there is no one around, the only sound is the whisper of leaves falling. Surrounding us are maple groves and copses of beech, ash and elm, blocking out the midday sun. Southwards is Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania’s unofficial capital, but we are heading north, picking our way along a shepherd’s trail in Hoia Baciu, the famed belt of old-growth forest often referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of Romania.
With local guide Alex Surducan leading the way, we set off from the Someșul Mic river for a morning ramble to see where our journey might lead. His company, the Hoia Bacui Project, has pioneered photography, riding and camping tours in this fold of the Carpathian foothills, and few know the 55,000-year-old forest better than him.
Deer crack twigs underfoot in the shadows and I spy a steppe eagle arcing overhead through a gap in the canopy. If our luck holds, Alex tells me, a shy brown bear might walk across our path. It is the perfect moment of stillness, and yet something feels amiss. With such stark, primordial beauty in every nook of this 700-acre, semi-protected wilderness, why is no one else here?
“This is bat country, remember,” Alex says, as we edge deeper into the ancient woods. “The creepiness puts people off, and sometimes even I half expect a bogeyman to jump out from behind a tree.”
For all the talk of vampire tourism in Romania, Cluj-Napoca is where more down-to-earth, tangible experiences are easy to come by. There is plenty of Dracula shtick on offer elsewhere in the region, from the over-touristic towns of Sighişoara and Braşov to Bran Castle. But far fewer people have even heard of Cluj-Napoca.
Alex’s sceptical take is that we have become so disconnected with nature, so uncomfortable spending time in the woods We move haltingly, stopping to study the woodland: verges of gypsy mushrooms waiting to be picked, trees bent crooked into zigzags and skeletal branches twisted like braids of rope. The unexpected element in this scene is that Hoia Baciu has an eerie touch, too. Farmers in the valley swear the forest is haunted, Alex says, citing a tale of a shepherd who disappeared with more than 200 of his flock. Another story tells of a five-year-old girl who got lost, only to reappear five years later with no recollection of where she had been. Others, among them professors at the city’s Babeș-Bolyai University, claim the woodland is a home to inexplicable paranormal activity.
After years of trying to make sense of it all, Alex’s sceptical take is that we have become so disconnected with nature, so uncomfortable spending time in the woods, that we give in to coincidence and let our imaginations trick us. Maybe it’s the silence that makes me feel uneasy. Forests tend to be chorused in birdsong, but by the time we retrace our steps to the trailhead, I haven’t heard a chirp all day. The light has begun to fade when we arrive back in Cluj-Napoca, only half an hour away by car, and after all that eeriness, I feel in need of a taste of mode
