Let's travel together #287 - Lacul Tarzan (Tarzan Lake of Romania)

Along with our endless seek for less known parts of the world and especially in Romania which is my home country, we ended up spending time in a very picturesque location. This one represents one of those lost treasures just because no one cares to promote it further from those who have the power to do so.

Its name might sound familiar to most of you since we all grew up either with the books or the cartoons of "The Legend of Tarzan" which I always thought will live forever no matter how many years will pass since its release.

So while the place we explored has nothing in common with the actual legend of Tarzan but only the name, I still think it's a location that could serve in some measure as a place for filming a modern Tarzan movie due to the outstanding scenery. Obviously, there are no jungle creepers even if I'd love to hang on one while crossing the lake in the air, lol. But again, the overall scenery is definitely worth more attention from all of us, and not just because of its famous name that is the opposite of how popular the lake is.

Anyway, if you remember this post that is part of the same roadtrip the Tarzan Lake is also part of, I mentioned back there that sometimes we end up exploring unplanned locations just because not everything we have on the list is as accessible as we hoped and we refuse to cancel a day exploring by living a big gap in the schedule when we could easily redirect our attention to some other less known parts of the country.

This was also the situation for Tarzan Lake which we didn't have on our list but since it was our first day in Turda we had the unpleasant surprise of meeting a city half ruined due to all the road works that were undergoing and which cost us a lot of time but also made it impossible to reach some of our destinations.

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That was the main reason that made us open up the map, zoom in, and zoom out until we picked a few extra locations to explore during our stay before the roadtrip was coming to an end.

Based on what we've seen on the internet about this lake, it didn't catch our attention at first due to very few pictures we've seen which were of poor quality anyway. But since there weren't a lot of options to pick from, we gave it a go. The thing that most of the main roads were under construction, made us spend way too much time driving and too little time exploring, which caused us to see a lot fewer things than we could in any other period of the year, so most likely one day we will return to Turda even though this wasn't our first time there.

Reaching the lake is perhaps one of the dreams of those who enjoy traveling but without making too much effort to reach their destination. Namely, by car. Happily, this option is available and you can drive a car until you reach the shore of the lake.

Even though we love hiking and spending time walking and roaming by foot until we reach our destinations which feel a lot more pleasant after a long way there, we decided to make our way by car this time, especially since we felt the pressure of time during our whole stay in Turda.

Most of the road is paved but for about 3-5 minutes you'll have to go on a path full of bumps and gaps which I doubt it ever was paved. Yet a fairly met situation when it comes to tourist attractions found in the woods or mountains.

The bad thing instead, is that there are no road signs leading you to the Tarzan Lake which comes with the request of using a GPS in order to make it there. Another minus is the landscape until you reach your destination which doesn't promise anything at first, talking about some abandoned spots, lots of garbage left randomly on the hills, and a view in front of you that doesn't seem like sheltering such a beautiful location.

But just like most of the gems of nature are carefully hidden from curious eyes, as it is the lake which is placed just across a business with abandoned cars, but which makes you forget about the surroundings once you have this view in front of you.

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Usually, I'm not a fan of getting on floating docks or whatever these are called. Because water was, and most likely will always remain my biggest fear. And when you make your way to a lake that you know nothing about other than its name, it's a big no for me.

From my experience exploring lakes that are barely known by the locals, in most cases, they have a strange legend or come with impressive depths that might not look like that at first,. So based on this experience too, I decided to be extra safe this time, only sitting on the wooden planks for a few pictures that turned out a lot more stressful than before, due to the wood planks being lost in the depth of the water in seconds, not allowing me to see the bottom of the lake not even in a sunny day as it was back then.

Not seeing the bottom of the lake wasn't just a situation because after we visited the Tarzan Lake we did our research at the place that served as home for a couple of days, just as we usually do.
I prefer getting informed only after I see a place because I feel like the places I'm about to explore lose almost entirely their charm, only getting there to confirm the view and information that I already gathered from the internet.
By doing research at the end of the day when the trip was already taken and the adrenaline was already tasted, makes me class what I've seen a lot higher in my memories, making sure that I won't ever forget their legends, stories, and happenings that seem a lot more genuine and authentic if I do my research in the opposite direction.
So, getting back to the sizes of the lake I was talking about before this parenthesis, Tarzan Lake covers a fairly small surface of just 0,4 hectares, but it manages to impress it more through its depth which was around 19 meters between 1911 and 1937 when more exploration was done.

Based on the last couple of years that made the seasons act a lot weirder than we were used to, there are rumors that the lake is 17 meters deep in the 21st century, but there is nothing certain since we are talking about a fairly abandoned spot of nature which doesn't stir too much interest from people anymore.

The lake used to stir a lot more curiosity at the end of 1970 when this one seemed like being home to large deposits of salt that are well known for being a thing in Turda which shelters one of the biggest and most beautiful salt mines in Europe.

Either way, people started taking advantage of that aspect, extracting salt more than it should which also influenced the level and properties of the water in general. Hence why, these days the lake increases its resources not only from the water precipitations but also from poor spring reservors connected to it, which bring way too little water to make it what it was a while ago.

Contrary to what is said in general of the Tarzan Lake, it seems that this one is also known as the Bottomless Lake which is a fairly common name found in Romania for both lakes and swamps. This also gathers lots of curious stories and legends that no one really knows how true they are, but Tarzan Lake definitely met all the requirements of having some of these connected to it.

That's why, there is this legend saying that a while ago an ox-drawn cart full of people from a wedding that was just held, along with the wedding presents, fell into this place, and ever since nothing could be found, nor came to the surface of the lake.

There are also rumors that in the center of the lake, there is a 1-meter-thick layer of mud similar to the quicksand, which once it detects something nearby, collects these in seconds and makes them unable to be found anymore.

These, along with some other similar stories and cases of death contributed to making the locals think we are talking about a bottomless lake. But despite all this information, there are still people who use the lake during the summer for taking baths, feeling safe and unable to get drowned due to the deposits of salt which are said that are still there, even though most of it was extracted in the past.

Personally, I don't think those extractions exist, or not in the quantity of being safe to take a bath in the lake, because the lake froze during the previous winter which is definitely a situation that normally doesn't happen in salty waters. So even if I usually don't get along with the legends, in this case, those stories seem a lot closer to reality than being unconscious and taking a bath in such a mysterious piece of nature.

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Tarzan Lake was born on the location that sheltered the oldest mine exploited during the 12th and 13th centuries and it's just 5 km away from Turda, or 35 km away from Cluj Napoca.

While there are not too many options to make your way from Turda to the lake other than by foot (takes around 45 minutes of walking), or with a car (around 10 minutes of drive), the options are a lot more if you come from Cluj Napoca. From there you can reach the lake by taking any of the following buses: 15, 15B, CJ153 which will leave you just 7-10 minutes away from the lake.

Other articles from my Romania Tour 2023:

• The Blue Lagoon of Cluj (Laguna Albastră)
• Ciucaș Waterfall... or beer? (Cascada Ciucaș)
• The Sequoia Tree from Romania
• Lacul Tarzan (Tarzan Lake of Romania)

more coming soon...

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.}

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