Rila, Boyana and the Caves of St. Ivan - our last day in the Balkans

02/08/2019

Hi! It's Eleanor again. Today was our last full day in the Balkans - we can't believe it's nearly time to go home! Before all of that though, we had booked a full day tour of Rila Monastery, Boyana church and the Cave of St. Ivan, Bulgaria's most important religious sites. We went to Billa early in the morning to buy breakfast and lunch for the day. I bought a delicious pain au chocolat and ate it in front of the church where we were meeting the Rila Monastery tour group. Our group was made up of 2 Americans and 3 Bulgarian-Canadians, as well as us. It was an hour and a half trip to the monastery, and when we got there we had the unsettling realisation that it was quite cold up there and none of us had brought a jumper! We had a tour around the monastery for about an hour, which involved the tour guide telling us to look at some Saint "figures" in a glass case which turned out to be severed fingers. After the tour we had some free time, so we took some photos and drank some blessed water.

I tried to eat my lunch in the minibus on the way to the next stop on the tour, however the tour guide overestimated how long it would take to get there so I was in the process of making a cheese sandwich when we stopped. We exited the bus and headed to the Caves of St. Ivan (who, after much confusion, we discovered was also known in English as St. John), which involved a 20 minute walk through a forest before we got there, which I really loved. They had built a Church on the site where St Ivan had lived as a hermit. I didn't go into the church because I was too busy exploring the caves with Emma G. Emma also murdered an ant with some blessed water, so whilst the ant might be going to heaven now, Emma is definitely going to hell.

We then travelled to the Boyana Church and looked around. Only 8 people were allowed in the church at once, so me, Gaby and Emma G went in with the other members of our tour group. The frescoes were a thousand years old and very beautiful. We ended up getting back to the hostel an hour and a half later than expected so we couldn't do any more sightseeing. However, the six of us went to find a post office to send the first aid supplies to the Balkans charity we were helping, but it took us a while to find one so we were out for a long time. We also bought presents for all of the leaders. We went out for dinner at a Greek restaurant, and we reminisced about our trip and gave the presents to the leaders. 

Unfortunately we were caught in a thunderstorm on the way back to the hostel, so many of us decided to run back, with Gaby leading the way, whilst shrieking and flailing our arms. Me, and the two Emmas found a lift we could take instead of the outside stairs, however the lights and the buttons in the lift kept flickering so I was convinced we were gonna die. When we exited the lift, we heard Gaby shrieking at everyone not to touch the metal handrails incase we got struck by lightning. We then ran through the park, across the tram lines, along the street and into the safety of our hostel (editor's note: Sofia is full of buildings much taller than we were at street level - we were perfectly safe!). We then had hot showers and packed ready for the morning and our flight home.