Last weekend saw me exploring the Carpathian Mountains again. This time I went to Bucsecs, a mountain area just 2 hours drive from Bucharest, just at the border of Transylvania. This area is characteristic of its enormous rock faces but I saw some other friendly faces as well!

I planned some nice hikes, going up from the town of Busteni (at 900m) to the Babele hut (2200m) with the cable car and from there I wanted to go to the nearby Omu peak (2500m) and then down to Busteni again. Unfortunately bad weather came in and after taking some pictures of the unique sandstone formations of the Babele I quickly retreated using the cable car again.

A rock face at Babele called "The Sphynx"

Another nice sandstone formation at Babele

At the top it was raining small iceballs – I’m sure there’s an English name for it, looks like my vocabulary of rain is still not extensive enough – but when I got down it changed to rain. So instead of hiking I went to see a beautiful little monastery.

Caraiman monastery with some huge rock faces in the background

On this trip I met several other ‘faces’ as well.

This cat in the shopwindow is not willing to show its face! How impolite!

This one was bribed with some crackers so I could take a picture of its face

And this one didn't need any bribe, it was nice to me

Two donkey-faces for Rachel (well, almost horses)

And a bird face for Pete and Istvan, unfortunately a bit blurred