11th May - Macedonia Skopje -> Ohrid -> Struga -> Ohrid

After recovering from a mini-hangover, brought on by a pathetic 3.5pints at "The English Pub" central Skopje we woke around 08:30. I think the terrible tolerance for booze was due to having eaten pretty much jack the day before, not to mention the amount of walking we have been doing in the heat.

So anyway, waking up, did the shower stuff, then wandered into the front room. Ok, so there's nobody about literally empty house. Then the phone rings and some guy jumps out from behind a fake wall in a completely zombie like state and staggers to the phone. Perhaps the owners poor kid left with the responsibility of taking bookings and queries from the phone. Before we get a chance to ask him about leaving he disappears into the hidden room, and falls back into bed. We were a little confused, as he surely saw us standing in the room with our bags, yet decided not to conclude that we probably wanted to leave. We knocked on the hidden wall, which almost fell away from the building as it was only made of polystyrene, and clearly some year 3 primary school project, (maybe).

We at this point only had 25mins to get from our hostel / family house to the bus station where apparently our ticket to Ohrid could be bought. James headed into the station, whilst I ran around the station itself trying to find a bus with a sign that might say Ohrid, obviously written in Macedonian, with various symbols I'd never even seen before let alone about to understand or pronounce.

After a 3 hr ride with annoying kids banging the seats from behind us we arrived in Orhid. Before my foot even touched down I was instantly attacked by various people willing to do literally whatever it took to provide a taxi ride or accommodation. It was absolutely crazy, you said "no" yet that apparently in Macedonian must translate to "I want you to follow me around like some lap dog and pretend that I said yes". Even to the point where some guy followed us a good 5-10mins up the road to the bus stop (to go to Struga) and just stood next to us saying "taxi, taxi". we're like "listen mate, we're standing at a bus stop, what does it look like we're doing?". he then decides to make up some rubbish about the buses being out of service, and tries desperately to convince us that a 10E is the best we're going to get. 10mins or so later bus arrives, 30p each for 15mins ride, bargain.

Struga Rave Bus.

getFlash

After loads and loads of confusion it turns out that the bus to Tirana doesn't leave until 23:00 in the evening, even though we had heard about 5 different versions of the same story, all apparently confirmed via a phone call, probably to the talking clock. So we've decided to stay in Ohrid for the night as we have spend up until about 17:00 looking around for bus time tables and the like, and we actually want to have a look around this place. So Bus is now for 23:00 Sat night, arriving 05:45 Sun in Tirana. The bus stop is apparently outside a petrol station that we've yet to see, so we're going to try and wing it tomorrow, as just want to get a place to sleep now! It's a tour bus so I'm hoping I'll get some good sleep, otherwise I'm going to be seriously shattered.

Heading back to Ohrid we got a taxi for 100MDK, about 1 quid, then headed for somewhere to sleep. After wandering around we saw a house with "rooms" in the window, headed in and were greeted by a 10 year old who had very good English unlike the older lady who clearly hadn't had the advantage of being taught English at school.

Ohrid accomodation.

getFlash

So after checking in for 25E for a very swish room, we're happy, it overlooks the lake, which would even make for some cheesy romantic set for a movie. It looks like a family house, and they are incredibly keen to almost make us part of the family. We almost felt guilty having to turn down coffee with them simply because we're only there for one night, and need to try and get everything in. The best they got was about 5mins with us sitting at the table and politely taking some home-made pastry thing, tasted OK, James took a couple which he enjoyed more than me. Then we're off out to explore, (write this) and possibly a sea side bar.