Silence of the Lamb

We left Busteni early to take the cable car up to Babele, a cabana situated at the top near some rock formations. The ride up in the car was spectacular and walking up would have been out of the question, even the trees had trouble holding on to these cliffs!
We got to the cabana and dumped our packs before going for a hike down to the Ialomiciora monastery which is nested in a cave. The monastery was pretty but the coolest bit was climbing about 800m through the cave on the most rickety slippery boards ever. We got absolutely filthy but it was well worth it.
We got back to the cabana and settled in to the dining hall for the evening along with a whole bunch of workers from around the mountain and a couple of shepherds. They all got pretty rowdy and the shepherds, after some sort of argument, disappeared for about 15 minutes.
By now the whole place was surrounded by clouds so we thought maybe they had lost their flock while they were busy boozing but sure enough upon their return to the dining hall they carried in a skun, gutted sheep carcass- talk about fresh!!
One of the shepherds must have noticed us observing the goings on and decided to come make friends with Adam. After much hand waving and Romanian he gave up on us but we have a sneaking suspicion that he was trying to sell us some of the mutton he had just slaughtered.
The following morning we walked out of the cabana only to realize that the rock formations which had been covered in tourists the day before had been the site of the slaughter and was now covered in a huge pool of blood-cool.
Photos: The Babele cable car disappearing in the morning cloud, The sacrificial rock, The view of the WWI memorial from Busteni (you might have to zoom in)