Ohrid, Macedonia

Dear all,

This is day 2 in Macedonia… I think. Everything is all a bit messed up because we came over on an overnight coach will decided to get in about an hour and a half early which meant we were in Ohrid around 3:30am [GMT+1] local time. Luckily a kind old geeza had a place for us to stay and he said he even wouldn’t charge us for that early mornings stay. Which was jolly decent of him.

Yesterday was fun and games. After waking up from very little sleep we gathered our stuff to go for a bite to eat and a wander, except claudio had some how managed to lose his ATM card. Fun and games. The rest of the morning was spent rummaging around our personal possessions before checking the ATM claudio withdrew from yesterday the finally making it to an internet cafe to find the number he needed to call to cancel it. Nevertheless by 11:30 it was all sorted and we lived happily ever after.

The rest of yesterday was spent wandering around the old town of Ohrid – lot of white washed little villas perched on a hill side below a rebuilt citadel at the summit. We went to the citadel which gave great views of all these little terracotta rooves hugging a small bay which led out to lake Ohrid – a magnificent tectonic freshwater lake which sparkled in the distance and was clear as tap water at shore.

Last night was a quiet one. We went and bought some pasta for tea, eating in for only the second time in almost 4 weeks – yes we’ve been living it up slightly. Although the likelihood is we’ll be doing that again as claudio didn’t withdraw enough cash. For most of the night we drank wine and played cards while listening to some local radio. What a way to spend your Friday night eh? Well, the accommodation we’re in doesn’t really lend itself to being sociable with other travelers, for example, we were the only people in the house for the majority of last night, and I mean the only ones – not even the landlord. Tonight might be a bit more eventful, we said we’d meet up with an ozzy couple who we bumped into yesterday in the street – it was pretty strange since the first time we saw them was back in brasov about 11-12 days ago, then again in Bucharest a day or so after that; to be fair most people are on a similar journey through eastern europe, just depends whether you clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Not much else to report to be honest. I’d say more about Ohrid but its only a small place. I will say however, that the Macedonians we’ve met so far have been very friendly. Most young people speak good English, and on the coach from Sofia we were minor celebrities as a couple of chappies struck up conversations with us and asked questions our fellow passengers were wondering about us, a nice chap called Mickey – he even offered for us to stay the night at his house in a town around 60km from Ohrid [bit too far away so we declined]. Another chap was from Bulgaria traveling with the group of YMCA peeps on the bus, he’d spent some time in Britain and was a very excitable person who jumped for joy at the use of colloquial/slang British English [even the word ‘mate’ he found most interesting]; the best bit though was he enjoyed pub quizzes [in common with Martinoli] and drinking Green King IPA [top marks from me].

The rest of today we’ll spend on the shore line; I’d day beach but there isn’t one. Its all gravy.

Hope everyone is well wherever they are in the world doing whatever they’re doing. I’m home a week on Thursday, but have Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia to tackle first.

Ta ra

Andy

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