Rila Monastery

Kati and I in Front of the Monastery Church

Yesterday we took a day trip into the nearby Rila Mountains with one of the owners of our hostel.  I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time, but I'll get to that later.  The Rila Monastery was founded by St. Ivan in the 10th century.  Additionally, St. Ivan lived in a cave above the current monastery for 12 years before founding it.  We got to go to both the cave and the monastery.  Originally Kati and I had planned to sleep at the monastery, but the logistics of getting there and back by public transportation were going to be a nightmare, so we settled for a day trip.

Our group consisted of Kati, myself, Nadia (our tour guide), and a young Slovenian kid named Eric.  When we met Eric and he told us he was from Slovenia I couldn't believe it.  Yet he couldn't believe I knew where Slovenia was, much less that it was my favorite country in the world.  He kept asking me things like, "You know there's a difference between Slovenia and Slovakia, right?"  Finally I think I sufficiently proved my knowledge of Slovenia to satisfy him.  Later he told us a pretty funny Slovenian joke:

One day the Slovenians got tired of their bad economic situation.  They got tired of not having any jobs, so they made a plan.  They decided to build a nuclear bomb.  After building the bomb, they sent it to the US and requested that the US fire it at the country and erase it from the map.  A few days later Obama called the Slovenian President and said, "We'd be happy to destroy your country, there's just one problem, we don't know where it is."

He was a pretty strange guy, but it was very interesting listening to Nadia and himself comparing cultures and traditions on the drive up to the monastery.

First we went to the cave.  It was about a 15-20 minute hike from where we parked.  The cave was tiny!  It's pretty unbelievable that somebody lived there at all, much less for 12 years.  There is a belief in Bulgaria that if you write a wish on a piece of paper, leave it in the rocks at the bottom of the cave, and then squeeze up through the cave's top entrance, your wish will come true.  Seeing all of the folded pieces of paper wedged into the rocks was pretty neat.  Coming out of the top entrance of the cave was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated.  It was a very narrow and wavy vertical path through the rocks, yet we made it through.

Afterwards we went to the monastery itself.  It was incredible!  The architecture and the colors are unlike anything I've seen before.  The church has paintings covering the porticoed  terrace that surrounds it and the inside is breathtakingly beautiful.  After visiting the church, I was a little confused because I hadn't been able to find what I went there to see.  Hoping for some guidance, I walked outside and asked Nadia, "Isn't there supposed to be a wooden cross here somewhere?"  She responded in sheer amazement and kept asking me how I knew about the cross.

Rafael's Cross

The wooden cross I'm talking about is called Rafael's Cross and it's the story that makes it so cool.  A monk at the Rila Monastery spent 14 years carving this cross out of boxwood.  Both sides of the cross are covered with intricate biblical scenes that include over 600 individual figures!  It took Rafael 14 years to finish the cross, and the day after he finished it, he went blind.  Nadia said she didn't know where the cross was, but that she didn't think it was at the monastery...my heart sunk.  Yet she got on the phone, made some calls, and found out it was in fact at the monastery, in the back museum.  Excited, Kati and I practically ran over to the museum to check it out.  It was everything I'd hoped for, although much smaller than I thought.  Kati and I had both envisioned a pretty large cross, but it was only about two feet tall, making all of the intricate carvings even more impressive!  You're not allowed to take pictures in the museum, but we had to make an exception for this.  Kati acted as a human shield as I quickly took a covert picture of the cross.  It really is amazing!

When we came out of the museum it had started raining!  Amazingly, this is the first time that we've seen rain since we left Hungary so many weeks ago.  It wasn't too bad though, we were about to leave anyway.  Before getting back in the car we got some Bulgarian donuts, which turned out to be hand-sized funnel cakes.  They were really good.  It was a great trip.

Right now we're about to leave our hostel and figure out our next step.  We're catching the night train to Istanbul, but we may catch an early train south to Plovdiv to explore the ancient city there and kill time before our train leaves.  Hopefully this train won't be nearly as bad as the one to Sofia...the Alaskan couple told us that at least this train has couchettes and not just coach seats.  Crossing our fingers!