You may be one of the many people asking… “Bulgaria? Why did you visit there?”

I had a ticket in and out of Dublin, Ireland for the month of October and I knew that I didn’t want to stay in Ireland for a month. I have been quite a few times and while I love it and have many friends to see, I didn’t want to spend a month there. So I began dreaming and researching possibilities for two weeks at another location. Portugal: I’ll volunteer to dive and save the ocean from plastic! Spain: I’ll hike and learn Spanish. Greece: I’ll hop aboard a sail boat for a week to some of the Greek Islands. Canary Islands: I’ll lay on the beach for a week., etc., etc. 

What I did know is that I didn’t want to navigate a different language and I was tired of traveling by myself everywhere. (While it definitely has it’s benefits, I didn’t want to travel alone and absolutely clear I didn’t want to be on a tour.

Being a person who tries alternative medicine first, I was familiar with Ayurveda, a 5,000 year old ancient healing modality that focuses on prevention to maintain health. When we sold The Riverbend Retreat Center in AZ, I had said to myself, I would go to New Mexico where they have an Ayurvedic school and do the PURVAKARMA AND PANCHAKARMA TREATMENT OF PURIFICATION AND DETOX.

I began searching where there were Ayurveda treatments that I could go to from Dublin and Bulgaria was one. I had a lot of unwinding (fear) to do around the trip. When I was growing up, Bulgaria was a communist country. It’s true, I didn’t speak the language, but the hotel would send a driver to pick me up at midnight. But the fact remained that I was in a country I knew nothing about, headed to a place I had only seen on a map, at midnight. It was all good.

The long and short of it: When I arrived, my metabolic weight was age 74 and when I left after two weeks it was 64. I had lost only 5 pounds but my body mass had somehow changed. I slept for the first week most of the days and all night except for yoga, meditation, meals and treatments. Who knew I was so tired? Not me! Ayurveda considers rest as important for one’s health as they do nutrition.

We were only allowed to walk 30 minutes a day as the goal is to get all the toxins from your limbs to the core for eliminating. The second week I ventured out to experience the quaint little town of Bansko. By the end of a walking tour I had taken, it was casually mentioned that there was a 1300 year old tree, the oldest tree in the Balkans, not far from where we were. I began asking around and ended up getting to visit that tree and others in the grove. The energy was so powerful that it brought me to tears. 

My goal was to reset my 66 year old body and experience other ways people care for themselves. I came away with a new acceptance and gratitude for my body just as it is. 

I’m grateful for the team of experts that came from India to Bansko to share their knowledge and expertise with others. And I so happy I got out of my comfort zone and experienced and explored other ways of moving in this beautiful world of ours.