Journey to the centre of the Earth Part Two- Macedonia

It’s now the 26^th of July, I think, and the friendly bus driver woke me gently, saying, “we are in Skopje”. I sat up, groggy, and had a look around. It looks much cleaner than Bulgaria, softer. I gathered my things and got off the bus, the driver handed me my rucksack and thanking him, I headed towards a brightly lit, deserted bus station. I scoped out the bus station for a comfy spot to wait for Lepka, who I hoped was going to give me a lift to the campsite, still another two hours drive away high in the mountains that lie along the Albanian border. I spotted a cosy corner that looked promising for what could be a long wait and headed outside a door to smoke a cigarette and send Lepka a text to tell her I had arrived.

I didn’t even finish my cigarette before Lepka and her friend Doncha arrived to claim me. With big friendly smiles, they introduced themselves and welcomed me to Macedonia. We loaded my rucksack into Lepkas Skoda and were on our way. I was quite hungry by this time so I was very happy when Doncha said we were to stop for some food before we left the city. It was at this point I realised I had no Macedonian currency. How could I have overlooked that one, I had Bulgarian Levs, Euros, Swiss Francs but no Macedonian Denars. (In my head I would pick up the different currencies at the various airports. I didn’t think about crossing the border on a bus)

So, mortified, I asked my new friends would the shops here accept Euros, without much hope as no one in Bulgaria would even look at Euros, and they are EU! But Happily Macedonia being the friendly, progressive little country it is, most places will take Euros. But unhappily, not the place we were going to eat. But happily, Macedonians being the friendly people they are, my new friends said they would shout me a snack in return for some beers at a later date. So we picked up two more girls, Rusna and Irina, bit of a squeeze, and head for some food. We went to a Burek place. Burek is a kind of cheesy pastry that you have while drinking a carton of yoghurt. I never tasted anything better than this sour-ish pastry, washed down with this milky sour yoghurt. I was now pretty certain it was 2:30 am, sitting outside this strange fast food place on a balmy night in Skopje, I was so happy.

We bought some water and set off for the mountains. From what I saw of the city, it looked modern, clean and well maintained. Lots of coffee bars and trendy shops.

Doncha, it turned out has a great interest in Ireland. He even had a tape of the Dubliners to play on our journey. He delighted in trying out the IRA slogans he had learned on me. It is a very strange thing to hear 'Tiocfáidh ár Lá' in a Macedonian accent. He is very much a sympathiser to the Republican cause, but I think he is unaware of the ongoing Peace process, I tried to enlighten him but he was having none of it. We left the city and I soon fell asleep again.