Survival Skils in Wild Carpathians

We start the tour in Bucharest, capital of Romania. On arrival at the airport in Bucharest you will meet your guide, who will accompany you throughout the duration of the holiday.

We will travel to the village Lepşa (3 hours) located in the Eastern Carpathians on the border between Moldova and Transylvania, where we stay in a traditional guest house and we enjoy a traditional Romanian dinner. Upon arrival in Lepşa we shall meet to make a brief summary of what’s next in your adventure, what should contain your baggage and what you need to equip, then you are invited to relax in order to be prepared to experience and to explore the virgin forests of the Carpathians.

After you eat a delicious and hearty breakfast, you will be expected by your local guide and start on the adventure. Our hiking trail starts at the entrance to the protected area Tisita Gorges called Tisita mouth. Here you will learn how to use the map and compass to find your way. Once we have learned these two elements necessary we can continue our adventure. Throughout this route you will learn various tracks or other signs of presence of wildlife in order to know what dangers you may encounter.

You will learn how to proceed in case you encounter various wild animals and what you will need to do to survive their attack and the most important thing you have to do to prevent your encounter with wild animals.

We will reach a small mountain hut where we will have lunch that we had packed, during which you will learn about what kind of food should you have in your backpack and what to eat in such an adventure.

We will continue the trip and we will focus on identifying edible and medicinal plants and fruits but also recognizing poisonous plants and fruits.

On our way we meet a long, dark tunnel that is why we need a light source, now we will learn how to light a fire with two sticks only and how to make a torch.

We cross the tunnel and then turn off the torch and continue our walk trail learning techniquesof: breathing, crossing obstacles and dosing effort.

Once we arrive at the camping, our first objective will be the fire and the second building a shelter. We will build a hearth of fire and will start a fire with two sticks and will learn how to build a shelter with materials that we have in the forest. Once the shelter is ready, we have a cooking course, how can cook delicious food under adverse conditions and how will we prepare care products that we need in (soap, toothpaste and mouthwash).

Before we put to sleep safely the food and the luggage to avoid large carnivores attacks.

Now we are ready to test the shelter built if it is not comfortable, we have a backup plan, the hammocks, to ensure that the morning comes we will wake up refreshed.

Early in the morning we will light a fire and prepare a tea from the plants collected the previous day and we will have a good breakfast, natural and traditional.

We wash with soap prepared by us and we will test the toothpaste and mouthwash made by us.

Before we leave we will learn how to prepare the backpack in order to not disturb us and enables us to move more easily and also how important it is to not take unnecessary objects.

The route will be a little bit steeper in the first half that is why we carry out over 15 minutes of exercise before we start.

This day we continue to identify animal tracks and we learn walking and climbing techniques, in order to deal easier with the route that ascends steeply.

We will admire the wildlife from the mountain peaks and with a little luck we will have the chance to see chamois and deer.

Once up in the mountain water sources become scarce, we need to know where and how to look for water, all these things you will learn from our guide.

Finally we get to where we will spend the night, a sheepfold! If we arrive early we can help the shepherds, gather the sheeps, milk them and to prepare milk. We will learn how to communicate and behave with people who live in the Carpathians. At the sheepfold, we see and we learn more about the shepherds defense systems against large carnivores and the coexistence in the same territory with the largest carnivores in Europe.

To enjoy the fresh mountain air in the evening, if the sky is clear we will get a lesson in astronomy and how we guided by the stars. In the evening we will prepare for a great dinner as only in a sheepfold you can enjoy, we will tell stories with shepherds and we will hear stunning stories about carnivores attacks and encounters with them.  The evening will continue with songs performed by the shepperds using the flute, so you will have the opportunity to admire the artistry of those true artists. When the fatigue gained during this day will be felt we have to go to sleep in the guest rooms of the shepherds.

In the morning we will enjoy a rich breakfast in dairy products and we prepare for the last day of this adventure. We say goodbye to the shepherds and take little bit of each of their traditional products for lunch.

On this day we continue to learn about survival techniques, we learn new plants, we identify new traces of wild animals and we learn to move efficiently.

Also during this day we will learn how to make signals to know how to proceed if you will be injured or you will get lost, so you can attract the potential rescuers on the location where you are.

During the day you will see temporary shelters where people from the Carpathians were moved with all their animals and lived there from spring to autumn. You’ll be able to visit small farms and hear stories about them.

Our trip will end as soon as we pass two impressive natural monuments, a very narrow sector of the river and an area where we can easily find fossil specimens of fossil ichtyofauna.

From here we will be picked up by car by another guide and go to spend the night in a guesthouse in Lepşa.

The beginning of this day depends on flying hours in Bucharest. We will fill the lungs with fresh mountain air for the last time and we headed for Bucharest airport to take flight back home.