Albania and both Macedonias

          After I finished my workaway job in Bulgaria, I got on a bus to meet up with my sister for her Spring break. Our first stop was Skopje, the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Situated in the heart of the Balkan Mountains, Skopje is a beautiful city with a nice downtown area along a river and surrounded by snowy mountains. We couchsurfed there with Vlatko, an awesome host who knew a lot about everything and was happy to teach us about Macedonia. Macedonia is the name of the kingdom which Alexander the Great ruled a few thousand years ago, but since then the land has been ruled by Romans, Greeks, Turks, Slavs, and several others, and most recently gained independence and reinstated the ancient name “Macedonia” when Yugoslavia broke up. This causes a lot of tension between the Greeks and Macedonians, because Macedonia is also the name of a region in Greece and they’re angry that another country gave itself that name. Greece thinks that Alexander the Great is Greek and Macedonians think he is Macedonian, but both are too stubborn to just look at a map and realize that in reality he was both because his kingdom overlapped parts of both current countries.

The first day we walked around the city, which has a really nice modern downtown and a big old bazaar with restaurants and bars and a market. We ate at a restaurant and my meal of kebabs and fries cost 70 denars, which is about $1.15. Balkan kebabs are very different from German doner kebabs but equally delicious—they are little cylindrical meatballs filled with amazing spices and meat from unknown animals.

The second day we hiked up Vodna, the mountain whose peak towers about 750m above downtown Skopje. It was a nice hike but the visibility from the top was pretty bad due to the clouds. We went back down to the city intent on finding a hot tub so we put on our nicest clothes and casually walked into a 5 star hotel in the center of the city. After successfully avoiding the reception desk and making sure to take note of some room numbers while wandering in circles around the hotel, we found the spa. When asked what room we were staying in I casually replied “212” and we were given towels, a bathrobe, and showed to the changing rooms. The spa contained a pool, hot tub, and 2 saunas which were all great after a day of hiking. Free accommodation (couchsurfing) and free 5-star spa service is not a bad way to travel on a budget.

the giant cross at the top of Vodna with the Macedonian flag

 

On Our third day in Macedonia our couchsurfing host drove us to Lake Matka, a beautiful lake with bright greenish water just outside of Skopje. We took a boat down the lake to a small cave and then hiked up a mountain to a little monastery overlooking the lake. The hike was steep but very rewarding as the views from the top were incredible. It’s amazing to have such big mountains just a 15 minute drive from the city.

rock formations inside the cave

 

Lake Matka

                After Matka I had a Macdeonian lunch of delicious meat stew and then we got on a bus towards Ohrid. Ohrid is a town on a big lake surrounded by mountains with Albania on one side and Macedonia on the other side. We met some Germans at the hostel because Germans are everywhere and went out to get some food with them. One guy had been a hiking guide in the Balkans for the last few years and I spent most of the evening talking to him about hiking and life in Albania. He had some crazy stories to tell, having just spent the winter with an Albanian family in a small town which was isolated the entire winter. The roads were snowed in and there was no way in or out of the town and there was no electricity or running water, so they had 5 months worth of food stockpiled and spent their days cutting wood for the fire and backcountry skiing. Apparently everyone has guns in Albania, and one day his neighbor ran outside and started shooting his gun in the air. When asked what he was doing that for, the neighbor exclaimed “my son was just born!” and the rest of the town erupted in celebratory gunfire. He also noted that most Albanians are very nice people and much less scary than their birth rituals may suggest, and he had hitchhiked all over Albania and Kosovo with no problems.

Lake Ohrid with a weird smudge on my camera screen

                The next day Caitlin, me, and a German girl rented bikes and rode along the lake to the next city, about 45 minutes away by bike. It was a really nice ride even though Macedonia is lacking in bike infrastructure and we had to ride on the highway for part of the journey. When we got to Struga we found a restaurant and I got the best meal ever: bacon wrapped grill cheese. That’s not to be mistaken for a bacon wrapped grilled cheese sandwich (although that also sounds incredible), but this was a  large block of hard cheese grilled to a nice crispy brown on the outside and melty on the inside, and wrapped in bacon. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it was.

