Vacation Recap - Week 1

The first week we spent at E.K.E. Traveling Camp, which was organized by the Erdélyi Kárpát-Egyesület – Kolozsvár 1891. This organization is a branch of the Carpathian Society from Transylvania (E.K.E.). Their activity is mainly based on environmental education and on the protection of the environment, the beauties and treasures of nature, our cultural heritage, historical monuments, and ethnographic characteristics.

Every year a different branch office organizes the E.K.E. Traveling Camp in which thousands of people participate from worldwide. This year my city`s branch was in charge of the camp and it was placed in the commune Alsójára, a village which is surrounded by the most beautiful hiking places such as: national reserve Turda Gorges (in Romanian Cheile Turzii, Hungarian Tordai-hasadék), national reserve Tureni Gorges (in Romanian Cheile Turului, in Hungarian Túri-hasadék), Torockó commune, the ruins of Géczi Castle (in Romanian Cetatea Geczy/Liteni, in Hungarian Géczi/Létai vár) and many more mesmerizing places.

This is me on the day we arrived on camp, as you can see I am wearing my mushroom brooch, which actually brought me luck on more than one events :


There were 18 hiking trips every day from which we could choose from, some to the places I mentioned above, some to not so popular, but as much or even more of an eye-candy, wonderland-ish sights. And the sights weren`t the only eye-candy to see:


The first trip we choose was lead by my parents, who are members of E.K.E. in my city and took their part very seriously in organizing the camp. Their hike took us through the Túri-hasadék, which was an amazing adventure full with rock climbing and some wild trails, at the end of the hike we got a full frontal view of the Tordai-hasadék.

My parents in their matching E.K.E. T-shirts and caps:


The Tordai-hasadék:


The next day we went down in the Aranyos river`s (in Romanian Aries river) valley. Alongside we could witness wonderful scenery, filled with waterfalls and tributary rivers that flow into the main river. Our main goal was a lake-like formation that the locals call Csukas lake where we could go for a swim.


Our third and final hiking trip was to the Géczi Castle that I mentioned earlier. This was the shortest of our excursions, only 7 km that we did on foot, but it was amazing.

The ruins are remarkable :

and we even had a bit of fog so the photos we took came out really great :



A last photo that I just have to show you is of one of the youngest participators :


So this was my recap of our first week of vacation, it really was a great experience that I`ll hope we`ll be repeating next year!

Have a great day,
Enci