Ukraine: Crossing Carpathians on Dirt Roads
Rather then drive 180km on paved roads in a giant loop without many attractions, we opted to do a 35km shortcut from Uzhok and southeast till highway M6. What seams easy, quickly turned into a 4 hour adventure on narrow mountain dirt roads, crossing rivers and streams, stopping for spectacular panoramas of mountains, driving through mountain villages where life seems to go to a different drumbeat and nobody heard of coronavirus. Hiking in the forest in search for spring flowers was also awesome and at one point we had to stop the car because of intense garlic smell – a short hike into the woods and – voila! – we found wild Cheremsha aka Bear’s Garlic aka Ramsoms (a plant from the onion family that is edible and similar to mild yet more flavorful garlic).
