Macedonian marvel

It’s been a while since my previous post but I’ve been busy enjoying Greece! To make it up I wrote an extra long story ;-) (just a word of warning before your start reading this novel).

After a little more than 2,5 of travelling alone, I have now been travelling with my friend from Amsterdam (Renske) for 2 weeks (only 2 more days left) and it has been really great to have a travel companion again. These past weeks alone have been a test of my capacity to enjoy nice moments, views, experiences without immediately sharing them with others. Although I think there are a lot of pros to travelling alone, one of the cons (next to not having someone to watch you backpack when you want to go to the bathroom at a bus station) is that you have no one close to you to share your experiences with. This sometimes leads to the automatic reaction of wanting to take a picture and immediately send it to family/friends back home or post it on Instagram to get some instant approval on how wonderful/cool/adventurous the place is you’re at. I’m trying to ignore that feeling and first look with my eyes before taking out my phone to take a picture. And then trying to refrain from sending pictures to others (not always a success – sorry sister). I really notice the difference now having Renske around, the need to share with others has almost disappeared. And I’m glad now to have someone to tell all my endless stories to of ‘when I was in Kosovo, or when I was in the mountains of Macedonia’…

As I’m sure you are also dying to hear all those stories and to make sure you´re not missing out on any detail either, I dedicated this blog to the mountain village of Galichnik, the Ohrid lake, the cute little city of Bitola and some miscellaneous topics on Macedonia. Our Cycladic island hopping adventures are for a next blog, but here’s a hint: it´s been a lot of sun, sand, sea, boats, sweaty walks, visiting whitewashed villages, churches with blue domes, bougainvilleas, watermelon, feta, bread sticks and honey!

Galichnik

I had read about the Mavrovo National Park in the Lonely Planet and decided that it would be nice to visit this part of Macedonia before heading down to Lake Ohrid. My only concern was how to get there… There was no bus or train, I didn’t have a car and I needed a guide for the hike I was planning to do. I had read about a tour agency that could organise trips to Mavrovo so on an early Monday morning I went to the address indicated in my guidebook. The agency was still closed but a nice lady who had the phone number of the man running this agency was there and helped me get him on the phone. We talked a little and he explained that he couldn’t really help me, but that he knew a guide who might have some ideas: Marko. I got the contact details of Marco and we exchanged some Whatsapp messages on what the options in Mavrovo National Park were and my specific wishes and then Marko suggested for me to stay two nights in the tiny mountain village of Galichnik where his family runs a guesthouse and a restaurant and that we would hike to the highest peak of the national park together. Sounded good to me and that’s how without having seen or spoken live to Marko, we met on a Wednesday morning at the car park of a shopping mall just outside of Skopje to drive to Galichnik. Back home I wouldn’t trust someone as easily, I would first do some thorough research, background checks and a social media analysis before accepting to drive for 2 hours to an unknown place with a stranger, but I had a good gut feeling and without a little (but not naïve) trust, I would still be stuck in Skopje I guess.

Galichnik is a small mountain town in the east of Macedonia with beautiful stone houses built along a serpentine road. The town is unreachable by car in the winter where in average about 4 meters of snow cover the road and no snow machine takes up the challenge to clean the road. This means that in winter, the only way to get to the town is to walk up a 5km trail from another village through the forest. Not very practical to live there… the villagers felt the same and in the 1960’s, the last full-time residents left the village. In an effort to bring back some life to this little town, the grandparents of Marko moved back to Galichnik and nowadays they are the only 2 people living there year-round (the rest of the houses are only holiday houses and occupied mostly during the summer) and together with Marko (who also has a full time job in IT in Skopje, but long live flex working from ‘home’) and his mother, they run a small guesthouse and restaurant welcoming people who wish to go hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding or just get getting some fresh air (and cheese from the local cheese farm). Once every 2 weeks during the winter months, Marko drives from Skopje (where he lives) to this other village and walks up the 5km to Galichnik to bring fresh food to his grandparents and enjoy a weekend in the snow.

