Spirit of Burgas - Bulgaria

After the bus ride we arrived at Yonat Hostel around 11pm. We were a bit disappointed to discover that our 2 bed dorm was actually a converted lounge room and also a thorough fare to a 4 bed dorm and therefore gave no privacy. The beds were so old and uncomfortable that they felt like you were sleeping in a hammock. It was also pretty hot, which didn’t make it easy to sleep. One good thing about the room was it had a double window over my bed but this opened inward. This meant I had one window pane just above my head and the other one across thighs meaning that if I woke up suddenly I was likely to bang both my head and my legs. Good times.

In the morning we headed out to breakfast with another Aussie Emily. She was meeting a couple of friends later in the day and the three of them would camp in the festival camping ground. Breakfast was at one of the many cafes along the main strip and we had salads which were a nice respite after all the beautiful meat we had been eating. After breakfast we had a swim to cool down but discovered the water in the Black Sea is surprisingly warm. It felt like it was around 25˚C so you didn’t actually cool down until you got out and the breeze hit you. Then of course the sun would also hit you and you would start to get hot again! Once we were done at the beach we headed to the Seagarden for a nap. The Seagarden is a park that runs alongside the beach front which has many trees and is nice and shady making it a popular place for naps as I’m sure many hostels including ours, and all the tents were far too hot during the day for sleep. A combination of the heat and lack of sleep over the past few days meant that I had a migraine. I was determined to head to the festival but after nearly falling asleep in my dinner, and making next to no sense when chatting to Damien, decided that bed was a better option.

Damien headed out to the festival after dropping me off at the hostel and tells me the Prodigy was awesome! He has been trying really hard not to rub in the fact that I missed a really good show, but as soon as someone asks him how it was, he gets all excited, sees my reaction then tries to tone it down.

The second day it was pancakes for breakfast then the same routine of a swim then a sleep in the park. Today I was feeling a bit better so managed to head into the festival to see Unkle and DJ Shadow. The best part about the festival is that it is actually on the beach. This also meant that it was really hard work to try to dance along as you were dancing on sand. I didn’t last long dancing, but found a good spot in the sand to watch the stage and enjoy the show. I really liked the local stage although I couldn’t understand what the band was singing about as it was in Bulgarian. I think the band was called ‘Pizza’ and it was a bit of a fusion between jazz, rock and punk. Everlast was meant to be playing tonight but cancelled in the last week and were replace on the main stage by a Bulgarian band called Wickeda, who were good and had a decent following.
It was the last day of the festival and I was feeling pretty good so we jumped on a bus and headed to ‘Sunny Beach’. This is Bulgaria’s equivalent to the Gold Coast. There were tacky hotels as far as the eye could see and it was actually difficult to find a spot to put your towel as the beach was covered with umbrellas and lounges for hire. We had a swim then got yelled at for using the shade of one of the unoccupied umbrellas. There were hundreds of these set up and most of them were free, so I’m not sure why the guy got so agro.
When we got back to the hostel we showered then headed out for dinner. By chance we met Emily and her friends for dinner at the same restaurant we had eaten at the first morning. We all then headed to the festival for the final evening which had a solid line up of Serj Tankin, Gorillaz and some DJ ‘Grand master Flash’.

The Festival is really cool, the main stage and many of the smaller stages are on the beach in the sand. The lineup of artists isn’t as strong as we would have liked it to have been (a few late cancellations didn’t help), but it has still been well worth the 60 euro we paid for the 3 day ticket. The bars in the festival were also a bit crap, taking 10-15 minutes just to get a beer that is half full of froth is not a great way to spend time at a festival!
The highlights were the Prodigy with great sound and an amazing light show. They also played a range of their older tracks and were excellent on stage, at one stage they had the whole crowd crouching in the sand during a pause in the music. Our other favorites was Serj Tankian (singer from System of a Down), who was probably the best from a musical point of view, although his preaching on stage was bit of a turn off between songs. Apollo 440 and Unkle were bit of a pleasant surprise, both putting on good performances. Of the Dj’s we were a bit disappointed by most of them. Gorillaz were a bit sedate, much of the crowd left half way through their performance and the other main ones (Andy C and Grand Master Flash) had good special effects and some decent music, but had annoying MC’s with a mike yelling ‘come on’ or ‘lets go’ every 30 seconds for 2 hours (alright mate so someone gave you a microphone but you’re not really that important). We actually enjoyed hanging out at the local stage which was quite small, but the artists played some good music and everyone was partying having a good time.