Day 13: You can go your own way, go your own way.

Miles: 420 (+6200ft elevation)
Countries: Romania
Stops: Timisoara -> a million little rest stops along route -> Brasov -> Transfargarasan 
Playlists: DJ Chris', Epic Hype Songs (Spotify),

It was an early and cranky morning for everyone yesterday. We set alarms to make sure we're out and on the road by 7 to make up for lost time. But having 4 people in the Aussie car makes it only natural that they had to stop every hour. Our planned arrival at the Dracula castle was around noon. We didn't get there until after 4 with the ridiculous number of stops required and construction delays. Justin and I were starting to get cranky because as awesome as it is to travel with them, we're on a time crunch and they're not...

So being already cranky doesn't help in 40 degree weather where we're sweating so much the seats are wet. I changed into my bikini and did the entire drive like that with my feet out the window.

On top of all that, we did what was supposed to be 1.5 hours and turned into a 3 hour detour to see this damn Dracula castle and it was the biggest let down. There was absolutely nothing special about it. Not sure if we were just cranky, it was too hot, tight, and busy, the fact that it really had nothing to do with Dracula or just lame overall. We have this thing where we *always* go see a castle when we travel and we have yet to be so underwhelmed. Even the one in BC which wasn't a real castle was infinitely more impressive. Overall, we weren't too happy. And the day was getting away from us with the sun setting which stressed justin since we still had to go on the mountain highway - not something you do in the dark. AND we wanted to make it to Bucharest and past it towards Bulgaria tonight. Overall, just stressing and the other team being super laid back didn't help. Especially when we were ready to get going after the castle and they announced that they decided to spend the night in Dracula town. Sad to say bye, but it was necessary in order to keep our sanity.

We got on the road and started backtracking to get back on the main highway. Romanians are many things.. but dear god, the driving. People overtake each other on parts of the road where they 100% shouldn't and from our angle looks like they're about to clip the incoming car before getting back into their lane. And the car that was on coming isn't even phased by it. So we keep our distance and mind our own business. We did get a few headlight flashes warning us of a speed trap ahead which was awesome! There were 5 cars parked around the corner ready to snag people! We also saw a ridiculous amount of security cars on the highway - we're thinking scanning for vignettes. Romania does not kid around, so we shall be on our best behaviour and keep washing our car.

We finally reached the highway justin has been obsessed with for ears. The Transfargarsan is a highway built THROUGH the mountains and it's absolutely unreal as it snakes like crazy and is one of the most famous roads in the world. So you can imagine what Justin was like - except, of course, he's in the wrong car for this (thank god!). There's also a specific part of the highway that he's been looking forward to most and now the sun was really setting and he was afraid we wouldn't make it. We're still about 2.5 hours from Bucharest.

We did make it to that part of the highway, got a bunch of drone footage, and parked at exactly 5999ft on the other side with the idea of getting sunrise footage. It was still light out so we got comfortable, set up the bed and justin started playing with the camera. It got dark soon enough and he got some amazing shots of the stars. You could see the Milky Way, it was absolutely gorgeous. I had grabbed an altitude sickness pill just in case. The headache was there but bearable, just figured be prepared for the full night. Justin didn't grab one although he felt a little loopy. And this is long enough for one post.