Lake Ohrid between Ohrid and Struga

                After the bike ride we looked at the bus schedule to get to Thessaloniki, our next destination, and found out that the best way to get there was a bus from Pogradec, a city on the Albanian side of the lake. Since Albania has such a bad reputation of being sketchy as fuck, we wanted to get there in the daylight, so I decided that we should hitchhike instead of waiting for the bus which would take us there at night. Caitlin was a bit nervous about it since she had never hitchhiked before, but I was confident in the plan after having only the most positive experiences with hitchhiking in Eastern Europe and after talking to a guy the night before who had hitchhiked all throughout Albania. Our first two rides only took us about 5 minutes each before they turned off in the wrong direction. After the second ride we waited for about half an hour and only 3 or 4 cars drove by so we went inside a nearby hotel and asked them to call a taxi. The taxi was really expensive though so we said no thanks and went back outside to try to get a ride until the bus came later that evening. Within a minute of going back outside, a Turkish couple stopped for us and ushered us in. They didn’t speak a word of English but just pointed forward and we said yes. At every intersection they pointed to ask which way we were going and we kept pointing forward until we reached the border. They tried to take us further but got denied access to Albania because they didn’t have their passports on them. That’s when we realized they had just gone way out of their way for us simply because they were nice people. Literally the only words we had exchanged the entire ride were “USA? You like Michael Jordan?” to which we replied “he’s ok”, and these people were kind enough to drive us wherever we wanted to go without any expectation of payment.

Caitlin becoming a true traveler

                We then proceeded to walk across the border into Albania, and just on the other side we found a family sitting in their truck and watching the sunset. I asked if they were driving towards Pogradec and they offered us a ride. The woman was an English teacher and thus was easy to communicate with and the man spoke about 5 languages which didn’t include English but I talked to him in German. They taught us a few words in Albanian which I have since forgotten, and they told us that they run a restaurant on the beach. When we expressed interest in their restaurant they asked if we wanted to go there for some free drinks before we went to the hostel. Of course we said yes and soon we were sitting down in their little restaurant by the fireplace and sipping on homemade wine. Somehow the cup of wine ended up turning into a bottle of wine accompanied by a feast and the next thing we knew we were sitting in front of a table full of food: a giant roasted vegetable plate, a plate of Albania’s version of feta cheese, a plate of various types of juicy and delicious Balkan-style meat, and 3 trout which were freshly caught from the lake, all for less than $10 per person (we’re pretty sure they gave us a giant discount because normally the fish alone are $10 each).

our meal, which was about twice as big in total but we ate a lot before the photo was taken

 

 It is experiences like this which give me so much faith in humanity but make me wish that American culture was more trusting of unfamiliar people (I say unfamiliar people rather than strangers because “strangers” makes them seem strange, which they are not). My experience has shown that in countries which, until recently, have had nearly nothing (like all of the former iron curtain countries for example), people are used to having to rely on each other for survival and are more willing to trust unfamiliar people. Whereas in wealthy countries like the USA, we are able to obtain everything we need without interacting with unfamiliar people and years of propaganda has forced our culture into a “stranger danger” mentality where parents teach their children not to talk to anybody that they don’t already know. It’s crazy, and Americans’ paranoia of everyone else really hinders our ability to be a strong collective and cohesive society.

Sunset in Albania

 

          After dinner the guy who owned the restaurant told us he didn’t think the bus was running at that time of year so he organized a private taxi for us the next morning from one of his friends. He then took us to our hostel where we were welcomed with a large bottle of rakija. If you’ve ever been to Eastern Europe you surely have tried rakija, and if you’ve never heard of it, well, it’s the Slavic word for moonshine, and it’s everywhere (it was called something different in Albania since Albanian isn’t a Slavic language but I don’t remember the name so I’m just calling it rakija here). I’m not sure if I love it or hate it since it tastes absolutely horrible but the novelty of having Eastern European moonshine offered after every meal and as every welcome hasn’t quite worn off yet. They really need to learn how to use chasers though.

          Anyways, the next day we got up and our taxi dude was there to pick us up. For 30 euros each he drove us in his van from Pogradec to Thessaloniki, Greece. It was 10 euros more expensive than the bus would have been, which we weren’t stoked about, but it took 3.5 hours instead of 5.5 and that’s not a bad price for a private international taxi. We spent the next few days in Thessaloniki, staying with Caitlin’s friend Sami and walking around the city enjoying the view of snowy Mount Olympus across the bay, eating lots of pastries and feta, and we went to Meteora monasteries one day.

          Meteora was a really cool place; there are several monasteries perched on top of giant rock pillars. The landscape consists of huge cliffs and 100+ foot high rock pillars jutting out of the ground in finger-like formations. Monks with huge beards live there in solitude and do whatever it is that monks do. We went into one monastery and walked around the rocks and cliffs surrounding them.

a blurry picture of Mount Olympus on the drive to Meteora

The monasteries at Meteora

Meteora

That pretty much concludes our trip to Albania and the Macedonias, next up: beachy places (Crete, Cyprus, and Tel Aviv).