Macedonia

Macedonia was next on the list. Again, I was expecting the Albania/Macedonia border crossing & transport arrangements to be bit of a headache. What I hadn't counted on was some knights in shining armour. Basically I got to the place where minivans south are meant to depart from. It's not like a bus station or anything, literally just the side of a street that the guy from my hostel told me to go to. Waiting there were a group of 3 Albanians, who were seeing off their 2 Macedonian cousins who were returning home. Luckily for me, 1 of the Albanian guys spoke English, which was pretty rare! The 2 cousins were going to the same place I was, Struga, which is the first town in Macedonia after the border. They basically took me under their wings, & the guy who spoke English gave instructions to the cousins to make sure I got to Ohrid OK. It was a good thing really, because the minvans didn't even have the destination on them, & getting on the right one would have been bit of a mission, let alone sorting out how much it cost! They insisted I wait at a roadside cafe with them & bought me coffee which they wouldn't let me pay for, insisting I was a 'guest of Albania'. The minivan went as far as the border, & we went through the border on foot. There was a long line but these 2 guys obviously cross quite often because they took me right to the front of the line where they were greeted like old friends by the border police! The police then talked to the driver of a station-wagon who only had his wife in the front with him, & more or less demanded that they give us a lift the remaining 15 km to Struga! In Struga they then put me in a taxi, which already had 3 others in it, for the remaining 10km to Ohrid. They even paid the taxi driver for me when they put me in it. I had given them my remaining Albanian Leke, which was only a couple of quids worth, but they wouldn't accept any other money from me. The taxi took me right to the door of my guesthouse.

Ohrid was lovely, a UNESCO listed place with a gorgeous walled old town set on the banks of one of the oldest lakes in the world. My accommodation was also great, the family live on the ground floor & rent out rooms on the other 2 floors. I had a lovely big 3-bedded room to myself, which also happened to be the only room with its own balcony. Not bad for 10 euros a night! I had 2 nights here. The first day I spent wandering around the very cool old town, while on the last day of my holiday I topped up the tan on the lake shore. All good things must come to an end, & the next day involved a bus to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia where my flight was leaving from. I flew Skopje to Ljubljana, had about 40 minutes in transit, then it was Ljubljana back to Gatwick. I eventually arrived home at around midnight. The only hassle I had on the entire 4 week trip unfortunately happened on this last day of travelling. The airport in Skopje is about 25km out of the city centre & no buses run. I was unlucky enough to get a rather dodgy taxi driver. He was a bit TOO nice on the trip out, trying to chat me up (in his limited english!) & asking if I wanted to go for coffee or to a restaurant instead of straight to the airport. This was all harmless enough, but when he tried to put his hand on my leg I got a bit peeved off with him. Once we actually arrived at the airport he then tried to rip me off, wanting to charge me over double the fare that he had originally quoted when I got into the taxi! After a fair amount of arguing & with me asking to speak to his boss, he finally let me get my pack out of the boot & walk away. I couldn't have paid him that much if I wanted to, since I was leaving the country I physically didn't have that much money on me!

So there you go, another summer adventure over... It must be about time to start planning next years trip...