Up at about twelve hundred metres, close to the Greek border, a long lake with ragged arms fills the valleys of the western Rhodopes, and at its southern tip sits Dospat. The reservoir is one of the highest large bodies of water in Bulgaria, and on an early summer morning, with mist lying on it and not a boat moving, it feels more Scandinavian than Balkan. The town is small and mostly Pomak, Bulgarian-speaking Muslims whose villages are scattered across these hills, and the minaret of the mosque rises among the houses.
This was frontier country for most of the twentieth century. During the Cold War the zone along the Greek border was closed and closely watched, and that long isolation is a large part of why the forests and villages around Dospat feel so untouched today. Trout farms float on the lake, which tells you what to order for dinner, and in late summer locals sell wild mushrooms and blueberries by the roadside. Even at the height of the season it never feels busy.
The roads here are a reward for the effort of getting this far. Heading north toward Batak, you ride along and above the lake with glimpses of water through the pines and some lovely open bends. East toward Borino and Devin, the road threads remote, forested valleys with almost nobody on it, rising and falling over spurs. West toward Satovcha and Gotse Delchev, it tumbles down through hill villages with steep drops and tight turns. Expect cattle lying on warm asphalt, timber trucks at the worst possible moment and stretches where the tarmac has simply given up.
Services are thin. Dospat has a few shops, guesthouses and simple restaurants, but treat fuel as uncertain and arrive with a healthy tank; Devin, about twenty-three kilometres east, is the nearest town with dependable stations. Altitude makes itself felt in the evenings, when the temperature can drop sharply even in August, and thunderstorms form fast over the ridges on hot afternoons. From November onwards snow can close the higher roads, so this is a ride for the warmer half of the year.