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53km
The morning found us drier than we had expected and, as we packed up our home, we were granted our first face to face encounter with police at any of our campsites. Yes, we were breaking the law, supposedly, and the farmer we could hear chopping willow saplings across the railroad tracks suspected we were illegal immigrants with knives headed for the EU and a better life, supposedly. We made merry with the border patrol and continued to pack our home with more excitement than contempt, for now we add another story to our collection, if only we could have snapped a photo.
We crossed the border smoothly only to have to fight hard against strong winds. Wind makes us want to cry, and this wind was close to being the worst yet. The dry and, nearly, treeless landscape hurled the strong winds from, seemingly, every direction. Add this to an incline and you get a frustrated and tired couple. Eventually, the beauty of the landscape tipped the scale and we were back at peace with mother nature. In the end it was a really beautiful ride and led us to a beautiful campsite next to some unidentified ruins with a view of the lake in the distance.
The little amount of Greece we saw was dotted with little shrines like this one
damn wind
Speaking Russian to a Greek man with water
Home
89km
The last apple we had picked was way back on the road from Ljubljana to Postojna, Slovenia. We have been blessed with fresh fruit from the source at no cost for the whole of our journey thus far. Apples had been with us for the entire first month and ended as we dropped over the Karst to the Slovene coast. The Mediterreanan climate brought new opportunities for fresh fruit; we gathered massive pomegrates, Japanese apples (we think these are more commonly called persimmon but like the Slavic name Japinski Japko), occasional figs, grapes, and some kiwi. Suddenly, just by crossing a small mountain range, we had entered apple paradise. Our little apple orchard proved just a beginning to our feeding frenzy for the day. We continued down the road, passing through a valley lit with the colors of our continuos autumn, one more mountain ridge, and into a region where the apples grew bigger, sweeter, and more plentiful. This area was bumping with the apple export and the piles of apples lined the energetic streets.
and this where we got married!
Raj o smaku jablkowym
Ever since the rainy day along the river bank in Albania, the sky had been threatening us with dark clouds that felt as though they would bust open at any minute. While this exuded a certain anxiety, it also produced a remarkable drama over the landscape that kept us in awe.
We made it past Bitola to within 10km of the Greek border when the sun was forcing us to stop. After spending the day admiring the landscape and all of its camping potential, we crossed another mountain pass and found our selves in a large flat valley blanketed by commercial agriculture devoid of the day’s scenery and beautiful campsites. None-the-less, we found a scrubby corner near some abandoned railroad tracks and a harvested field to call home. It was pretty low class, but it seemed safe and our best option. We could spot the approaching rain storms dropping over the distant mountain range and prepared our site for a rainy night.
52km
The rains subsided and it was time to pack up our home on the river bank and push our bikes through the sticky red mud back to SH3 towards Macedonia. As with most of our other border crossings, the checkpoints sat on top of a high ridge making for a long cold climb up the bunker speckled mountain side. These small stoic fortifications sunk into the earth reveling only the timid opening where at some point some timid man probably stood guard waiting for Milosevich himself to march down the road.
Take notice of the bunkers behind us
Przekraczamy granice Macedoni
We crossed the border and headed towards Lake Ohrid to look for a campsite. The sun was set when we found the abandoned apple orchard we would call home for the night.
