Lake Ohrid

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This was my first stop in Macedonia, and one of my favorite places of the trip. Getting here from Saranda, however, was not my favorite. In itself, getting here was quite an accomplishment. There is only one bus a day I could take, to a town called Korca, and it left from the bus station at 5:30am. The guy who ran the hotel assured me that I could just stand on the road five minutes from the hotel and flag the bus down and it would be fine. No need to go all the way there - and it was a ways - or buy a ticket ahead of time. I believed him, knowing how this works, but I was still nervous I would miss it. Luckily, there is not much traffic at that time, and the bus stopped with no problems. It was raining, but lightly, so that was ok. After two stops, we finally got to Korca at 1:30pm. From there, I had to take a minibus (once full) to Pogradec, a town on the border with Macedonia, for about 40 minutes. From there, I got a taxi to take me to the actual border. I walked across the border, passing a family that I said hello to along the way. Once I checked in at the border in Macedonia, I had to walk to a monastery a few miles away. It was raining and would have taken me an hour or so, I guess. But that family that was also walking across were from Macedonia and had their car on that side of the border and stopped to offer me a lift to the junction that led to the monastery. It was only a few minutes but was so kind and saved me at least 30 minutes of walking. (And see Mom, not everyone who is kind is a serial killer in disguise). The bus from the monastery left at 4pm, so I had a little over an hour to look around. Fortunately I could pay to use the bathroom, see the monastery, and pay for the bus all with the wrong currency, since I hadn't changed money yet. I even used two different currencies in that hour. The bus to Ohrid took about an hour and then I was finally there, in the rain, with no place to stay. There was another guy who offered me a room. It was cheap and I took it. I stayed three days and really liked the town. Like Saranda, it was also touristy. Unlike Saranda, it was beautiful. I met a nice French couple the next day and we walked around together and then they made me lunch. It was really nice.

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