As a mountain guide at the Sofia-based Zig Zag Holidays, Momtchil Damyanov has years of first-hand experience in exploring the Pirin mountains, where the resort Bansko is located.

He has been hiking around Bulgaria for at least 12 years, and when he saw an advertisement in a nature/hiking newspaper for a mountain guide who knows French, he decided that this was the position for him. Thing is, he didn’t exactly speak the language, only read it. Growing up in Samokov, a city about 60km south-east of Sofia where little occurred, he decided to undertake reading all the great French authors. Thus, Momtchil, with the help of an old professor, taught himself to read French.

Staring to lead French hiking groups in 1996, he quickly learned to speak it as well. Necessity dictates.

Twelve years ago, he says, paid guides didn’t exist. But when paying visitors started to come to Bulgaria, “you had to have good guides, insurance, accommodations, a set programme... I didn’t know what it meant, a ‘client’. We only had mountain men”.

So, three years ago, Bulgarian mountain guides started to present themselves to the Government in hopes of having official recognition.

In 2004, then, they created a certification programme that, upon successful completion, presents the student with a state-recognised mountain guide certificate. Now, Momtchil himself teaches and leads apprenticeships, where students focus on areas including meteorology, equipment and cord usage. (“But we’re not mountain climbers, simply mountain hikers,” he specifies.)

In Bulgaria, there are only about 100 people who work as mountain guides. And among these 100 are what Momtchil calls “true guides”, professionals who haven’t had official training and don’t want it. There are also state-sponsored guides, and others.

As such, he is an advocate of BAAT - the Bulgarian Association for Alternative Tourism. This organisation works to promote sustainable, responsible tourism and initiatives to help cherish, preserve and maintain the history, culture, environment and beauty of Bulgaria. It is an option to mass tourism.

With his position as a mountain guide, Momtchil leads visitors through sometimes strenuous, but always rewarding, treks.

“For us, a mountain guide doesn’t just go from point A to point B; he works to make the tourists happy.”

He describes the area around Bansko as “the most beautiful mountains”, where there are a lot of lakes. It’s also challenging in areas, as the passages are narrow and the trails are covered in unsteady rocks.

For example, the trek from Razlozhki Souhodol to Vihren is all marble, not granite like in other places, and it’s necessary to be a good hiker as the passages can get tight.
A hike of medium difficulty would be one from Yavorov to Vihren, which would take about nine hours, a full day’s hike. “It’s a lot.” The day would conclude with a stay at a cabin at Vihren.

(“There are no kilometres in the mountains. There are degrees of difficulty and hours,” he says.)

From there, he would lead to Demyanitsa - “easy, about five or six hours” - with a night in another mountain cabin. Though this route looks longer on the map, it’s easier, he said, because the hike is not as steep or as uncertain.

From Demyanitsa, there’s the choice to continue either to Bezbog, or to Pirin and on to Melnik. The latter is an easy, slightly downhill, one-day trek.

Another benefit of the hiking trips that Zig Zag Holidays organises, Momtchil says, is that there is always a minivan carrying baggage and supplies, so the hikers aren’t weighed down.

And they have fun, spending the days on the trails and the nights in the cabins, eating good food, sharing wine and talking.

“I’ve been hiking with French people for 11 years: I know good wine,” he says.