It is very interesting, educational and humbling to observe how one extraordinary place has changed in the span of three years exactly.
The Devil's Canyon, or "Sheytan Dere", as we call it in Bulgarian, and here I have to note these are actually Turkish words, is a natural stone formations phenomenon on river Arda, one of the biggest and curviest rivers in South Bulgaria, at the end of the beautiful "Studen Kladenets" dam and that, translated into English would be "Cold Well", that sounds pretty cool in the hot summer, doesn't it? :)
An interesting aspect is also the fact that on my second travel there I noticed many new things. Some, great, but others I found quite irritating.
Most of the dams in Bulgaria have been built decades ago to harness the power of the water and turn it into electricity with the help of water power plants. Some say this is one of the cleanest and eco-friendliest ways to "harvest" electrical energy. As I have Masters in that field, I tend to disagree. There are so many negative impacts on Nature, like cutting the paths of the water fauna, the noise, the vibrations. I could continue but that's not the focus of my story today. My first visit of Devil's Canyon - I had limited time then and I was stunned by the creation of Mother Nature and thus, the huge electrical poles, the wires and the human footprint didn't annoy me so much back then.
Three years later, they do. A lot! I wonder what sick minded person had decided to "plant" those huge poles so close to that divine place. Actually, there is barely a perspective where a pole, or a wire, or a service building could be avoided... And the dam wall, it's huge. You see for yourself and imagine what the impact on Nature could be.
Here are two panoramic views to illustrate my thoughts:
You could see how the river bed is almost empty. The lower water level had given space to some algae and moss to "blacken" even more than before the beautiful rocks along the stream of the river.
These black "layers" were not there the previous time. Unfortunately I have noticed other traces of human activity - a lot of garbage. That's another thing I totally don't understand. Why throw garbage here? I can't find any other reason apart from stupidity and short-sightedness. Pardon my negativism!
Anyway... Let me put now few more beautiful pictures and observations.
Probably due to earthquakes, there were some new stone formations making the volcanic nature of the place even more obvious. I love those sci-fi, "nuclear" shapes :)
Some new and bigger trees, bushes, blooming herbs. It's lovely how Mother Nature wins back its territory :)
I would say that if it wasn't for the human footprints here, this place could easily be put under the "extraterrestrial" category! It is definitely a potential scene for a sci-fi movie :)
I am more than sure I will check this destination out again...
I also strongly hope that we, people, will become more reasonable and pay more respect to our environment. At least, let's not cut the tree branch we sit on :) Hope dies last, as we use to say...
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