During the six days of holiday around May 6, some friends and I decided to set off on an adventure to the southern coast of the Black Sea and Strandja Nature Park. We packed bags, bicycles, a dog and even a four-year-old and headed east.

The first beach that we visited, after a late arrival in Malko Turnovo in Strandja and a strange night in a hospital transformed into a hotel, was Tsarevo’s southernmost bay of Nestinarka. It is out of town and is the last sandy beach before kilometres of rocky coast that reaches to Ahtopol.

I went to Nestinarka for the first time 16 years ago, when I was 12, and at that time we slept in the only building, up from the beach: a four-storey holiday home, delicately nestled behind the dunes so as to be invisible from the sandy shore. The remaining part was a pretty poplar forest, very much appreciated in the hot summer days, a forest whose shadow welcomed tourists who didn’t mind spending their holidays in small bungalows or in a tent. That is also where I went during two other summers, at the ages of 15 and maybe 20, making unforgettable memories around the bungalows and the small wooden restaurants in between them.

Well, memories are usually good things, especially those from holidays, and memories brought me back to this beach in May 2008, too, as well as the wish to show it to my friends. Although I knew that the campground did not exist any more and some ugly 10-storey, five-entrance hotels had appeared in its place, I knew that the sand on the beach was very fine and clean, and some of the nicest around.

The first obstacle we encountered was the inaccessibility of the beach, as the road parallel to it was absolutely destroyed, having been not renovated at all after having been ruined by the heavy vehicles that carried the thousands of tons of concrete to and from the place of forest and bungalows. However, we reached a site behind the huge concrete buildings suitable for parking, and stopped. And this is when the second annoying thing appeared.

Trying to find a new path to reach the beach, we found out that the only way was to cross the hotels’ grounds, and so we did. On the way, a woman appeared and asked us whether we were guests of one of the two or three hotels surrounded by a common fence. We were not guests and she said that we were not supposed to cross the yard, as it was provate property, but she could not answer how, in this case, we were supposed to reach the beach. She looked like she did not care too much about our situation…

I was already angry, shouted to her and despite her warnings, proceeded on my way and we reached the beach.

But what was awaiting us there? The poor trees of the poplar forest that had been merciless cleared for the ugly grey buildings to appear were lying dead, so the whole sandy area, about three or four kilometres, was covered with dead wood that seemed like it had been there since before the winter, as they were stripped of leaves and looking pretty old. So, it was not enough to destroy the forest and the camp site, but they also did not clean up after themselves, leaving thousands of wood logs on the beach, after they had also destroyed the road to the campground.

And were people supposed to use their own expensive vehicles to reach the five-star hotels? Oh, yes, I know, they drive 4x4s. So maybe a tourist agency can tell them: “Please take your 4x4 because that is how you have to reach the beach. Nestinarka is unreachable with a normal car.” …not to mention a bus…

So my first encounter with the Black Sea in 2008 was just a disaster. I only wished to escape to some deserted beach, if any were left at all.

But how could I forget about Nestinarka? It used to be the only beach of Tsarevo where you could indeed commune with nature. And now, every time you look back at the trees, you see a concrete forest, or dead wood next to you, cast aside on the sand.