We love it when a plan comes together

As we have everything arranged for our weekend break to Macedonia, we don’t need to hurry up this morning. How wrong we were…

The bus doesn’t leave until 11.30 am. As usual, we have got up at 8.00 am, so we have plenty of time to do a bit of IT before we head off to the bus station. We need to use up all the data as the Bulgarian local SIM card expires in two days time.

It is now 10.00 am. We must start packing up, which should be quick. Living a nomadic lifestyle makes you become good at it. In fifteen minutes, we have already filled our bags with everything we need for the next four days.

We are ready to go. There is one thing missing: my car keys.

Each of us have one set of keys for Dora, we have to, for insurance purposes. It would be very annoying if we lose them. Trying to get a copy of them in Bulgaria, it would be Mission Impossible.

This is what they look like. See what I mean?

I look everywhere, I can’t find them. What is most annoying, I am extremely careful at keeping things safe. I always put my keys in the same place before I go to bed. But it seems like I didn’t do it last night for some bizarre reason. We can’t leave Bulgaria until we find them.

Gary, quite worried, also joins me in the search.

Now, if I was a believer, I would have said god came to assist us. Only after five minutes of desperately hunt, a seventy year-old man knocks on Dora’s habitation door with my keys in his hands. He found them outside, on the ground, next to the driver’s door. He sounds pissed off when he hands them over to me. In his Bulgarian, I could sense he was telling me off. Quite rightly.

We take a deep breath and drive off to the bus station. It is 11.00 am. Let’s get the tickets. The ticket office is closed. OK, let’s go and park Dora, it is only round the corner.

We drive in all the way to a parking space. Someone approaches us, nodding his head. We can’t park here.

This is really peculiar, and something that it took us a long time to realise, and someone to explain, Bulgarians shake their heads for yes, and nod for no. No wonder we are confused! GDR

When you can’t speak the language, you accept instructions without question. We get n Dora and drive off to the bus station. The ticket office remains close. But a girl is around and luckily, can speak English.

There is nowhere you can leave your car around here. Sorry.

Ok, let’s go to the first car park we found last night.

This isn’t ideal as it is a ten minute drive away, but we should still be OK with time. GDR

The guy still remembers me. He happily welcome us and direct us to the best place to park Dora. We exchange details in case something goes wrong. See you in four days time.

11.25 am, five minutes before the bus arrives. The ticket office is now open.

Two tickets please.

Passports, money, we have everything he requires. But he still has to call someone to check our details and ensure we are legal. It is all in order, we can now go to Macedonia. We love it when a plan comes together.

 

We are off. We have planned to visit Ohrid lake and Ohrid village, west of the country. On the way back, we will stop in Skopje, the capital, that would make for a nice four day trip.

So, we have a long journey ahead, three hours to Skopje, forty five minutes wait for the bust to Ohrid, and then another three hours. So we sit and relax, we have plenty of podcasts to listen to and plenty of Macedonian countryside to enjoy.

We get to Ohrid at 18.30. The accommodation is in the old town, fifteen minutes from the lake.

The accommodation has been a bit of a hassle. We booked it last night on booking.com, then we get an email, she has double booked, can we go to her mothers. Seems OK and she is offering a discount, and the room was very cheap anyway. Several emails back and forth later and we get the new address. I just hope she has told her mother! GDR

Our hostess is pretty lovely, welcoming and kind but her accommodation is quite odd. We are given a teenager’s room. Everywhere you look there are lots of photos of groups of young girls, embedded in heart-shape frames, these look familiar. There are two more rooms, her daughters rooms. It seems like we will be living in someone else’s house for the next couple of days. But for €8 a night and free WI-FI we can’t really complain.

So we laugh at the situation and get cosy.

We freshen up and have a wander towards the lake.

According to most Macedonian reviews, this is the countries prime destination. Ohrid lake is 34 kms long and 300 deep and it is shared with Albania. This causes a bit of friction between the two countries, which, historically, have not got on very well. More of this later.

It is pretty impressive.

Everything seems to congregate around this lake: people, main sites, cafes, restaurants…

It looks like ferries take you around the lake for €10. Maybe tomorrow. It looks quite choppy today.

We come across the first of many statues. There seems to be a trend in Ex-soviets countries of having statues of Generals, rulers, red army leaders around their towns and cities. This is not a surprise. Dictatorial regimes have proudly displayed their success with heroic images. What surprises us: they have not not taken them down after the break up with the USSR, a common reaction of ex-dictatorial countries to demonstrate the world they do no longer want to be associated with their past.

And another one, a priest. No chance this will be taken down.

Meticulously designed, clean, garden. Nice view of the town in the background.

Only the dog is allowed to step on it.

And of course, no matter where you go in this globalised the world, the high street, with the familiar western brands. We were hoping this hadn’t arrived in the ex-soviets country yet, not any more.

Time for dinner. We choose a pricey restaurant for our first night in Macedonia. The average prices for mains are 400MKD (€24). Their speciality is trout. Everything is about trout here, they are bred in the lake. However, the endemic specie, the Ohrid trout, is endangered. Only a few restaurants have licence to fish it. This restaurant appears to have it.

Gary hesitates I don’t want to have it on my conscious, the guilt of having the last trout. He goes for the widely available cousin: Mavrovska. I go for the Ohrid. I am completely aware that there will be jokes all night about my option.

For a starter, we choose a traditional dish: Ajvar, sweet red-pepper sauce, served with warm bred. Absolutely delicious.

My trout.

Gary’s trout.

Later on, we learnt that this wasn’t the last trout, so there is no need to panic. We will tell you more about it on the next post.

Absolutely delicious meal, and lovely company.

Time to go home. We will be back tomorrow to do some sightseeing.

SM