No snow when I was there, but some grey clouds and it was quite cold (between 8 and 13 degrees) and it felt freezing at night. I slept with an electric heater and all my clothes on! The hike to the top of Medenica peak (2163m) was great, but very foggy so no view on top and cold. I was also quite unprepared for this weather so I was wearing all the layers I could possibly combine from what was in my backpack. Marko didn’t dare say too much about my outfit but compared to him in all his high tech mountain gear I looked like a real amateur :-). But that didn’t matter at all, I was enjoying my day in the mountains away from routine, work stress and to do lists, just walking, admiring the landscape (the fog lifted when we started the descent), enjoying the silence and the never-ending views, simply following Marko and listening to what he had to tell about this region of Macedonia.

When we got back beginning of the afternoon, Marko’s mother cooked me a warm and sturdy lunch with pork sausage (specialty), local cheese, spinach filled rolls and the famous Macedonian Shopska salad. I spent the rest of the afternoon, reading a book, visiting the village for the second time and watching a bit of Netflix. There is not much else to do… It was a great experience to stay in this little bubble in the middle of nowhere, to enjoy the nature and practice doing nothing in a back to basic guesthouse, feeling very welcome and at the same time a bit out of place, but at the same time I was also very happy to travel to Ohrid the next day where I could get lost in the crowd again, chose where and what to eat and get back to a more familiar world.

Ohrid

Did you know that the number one nationality visiting Ohrid are the Dutch? And I thought I was special…

Ohrid is a lake shared by Macedonia (two thirds) and Albania (one third) in the south-east of Macedonia. I was told it’s one of the oldest and deepest European lakes and its shores are home to some cute little villages, pebbled beaches, big resorts, a reconstruction of a prehistoric settlement of people living on platforms build on top of the water, the Sveti Naum Monestary (see below), the former holiday house of Tito and the town of Ohrid. All of this with mountains and forests on the background, perfect temperature turquoise water and apparently a biodiversity that would make any biologist’s heart skip a beat! The town of Ohrid is a holiday town at its best. It has a small old centre with a maze of narrow cobbled streets cascading up and down a hill. Traditional houses with wooden beams and century-old churches line the streets and on the port side boulevard, there are restaurants, ice cream parlours and tourist shops and there is nice happy holiday vibe on any given night of the week. Writing this almost feels like I’m trying to apply for a job as a Lonely Planet writer with this over the top use of adjectives to describe things…

I spent one day discovering the town, walking along the wooden boardwalk just over the water linking the town to some small jetty’s from where you can jump in the crystal clear water or just bronze in the sun and a small cove with two great restaurants (I tried then both – one more upscale and one with more traditional food). From there you can walk to the church of Sveti Jovan (which I think means Saint John) that sits on top of a cliff and is one of the most instagrammable places of the country… I’m not exaggerating to make this more entertaining to read, it is really beautiful with its red bricks against the deep blue of lake, framed by green cypress trees and then the blue sky to top it off! I have a full collection of photos taken in the morning, afternoon and at sunset.

On my second day in Orhid, I booked a boat tour that took me across the whole Macedonian part of the lake to the Sveti Naum Monastery at the opposite side of the lake stopping at different little bays on the way. By that time, I had seen my share of Orthodox monasteries and churches, so I was not as easy to impress but I’m really glad I paid the entrance fee because the iconostasis and frescoes inside are worth the visit! And the swim in the lake afterwards as well :-). On the third day in this holiday town, I felt it was time to climb a mountain again and decided to try to reach the Magaro peak at 2254m. At my hostel I met a Spanish guy (Javier) who was also keen to go on a small adventure and see some more of Ohrid other than its lake. Javier is a forestry student in Madrid so next to having a hiking companion I also had a teacher who could tell me everything on the local flora! This guy was like a mountain goat who swallowed a Duracell battery, he was almost running up the path and I was trying to keep up and catching my breath in self-created breaks asking about a plant. It was a nice hike, with a steep climb at the beginning through an oak forest and from the peak you had a view on lake Ohrid on one side and lake Prespa on the other (this is a lake shared between Macedonia and Greece). We had to lift to get back to town and were picked up by this very nice older Macedonian couple who had lived and worked in Slovenia for years and whose daughter had studied in the Netherlands. The woman spoke excellent English and it was interesting to hear her opinion on her own country, no polished story to attract tourists but quite honest statements about how she thinks the country is actually backtracking in terms of development and growth; her main example was the huge brain drain occurring at the moment with her own children as proof.

