European Bisons

 After numerous police checkpoints, we eventually we did end up at the Bison Reservation where we were headed too. 

The GPS said turn left when we got to a snowy forest road. We drove on it for a few kilometers when we finally reached our destination. There was a huge parking lot which was almost completely empty, first we thought it was just because it was -6°C. We parked and walked to the building where they were selling tickets. We paid 20 PLN for two student tickets and started exploring the park. First we found six bisons, they were incredibly big, and seemed like they had a disagreement because we saw some aggressive moves. They were tickling each other with their horns. Then we walked on, there were some deer, nice suspicious creatures, we carried on our walk till we got to the wolves. There were not any… The next animals we found were bisons again, a huge male and a quite big female. We were less then 2 meters from them. Looking at their eyes… We could almost feel their steps on the ground. It was quite frightening. Talking about frightening animals the next and the last ones were the moose who we saw easier this month in their natural habit and it was wonderful — and frightening af as well. After seeing them we got to the end of the park’s loop. It was okay because it was really cold, however we are still not sure if it worth the money or not… But I’d rather say yes.



We quickly rushed back to the car to warm up, and looked for a place where we could see bisons in their natural habitat. I’ve even found a place where they’ve seen bisons many times before and didn’t require a half day hike. We started driving to the place which happened to be in direction to the Belarus border. There was another police checkpoint, however this was not a simple checkpoint, it was an inside border in Poland. The officer asked us if we had a special paper to enter, but we didn’t… He told us sorrily, but kinda laughing that ‘sorry but you have to look for another place to watch bisons.’ He was really nice and I think we managed to make each other’s day a bit better which is key especially for them! They are heros! So this hero told us to turn around because we can’t continue our journey to the bison watch. So we did turn around and headed to Lublin.  However our trip wasn’t that smooth as we expected. There were various police checkpoints on the way, and it eventually got dark and our salty, muddy headlights weren’t to much of a help in the dark. But they weren’t to big of a problem because there were no freeways between Bialystok and Lublin, however what was between was a huge line of cars traveling around 75-80km/h. Overtaking was no option because of the heavy traffic so we eco drove to Lublin . We found our apartment in no time and that’s where I’ll start my story tomorrow! 

See you than, and take care

Almos

Location: Białowieża Forest, Poland

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