Crisan, In the heart of the Danube Delta

Ferry Ride:
The ferry ride to Crisan was more interesting than that to Sfintu Gheorghe. Prettier. It was mainly swampland, as in the Sfintu Gheorghe arm, but the principal difference being that there were some more signs of habitation, however small. There were wild horses and cows grazing on strips of land no more than six feet wide. Tiny villages sprang up in what seemed to be impossible places, the houses sandwiched between the river and the canal, looking as if they would flood if the river rose one or two feet.

Water was all around. Many houses had less than a dozen feet of land in front of and behind the house. The houses were similar as in other villages, except that they had the traditional reed roofs which are found only in the delta. They are good insulators; they keept the houses cool in the summer months. Cars in the delta are quasi-inexistent. You can see one or two bicycles on the dirt roads. Also, ducks, geese, and cows. Many people wear knee-high rubber boots. The principal occupation is fishing. Aside from the few miniscule villages, you can also see birds in the delta area. There are over 300 species of birds in the delta; it is one of the delta’s principal attractions. But mostly you notice water – and trees sprouting out of the water all around.

The ferry was much less crowded than the one we took to Sfintu Gheorghe. It was more comfortable, as well; there were even couches and lounge chairs. There were no gypsies; mostly local inhabitants carrying produce and foodstuffs.

Pensiunea Nufarul:
We arrived in Crisan without a phone number or the address of the guid we were supposed to contact for our planned excursion to Letea Forest the next day. We followed the signs for the information office; turns out the office is non-existent. Met Dragos and Anka along the way. They spoke French very well, and helped us to find Silviu, the director of the tourist office in Tulcea, who also owns the pension in Crisan.

Upon arrival at Silviu’s, he serves us a huge fish dinner, then shows us around the pension and asks us if we want to put our tent in his backyard. It is the house where he grew up. In the garden behind the pension is a regular Romanian garden – small plot of land, cow, dog, hens and roosters, geese, outhouse, laundry drying on the line. There was a canal out back.

We stayed for five days and paid for a couple of breakfasts, but aside from that, everything was free! Courtesy of Silviu! There was a high-school group of 35 French students staying at the pension the first two days, and he served us meals along with them. After they left, Tante Lina offered us “extra” food every day to complement our meals: fish soup, bread, dessert, and the like.

Typical dishes included fish, the delta specialty. Fish soup. For breakfast one morning, grilled fish with a tomato and garlic sauce. Breakfast was comprised of eggs, bread and butter, prune jam, soft cheese, an olive spread, and tea.

Flori was the new help, hired the week before we got there. Young, nice, and cute as anything. Would bring us food out on the terrace by the river. Had a tinkling laugh.

Learned to play chess this week with Stephane. Good game.

Letea Forest:
We went to Letea with the group of French students, who were studying the “Protection and Maintenance of Rural Zones.” They knew every species of bird and followed each one avidly with their binoculars. Their bird guidebook was their “bible.” We saw the white pelican, the very rare dalmation pelican, the purple heron, the ibis, swans, and others. We were fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of their binoculars. The boys were very nice (all but one out of the 35 were boys!)

The first part of the trip to Letea was by boat. We passed through some places that seemed impossible – floating islands that blocked the path and that the boat just pushed aside. Other channels were extremely narrow. Birds flew overhead and tree limbs hung low. After arriving in the village of Letea, our next part of the voyage was achieved by tracor. All 35 of us squeezed onto a wagon behind a tractor and headed into the forest.

The forest itself is a strictly protected zone. No economic activities allowed, no hunting, no fishing. No tourism except in an authorized group with a guide from the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority (DDBRA). Our guide seemed to know a lot of animal and plant species, but the French teachers said that he sometimes talked out of his hat when he didn’t know what a certain species was.

The forest landscape varied between forest, steppe, and dunes. There were pretty red flower with a black center on the steppe. The forest was dense. The sand from the dunes stung the eyes.

It was a nice day. Loved being on the boat. Eight hours total for the entire trip. Grilled fish lunch on the boat. And it was all free – another gift from Silviu!

Rowboat, Canoe:
We took five rowboats out on the canal with the French group after the excursion to Letea. Great fun, and kind of funny when there was a traffic jam in the canal. The sand bottom was very shallow. Another boat bumped into us, pushed us over two feet, just far enough to get stuck on a sand bar. Stephane had to get out and push! Funny for me, that is! Although, afterwards, we found out that there were leeches in the water. Yuk! I saw one the next day when we were canoeing. Made me think of “African Queen,” that old movie where Humphrey Bogart gets covered in leeches!

Canoeing was more difficult for me. I was more used to rowing, but had only been canoeing one time before. I preferred rowing because it was symmetrical in its workout and worked the shoulders, and not the arms. Stephane preferred the canoe because he was better at directing it.

We paddled from the canal behind Petre’s to the adjoining four lakes. There was a strong wind, so many of the paths were blocked by the floating islands. The floating islands were bunches of reeds and earth which moved with the wind. If you weren’t careful, you could get stuck by these thick patches. They were often the temporary home of frogs and snails. Speaking of which, as we paddled along the lakes’ edge, we saw many frogs and toads, watersnakes, ducks, colonies of snails, and dead fish. Also birds, such as the swan, the white pelican, purple herons, and the pygmy cormorant, all to the background music of croaking toads and frogs.