Bitola

For my last 2 days in Macedonia, I decided to change locations again and a visit a town close to the Greek border and that is not on the ‘Gringo trail’ as they would say in Latin America: Bitola. This town feels completely different from any other place in Macedonia, the architecture is a blend of Ottoman/Byzantine style meets European aristocratic (neo-classical I think it’s called?) type villa’s with some communist nostalgia and a twist of modern buildings. It reminded me a little of cities in South America with their colonial style houses mixed with local architecture. It has a bit of an east-meets-west feel and together with the laidback vibe I liked the city way more than I expected in the first place. The city has one main pedestrian street – Shirok Sokak – which clearly is the place to be. With bars, shops, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, etc., you can sit on a terrace watching people walk by and be entertained all day. Bitola is also located next to Pelister National Park with mountain peaks culminating at 2600m and two glacial lakes. I didn’t feel like going for another hike again so instead I decided to visit a small village called Dihovo to still be able to claim I set foot in this national park. Dihovo is a dot on the map close enough to Bitola to take a taxi and far away enough to breath some real fresh air. There’s not much to see/do in this village except use it as a base for walks and visiting the local guesthouse Villa Dihovo, and that’s basically what I did :-). Villa Dihovo is the home of Petar, a former footballer for the Yugoslavian national team (how many of those have you met?!) and who went to play in Denmark when Yugoslavia fell apart. After a few years of Danish weather, he decided to move back home and build a guesthouse focused on eco/culinary tourism. Petar showed me around the few rooms (decorated in traditional local style) you can rent, the kitchen and space where he organises cooking workshops and team-building events and his wine cellar where he keeps his self-made wine and rakia. If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit, Petar really built himself a little paradise!! I also had the most fantastic lunch with vegetables from his own garden, home made bread and of course a glass of rakia (local brandy, one small glass is enough…).

After 10 days in Macedonia it was time to leave and cross the border to Greece where I would catch a train in the border town of Florina to Thessaloniki and then a flight to Mykonos, but before I end this Macedonian chapter, some last random (food) thoughts:

• The grilled red pepper and eggplant dip called ajvar – to be found on every menu in Macedonia – has become a strong contender in the race to becoming my new favourite dip; hummus be warned!
• Greek and Macedonian cuisine are quite similar, a lot of juicy tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, goat/sheep cheese, onion and grilled meat.
• When I arrived in Ohrid from Galichnik, the guy driving me (no official transport but this was someone Marko new), it became clear that the driver wasn’t familiar at all with all the narrow streets Ohrid and had no clue where my hostel was. He decided to ask a random guy waiting at a bus station who looked like he might also speak a little English in order to communicate with me. Instead of just explaining the way, this total stranger hopped in the car and went on a exploring tour of the city with us to find my hostel… unexpected kindness just waiting for you at a bus stop :-D!
• They use the Cyrillic alphabet in Macedonia which means you can’t read anything unless you are fluent in Russian… I’m not and kept reading the letters as the Latin alphabet and I have spent 10 days looking for signs of ‘pectopah’ which ‘translates’ into restaurant.
• Are you really backpacking when you are only staying in very nice hotels? Or does the backpack make you a backpacker? I wasn’t sure of the answer (please advise) so just to be sure in Ohrid I decided to leave the comfort of the 3 to 5 star hotels I had been staying at so far (plus the occasional guesthouse­) and book a hostel for 3 nights, a private room that is, a dorm still felt like a step too far. Hostels are great to meet people more easily – I would never have met my climbing companion Javier otherwise – but I think I might have slightly outgrown them… it was entertaining to witness all the clichés again (e.g., the older hippie type guy with his guitar and the never ending ‘where are you from’ and ‘where are you going next’) and I might try one more out somewhere in the coming weeks, but I think my wishes for comfort have slightly changed…

Next time: my own Greek epos!