“Travels to a Different Time” : 13July1974: Contanesti, Romania: No Tourist Ghetto for Me: Invasion of the Ladybugs

Pierre and part of the gang packed up their tents and were off. I headed off to the beach and ran into Vasha. But as soon as I sat down a huge invasion of ladybugs descended. They covered the air like locusts. It was hilarious watching everybody twitching trying to swat off the ladybugs. In any case the water on the Romanian Black Sea is numbing and I have had it with the constant haze in the air. I returned to the campground which is beginning to annoy me with its cold showers and stinking toilets. The lighting is poor. The restaurant serves disgusting food. They don’t empty the garbage cans. I went for lunch at the campground autoservice and the soup and donuts were inedible and not worth the line-up to get in. I took a bus or two and went to investigate Magnolia and Jupiter two resort areas full of shoddy hotels. I gotta get out of this place. A decrepit campground and a socialist “Beach Paradise” is not for me. As a leader of the few new Western tourists we snuck into the young communist camp discotheque. Vasha was with us and I danced with her off and on until she left at 11. I changed some money with Rick the DJ and then we all went to some new discotheque which was pathetic. Millions of guys but no girls.