t finished chanting yet and I turned into a wild boar. It’s bin three years since. Once a year after Whitsunday I turn back into a man for a week. That was this Sunday, so until Saturday I’ll have the mental capacity to try and find a way to break the curse. Last year I found out from a terrified old lady, that there might be a way. The women I saw are called Iele and are kind of similar to fairies. They punish everybody who see them dancing but most harshly those who refuse to dance with them. If you join them, however, you will dance until you die of exhaustion. There’s apparently another dace, one performed by humans this time, that might be able to cure curses cast by Iele. I hope I’ll find somebody until Saturday who can teach me this dance. I won’t be able to learn it in less then a week, so I’ll have to wait until next year. Hopefully I won’t get poached until then. I got really close to getting shot a few months ago.
I managed to steal a mobile phone and write about my situation. Hopefully somebody can tell me what the dance is called and how I can learn it. Thank you!