Vagabond: A horseback adventure from Bulgaria to Berlin

by Jeremy James

Overview

The journey starts when author and long-rider Jeremy James buys two horses from gypsies at a fair in southern Bulgaria. He and his long-suffering friend Chumpie then set off on horseback, winding northwards to Berlin, and on the way they encounter a marvellous array of local characters from all walks of life as they ride from Bulgaria to Berlin, via Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
   
On a low budget, they are sustained by local fire-water, indigestible food and the forceful personalities of their horses who steal, run away, misbehave or suddenly comply at will and add a whole new dimension to the experience of travel.
After five long months, they finally reach their destination. It has taken Jeremy through an Eastern Europe full of surprises, which, with the collapse of communism, has almost disappeared today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910723074
Publisher:	Merlin Unwin Books
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	7 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born in Kenya in 1949, educated at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and University of Wales, Jeremy James spent most of his early life working with horses and cattle in Africa and the Middle East. In 1987, he wrote his first book, Saddletramp, the story of his horseback adventure from Turkey to Wales, which was followed in 1991 by Vagabond. In the early 1990s he was Turkish correspondent for several broadsheets and magazines, and in 1992 was commissioned by the International League for the Protection of Horses to write about their work in Debt of Honour. In 2005 he wrote The Byerley Turk, the extraordinary true story of the founding sire of the modern racehorse. Jeremy lives in Shropshire where he now writes full-time for his living.

Read an Excerpt

Karo was central to everything in all this time and I spent hours and hours with him. He was getting pretty tubby even though I exercised him every day and took him swimming. I enjoyed swimming him and was sure he enjoyed it too, because we'd plunge into the water and do a big circle, then he'd wade out all glossy and wet and roar around like a madman screaming his head off at the other horses before settling down to graze. The water kept him clean and in those temperatures the best thing you can do for a horse is keep him clean. And the reason I think he yelled his head off at the other horses was because he was still a bit lonely.
I nearly lost him one day down in the barrage when I was trying to cross the stream where it turned into the river. It was thick with weeds but I thought Karo could wade through them and we'd get to the other side, maybe twenty yards or so. In the middle he suddenly gave up. He just wouldn't go on and so I slid off his back and then realized he was slipping under the water and his hind legs were right underneath him.
I bellowed in his ear and shouted and hollered; he pulled himself together, got going again and we reached the other side in one big froth but if I hadn't screamed at him I think he would just have slipped beneath the water and that would have been that. No more Karo! Then on the other side I took him into the barrage and swam him again, and he got out and threw himself round like a madman, so it didn't seem to do him any harm.

Table of Contents

Foreword Patrick Leigh Fermor v

Off 1

The Official Spy 5

Strawberry Roan 9

Dancing Bears 16

Gypsy Horse 20

Golden Orioles 25

The Reservoir 30

Kondoms and Oboriste 32

A Peculiar Theft 36

Farewell to a Friend 41

Karo 43

Valley of Roses 46

The Balkans 48

Runaway 53

Cut-thro at 58

Across the Danube 63

Reflections 67

Stallion Man 69

The Road to Babäta 72

The Bandit 76

Submerged 83

André and Pusa 84

Pusa 90

One Hot Slog 93

The Good Life 98

Birthday Kiss 102

His Saddle Slung Over His Shoulder 108

Bedfellow 115

Horse Talk 120

Ursa 125

Hungary 132

Blind in a Flatland 137

Hitch-hiker Csabika 144

Of Crooks and Goblins 148

A Train Journey 153

The Last Fart of the Ferret 158

Up Between the Toes 163

Gavin 168

Knight 171

A Promise 178

Rafal 183

Posse of Angels 190

The Gunnery Range 196

Vagabond 203

Acknowledgements 211

Editorial Reviews

"His insights into the countries he ambles across are instinctively sound and perceptive, always warm and generous and, again and again, extremely funny." — Patrick Leigh Fermor

From the Publisher