Day 14: Gabi's world

Who is this Taiwanese child? And why am I boarding his boat?

Sozopol, Bulgaria. The beard-growing competition is hotting up. Steve and I are neck and neck, while Jeff's is so pathetic he's clinging desperately to claims of 'most stylish growth'. He's like a teenage boy doing a Craig David. Meanwhile he's decided mine makes me look like a Flump - 'because they had big lips poking out of their flumpy faces'.

We're supposed to be heading to Istanbul today, but we figure it too special to enter without everyone on full form, so with Steve still suffering we're going to stay at the campsite one more night and let him recover. This frees us up to chill out. The trip hasn't been the same since his body turned weird, and things have hit a little lull. But suddenly being able to forget about going anywhere and enjoy where we are makes us appreciate that we're actually in a pretty interesting place, and one where I can once again bust out my trump card of being 'blatantly the palest person here. By miles'.

We head down for a dip in the Black Sea, which marks a special moment after crossing the whole of Europe, which is pretty exclusively solid. We're not too into a day in sweltering heat on the beach and are about to head back to the campsite when the whirlwind Gabi and his family show up, and then as usual we're swept along into his world. He's calling me over: 'Dave! Come! We buy beer.' I'm really confused, because as he says that he's ushering me into a motorboat - which is being driven by a small Taiwanese boy. At whom he's waving a 50 note. What's going on? Who is this boy? And where are we going to buy beer out to sea?

I wave a helpless goodbye to my peers, and head off across the ocean. The boy seems as confused as me that fate has deemed him part of Gabi's plans. In the end we just take the boat right to other end of the beach, being waved in by a 60-year-old German called Holger. Turns out the boatman is Yo Yo, his son. None of this makes any sense.

Steve, the man who's been out of it since we arrived in the country, has to walk the mile and a half across the sand to meet us. As does Jeff, and Gabi's wife Laura, who's carrying all their beach stuff. Gabi is definitely mental. And we still don't have any beer. So he sends his two under-age sons, Meh and Cosmin, off in a boat with Yo Yo to go and buy us a few bottles.

When they get back we get stuck into a game of beer-fuelled beach footie, in the sweltering heat, fulfilling the ambition we had back in Romania of having a kickabout with the kids in the name of international harmony. The only snag - I'd never imagined that game being interrupted by a middle-aged Bulgarian man jogging across the pitch wearing nothing but a red baseball cap. That's the trouble with imagination: it doesn't prepare you for such brilliant detail.

We head back for more prison food and a mong, and before the sun sets we go for international football round two, again in the sweltering heat, this time on the campsite's run-down concrete court. Gabi coerces two fear-struck Russian kids to play with us. Then a grown man appears on the touchline, trainers in hand, waiting to be asked to join in. He's Bulgarian, and utterly mental - he's so into his football he's running at Mario, the chubby eight-year-old Russian, full pelt, steamrollering him out the way so he can show off his back-heels and clever little flicks, before unleashing full-welly blasts at Steve's face from about four yards. He may be taking it a mite seriously. It's unbelievably hot, but we play on till it's pitch black, like summer nights long gone.

The exertion has totally destroyed Steve, so he crashes out again while Jeff and I explore the beach bars. Friday night, beach resort, height of summer - there's bound to be something happening. Also, since witnessing the effects of illness on our bretheren and noting the importance of keeping your fluids up, I've spent all day drinking beer and coffee and running around in the sun, so it's important to carry on.

We go to a bar where we saw a bird with a pointless rat-dog earlier. She'd scowled at me for sitting near her laptop. The bar is completely empty, save for the two people working there. In fact all the bars we passed on the way there were empty. It's a weird resort.

The staff turn out to be husband and wife. They tell us how it's the bar's first summer, and that with business as it is it may well be the last. The guy's name is Jorge - his Engish is ace, and we enjoy the chance to get to know Bulgarians. The couple aren't happy here - they like the winter, when they work as ski instructors. And we get on really well - despite knowing them for only an hour or so, they're already inviting us back to check out the snow.

Turns out the bird with the weird dog is the incumbent Bulgarian Playmate - she's on the cover this month. Jorge tells us she's mental. Later we catch a look at the screensaver on his laptop. It's a sultry brunette posing in the shoreline in a bikini. We figure it's the Playboy woman. No, he says, it's my wife. Jesus. She looks pleased at our reaction.

We say our goodbyes, and his wife offers her hand for a shake. Jeff wants more. 'Can I kiss your face?' he asks. He's being overly polite because she's foreign, but still it makes no sense and he just ends up sounding weird. I'm quite taken with the phrase, so I ask it too. 'Can I kiss your face?' We walk back up the beach laughing. Can I kiss your face? She must think we're mental.

When we get back to the campsite, Gabi's light and TV are still on, but we can see him lolling on his airbed. We're really quiet, fearing that if we wake the giant we'll be sent spinning yet again into an increasingly familiar world of weirdness. But he stirs and stomps about a bit, and is soon inviting us over. 'Sit'. We sit. Then we're treated to more home-made wine, and a great long chat till the depths of the morning, about life under Ceausescu, and Big Problems in general. At one point he sits there graphically imitating someone with mental illness. I'm not quite sure why.

Gabi decides I'm the biggest idiot of the three of us. I can't really argue with that. Then he looks at Jeff, who's having a quiet moment. 'You have problems,' he says. 'What kind of problems?' asks Jeff. 'Problems in general.' How can a man so clearly mental be so astute?

Gabi is getting increasingly into learning about our trip, and once we get the maps out and show him the plan in all its gruesome detail there's no stopping him. 'Big Problems, Big Problems.' He dubs it the Idiot Rally. Pretty soon he's uttering dire warnings about what we (or more specifically Steve and Jeff) can expect to happen in Turkmenistan. Suffice to say I'm not upset at my random exclusion. Gabi is so pleased with his observation he keeps folding into childlike bursts of gleeful laughter. He is mental, but he's brilliant.