The acme of a Balkan adventure

This is from Motosketeers's second adventure on two wheels. It happened few years ago.
I am Aramis, the third and oldest member of a romantic motorcycle riders group based in Plopeni - Romania. Four fierce lads, just like the real musketeers, named Motosketeers (imagine a musketeer with a motorbike instead of a horse) by ... well that is the subject of a different story :)

This time we were just entering Macedonia from Bulgaria and because the road was not adventurous enough, we looked on the map (a real paper map) and decide to take a shortcut through the mountains, from Martinitsa to Kamenitsa.

So we took that left left and carefully rolled on sort of a traffic-less industrial old road through the forests, up to some iron gates, where a congenial guard wanted to see our passports and confirmed by signs that indeed we could reach Kamenitsa that way.

On the other side of the gates there was a nature taking over industry landscape and then we reached a mysterious tunnel entrance:

Did't spend a lot of time contemplating it and started penetrating.
There was no light inside and the tunnel walls were edgy and frightening.
After half a mile the road started climbing in the dark and the air become foggy and humid.
Another half a mile and still no sign of the exit.

Porthos was riding before me but I could barely see him through that mist. A hesitation followed by a wheel slip on a rock and I dropped the motorcycle on that slope. Athos who was riding next to me jumped off to help me get up and then we saw two headlights approaching from behind. We had a brief moment of joy knowing that we are not alone in that cursed never ending tunnel, but then two men, wearing helmets and head lamps, came out of that car, speaking angrily Macedonian.

• You are deep in a mine! We work with explosives!! What are you doing here? Shouted one of them in English.
• We want to reach Kamenitsa, we've been told it's that way...
• Yes, you fools, but over the mountain, not through it!! You must immediately go back!

Its overwhelming to find out you are illegally and literally in the hart of a mountain, hard to describe that feeling.
But then we realized that Porthos, who was riding in front, is nowhere to be seen. He did not know i felt and continued through the mine. Another moment of panic! One of us rushed after him and they both came back after few minutes.

Then we slowly crawled out. It took a while... We counted the minutes like convicts in their last detention day.
We spend a moment not believing what just happened and started to search for the road over the mountains.
We found it.

In the group there was a Honda Hornet and Yamaha Fazer so getting on the other side was an adventure in its own, but, by the end of the day we made it.

That evening Porthos told us how he continued riding into the mine until he reached people, the actual miners that were working there with heavy equipment. Can you imagine what a fantastic encounter that was?

Imagine you're a Macedonian miner, working every day miles deep under a mountain.
And one day you realize the approaching light its not your colleague's helmet lamp.... it's a motorcycle.
A street bike.
A Yamaha Fazer! :)

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