Macedonia

To avoid confusion: I am going back in time now.  What I am going to write about Macedonia, Greece and Istanbul actually happened last year!

So here is Macedonia.    We crossed the border from Albania in Pogradec and rode through a National Park, always with the lake on our left-hand side and the  big mountain with autumn colors on our right-hand side.  The lake was so big, it felt like we were at the sea again.  We rode until Ohrid, a city with a beautiful old town, a fortress, an amphitheater, several old churches and plenty of nice houses.  We encountered mysterious Slavo, a Macedonian guy (who has lived in Berlin before and therefore spoke German fluently)  who had once traveled around the world on bike.  He showed us a place to camp and shared his view of the world and God and how to travel the world wlth us.  All this in 10min, then he left and we never saw him again.  We met some other cyclists later on in Greece who had the same experience with Slavo...  Anyway, this is the view of the lake from where he took us, a small paradise next to a forest.

Unfortunately, this was also where I got sick with a high fever ; ) Just before arriving to Tirana, I had already caught a bladder infection and was still suffering from it.  This is especially uncomfortable at night when you have to get out into the cold to pee..  ooohh..  Anyway.  In Ohrid, I spent the whole day either  feeling cold and shivering or sweating as hell, with body ache everywhere, while Albert went around  town trying to find a doctor and something to eat for me.  We finally decided to replace our paradise with an  apartment with golden covered sofas, cheesy  flower patterned wallpaper and lots of plastic (for 5 Euros each).   But the bed, oh yes, the bed felt like heaven to me! 

Here are some pictures of Ohrid..

We continued our trip through Bitola and Prilep. From Prilep, we basically rolled down from 1100m to 200m altitude. It took around 2 hours. The head wind and rain was really freezing cold but once again, the scenery was so beautiful that we enjoyed the ride so much. The road took us through a valley with colorful hills on both side..

Until Demi Kapija, a small village next to a river and these rocks:







There are some really nice rock climbing routes in between the two rocks.






 Jesus walked on water (..or did he not?), my boyfriend flyes over water....































..and the view from the top (of the climbing route)

                                                                     


From Demi Karpija we took the this road all the way to Greece:

(Wilhelm II-German Emperor - King of Prussia ordered his soldierd to built this road 1916)

HEHEHEHEEE... he did not know that 95 years later, a Spanish guy and Japanese-Dutch girl would take this road in order to get to Japan on their bikes!  : )   

OK-break.  Greek and Turkey will follow soon!