Paddling was easier at the end of the day. I was getting more used to it. We passed into tiny little paths, ducked under low-lying branches, and paddled through tall reeds, lily pads, and bright yellow flowers. At one point, Stephane wanted to play “Indiana Jones” and we got stuck in the middle of swampland bordered by bushes. It was then that I saw a leech on my paddle! Afterwards, we paddled back through the canal and enjoyed the colors of the evening twilight.

The Village:
Crisan lay in a straight line along the river, 7 km. long, one house deep, which lay between the river and the canal. Seven km: as long as Paris, from east to west. However, in Crisan, there were only 400 inhabitants. Along the dirt path between the houses and river were cows, geese with their goslings, oinking pigs. Many houses had the raditional reed roof of the delta, and all had gardens out front. Behind the houses, in the garden before the canal, were the chickens, crowing roosters, dogs, cows, and baby calves. And many snakes, too! Almost every house had their own eggs and fresh milk.

We cycled from one end of the village to the other. At one end was a channel which prevented you from going any farther, and at the other end, 1 km. after the last house, was where the land turned in an S-shape towards the canal. The whole area was swampland, with a couple of trees scattered here and there, the “forest” where we would have slept if Silviu had not invited us to stay at his house. We were standing by these bushes, watching the multitude of croaking toads and frogs, when several dozen wild cows and bulls came walkng through the reeds towards us. Most took care to walk around us, but several of the more curious came to within a few feet of us and gazed at us curiously. We looked back at them. The wild horses and ponies kept their distance. The whole area was a landmine of cow poop.

Unfortunately, all of the trash that had been thrown in the river upstream seemed to congregate along the banks of this small village, and especially in this S-shape turn at the end of the village.

On the river, you could see large ferries or ships passing every once in a while either to dock in Crisan with passengers or to continue to the bigger port of Sulina. Also fishermen in their small fishing boats or men in rowboats, rowing either with or against the wind and the current. There were also some motorboats, which were used by the locals, but which could also be hired by tourists to visit some of the more wild backwaters.

Many people in Crisan speak French. During the Communist era, children learned Russian and French. They still continue to learn French in school, but the school system changed from Russian to English last year. Many people in the large Ukranian community had fought to keep Russian in the schools, but English won out. As regards the schools, there is a primary school in Crisan, but students must go either to Tulcea or Sulina for high school. They stay either with relatives during the week, or must pay for lodging, then return home by boat for the weekend. Students must also pay for their books. Between books and lodging, high school can become expensive, and not everyone can afford to go.

We had dinner with Dragos and Anka of the Vox Delta Association, whom we had met coming off of the boat the first day. The homemade blueberry liquor was excellent – best liquor I’ve ever had – and the ham soup was delicious. As was the fish and leek pastry. Had a great time. Couldn’t believe that they could speak French with a better accent than me, having only been to France on vacation, while I had lived there for almost four years!

We biked home from Dragos and Anka’s house, the night black and the path barely visible. All of a sudden, out of the darkness, we found ourselves staring striaght into the eyes of a bull, which was only two feet away from us. Then another pair of eyes, and another. In fact, we were separated only by a short wall, the bulls grazing on the river banks, and us on the sandy road. As we passed by on the bikes, we found ourselves at the same height as the huge bulls. My heart jumped with these big eyes looming up out of the darkness so suddenly!

River Clean-Up:
Anka, a teacher of Romanian at the primary school, had organized a river clean-up with her class on Saturday. It seemed a worthwhile cause, so we joined them at 9:00 on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, only half a dozen students showed up; Anka says that certain parents refuse that their children participate, presumably because it’s not the kind of work that they want their children doing. But the ones that did show up, from four different families, were motivated. Four were from the fifth grade (11 years old) and two were in the eighth grade (14 years old). There was Nicoletta, Johanna, Andrea, Laura, Denise, and Gheorghe. The older ones spoke French surprisingly well, and even some of the younger ones were eager to try out their second language.

We found all sorts of things as we picked up trash from the riverbanks: syringes, diapers, condoms, bottles, frogs, dead snakes and birds. As we neared noon, Anka had to go home to work, but the girls were motivated and wanted to continue the clean-up, so we stayed with them. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to leave the trash, so it had to be burned. Exchange one type of pollution for another, but choose the lesser evil.

Anka told us that this was the first year that the state had sponsored a clean-up in the delta. She fears it won’t last, though. It is an election year, and many think that it was organized to give a good image to the candidates. Welfare recipients cleaned trash from the river the first week of April, but the bags of garbage have been sitting around for over a month, waiting for a boat to come pick it up so that it can be burned.

Dinner with Dragos, Anka, and Petre:
We had another dinner at Dragos and Anka’s on Saturday night. It was a festive affair. Petre, the man who rented canoes, came too. Fish with beer grilled over an open fire in the garden was the first course. Then came more fish in a tomato sauce, and lastly came crayfish, which they had caught in the river that day. The grilled fish, as is usual in the delta, was served whole, and you pick the meat off the bones with your fingers. We’ve had a lot of fish here in the delta. It’s been such a treat!

It was a great evening. Petre is super, Anka is nice, Dragos is what they call a “bon vivant” – he loves the good life – eating, smoking, drinking, music. He served drinks all night long, progressing from beer to brandy to champagne to wine! Every time his glass was empty, Dragos would look around the table and say, “Hey, my glass is empty,” making us laugh, and someone would fill it up.

Petre drove us back home through the still night to the other end of the village in his motorboat. No staring into the eyes of bulls this time around….