March 20th-22nd-Macedonia

Europe » Macedonia
March 26th 2011

Published: March 26th 2011

Album I’m listening to: Soulwax- This is Radio Soulwax
(This is a long entry but it gets interesting in the end!)

Macedonia was great, mainly because of the reason I wanted to travel around Europe: the scenery! I arrived in Skopje (Scope-ya) at 7am after taking an overnight from Belgrade. It was pouring with rain but I was determined to save my £ and walk to the hostel. Not a good idea. I got lost after thinking I had found the place and ended up walking into a small shop where the owner was loading drinks into the fridge. Fortunately he spoke good English and asked him where it was. I knew we were close but the streets don’t have signs in Macedonia! What the heck! He didn’t really know either so he called the hostel for me and got directions. He said he would take me there as it was about another 5-10 min walk but he had to finish opening up. Such nice people here (and in most places I’ve been to so far). I found the place eventually and had a quick snooze.

At about 10am I went to the lounge and there was a Brazilian couple (Ronaldo and ?) having breakfast as well as a woman from Montenegro called Tina. The owner said we should go check out Lake Matka (means “womb”)which was about a 30 min cab ride so we decided to do so. What a great idea that was! It was such a great trip, starting with us walking up to a massive dam which was next to the church of St Nikola, built in 1389. I was keen on taking a boat ride to the caves but the others didn’t want to pay 5 euros so we decided to hike it. The guy on the boat said it was 5km but the Brazilian girl thought he was exaggerating so we started to hike along the mountain. We started off slow, taking photos and checking the awesomeness surrounding us, but I thought if it was 5km away and we had 4 hours I wanted to get moving, so I started walking faster. Ronaldo followed and soon we started hearing “wait for us!” but I was having none of it. I want to see some caves dammit! Twice I’ve gone to find some and I wasn’t going to miss this one! After a few minutes we heard nothing from the girls and thought they either were going really slow, had turned back (it was quite hectic walking along the edge, and had to jump down a couple of places, and with wet leaves/mud on the ground it made for some interesting times), or they had fallen down the side. No matter, on we went. Well the boat driver was not wrong. It was about 5km away, so after 2 hours walking along a somewhat crazy path (there were occasional bars keeping us from dropping a couple of hundred meters) we got to the caves, only to find out we couldn’t get to them from our side! We should’ve taken the boat. So after 2 hours of some good hiking I managed to take a picture of the entrance to the caves. I swear if I don’t manage to see some caves on this trip I will have to start blowing up some mountains so I can make my own.

We decided to walk another 2 km’s hoping there would be some on our side but it was getting late and our cab was waiting for us at 3pm. So back we went for another 6kms. We got back a lot quicker than we thought, mainly because we were now experts in mountain-edge hiking and were fearless (and I hadn’t eaten all day so was hungry!). We got to the only restaurant there, Matka. The girls were there and the Brazilian didn’t look to happy, mainly because she was left with the Montenegrin, who I noticed seemed to complain about everything, the hiking, the price of things, you name it, she found something to complain about. So she wasn’t too happy with Ronaldo leaving her with Tina. Anyway we ordered some awesome fish meal (literally caught at the lake that morning) and finished with a cappuccino. We got back to the cabbie and went back to the hostel. The Brazilians went out to see the city but I chilled at the hostel for the rest of the day.

The next morning I took an 8am bus to Lake Ohrid (Ore-rid), about 3 ½ hours from the capital. It is the 3rd oldest lake in the world, over 4 million years. The city itself is pretty old, with buildings dating back from 3 AD. It is also a very religious city; with at one point in time one church for every day of the year (it isn’t that big of a city either). Finding the hostel was a mission (not having good luck lately) as every house is mainly on a hill and the roads are very tiny with no signs or structure! Finally got there and met the owner who was a good fella and had all the time in the world for me as I was the only person there. It’s the only hostel in the town and during the summer he gets up to 58 people in a 36 bed hostel, with people either sleeping in the lounge or outside. It must be mental during that time! As every sight was mainly closed on Monday’s he said I should check out Svet (Saint) Naum, an old monastery dating back from the 9th century about 30kms away. So off I went, running into Yasuko from Japan and a Croatian fella I met on the bus here. I was to meet them at the bus station but they never showed up so off I went. The place was pretty much deserted (as far as I could tell I was the only tourist there). The shops were closed, the hotel was closed, and the restaurant was being fixed up but was open. I took a look in the monastery, which was built in 900 AD, and where Naum was actually buried. Also the place was surrounded by peacocks; it was definitely a sight to see! There were some places to hike around and I had a couple of hours to kill so I started hiking. Little did I know the monastery is the place before you go into Albania. I saw a couple of guys in army uniform sand asked what the deal was. He said it was an army base and I was a few feet from Albania. I asked if I could walk through and he said no, I had to take the road to the actual border. Bummer. So I started hiking along the area, not knowing which country I was in (and a bit fearful of either being shot or walking on landmines if I ventured off the path). It was pretty surreal, walking alone in the forest on the border of two countries I never expected to be a few months ago!

I took the bus back in the late afternoon and saw a few more sights before I got dark (I ran into Yasuko and she told me she couldn’t find her villa so didn’t make it on time to the bus), thinking it’d be better if I go the next day when it was lighter and when they were open. I had a good chat with the owner and watched Macedonian Idol, which was their first season. Some pretty scary stuff, although I can’t judge them for singing English songs when it’s not their first language. The crazy thing was that the owner told me one of the judges lives a few streets away and in the summer would come to the hostel to get drunk and pick up on foreign girls. I wonder if all judges on Idol shows are like that (not judging you Hoff you’re still ok in my books!)

The next morning I left at 9am to take a look at the sites, including the aptly named Samuil Fortress, and the first European university ever built called Plaosnik, which was built in the 9th century. I also hung out at probably the most picturesque place in the country, the church of Sveti Jovan at Kaneo, which overlooks the lake.
Now I was going to take the 3pm bus back to Skopje, but I saw at the hostel there was a 3:30pm one as well, so why rush to get there? I chilled out and showered and packed, and went cabbed it to the station. I found out the 3:30pm only went during the summer, which was very bad as I needed to catch the 8:30pm train to Bulgaria and the next bus to Skopje was at 6pm which would be too late! There was no way I was going to pay 65 euros to get to Skopje. The cabbie (who I think is the greatest person in the world) told me to get in the cab and we took off at 100 miles an hour and went after this bus. We caught up after 5 minutes and he started flicking his lights at the bus and got in front of the bus, where it pulled over and I got out of the cab and onto the bus. I couldn’t believe my luck. So I got on very relieved, and who happened to be on the bus but Yasuko! I found out she was a teacher in Dusseldorf, Germany who taught PE to 500 Japanese kids whose families were in Germany because of work. Supposedly there are loads of Japanese companies there. We made it back to Skopje, had a classic Macedonian meal of meat cheese and bread, and went our own way. I made it onto the train with plenty of time to spare, where I’m now taking an overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. A pretty eventful 3 days with plenty of scenery and crazy stories to tell!

March 20th-22nd-Macedonia

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