Mysterious Macedonia

Prilep is the third largest city in the country with a whopping population of 18,000 people. It’s clean and finally starting to show some recent renovations and development after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Ana and Boris had me on the run from the moment I got there. We walked all over the town and sat in every café. Wherever we went Boris ran into a friend and stopped to talk. I mean every five minutes. We could be in another town or hiking on a hill in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t matter. In my narrative after every sentence just include your own “and Boris stopped to talk.” He really should run for president.
On the second day we went off to Lake Ohrid with a friend of Ana’s (who has better English than she does) and Boris’ sister. Danae and Marija were a lot of fun and gave me all the dirt on Ana and Boris. Ana is very nutty in her own special, loud, hyper way. Matzo is more Ana than Ana at times it was a little scary. Danae is smart and much calmer, and a nice balance to the crazy of Ana and Marija. We visited a monastery, several churches, an amphitheater and a fortress. We also stopped to see Marija’s friends and swim in the lake…a mountain lake…a damn cold mountain lake (are there any other kind?)
One night I was feted at Boris’ family house out in the country. What a delightful dinner with Ana’s and Boris’ families and friends eating under the stars and partaking of all sorts of yummy local food.
Boris and Ana had never had anyone to show their country to before so they were kind of excited. We went to Bitola, a once gorgeous town with all the old foreign consulates in lovely, run down historic buildings. They took me to the ancient Roman ruins down the road at Heraclea with some great finds. Heraclea was a pretty big city on an important Roman trade route. And because nobody visits Macedonia, it is a hidden gem. Since I enjoyed Heraclea so much, they decided I needed to go see Stobi, another important archeological Roman site that was even bigger than Heraclea and more important. So the next day we did a day trip up to see more mosaics and Roman foundations. Of course I made them take me to a couple of cemeteries as well.
I think the coolest thing though was when they took me to the Macedonian Diaspora Festival. Macedonia has been parceled off for centuries into various countries depending on who had control of what. However, the Macedonian people are now divided into about 4 countries. Macedonia of course, but large chunks are now part of Bulgaria and Greece and a sliver of Albania. So since the Yugoslav nation broke up, they are trying to celebrate their ethnicity once a year in this very colorful festival. I really enjoyed the folk dancing. I spent most of my time either watching or photographing the festival. I was really just over the moon.
But when it was time to go, it was time to go. We had started getting on each others nerves a little, and I was excited to be meeting up with Mark in Greece. But first I had one more hurtle. Transportation down to Thessaloniki. I may have mentioned before that transportation in the Balkans is ridiculously unorganized, and this was no exception. I was told before I planned my trip that there was a train directly there. However you may have heard that Greece is having some financial difficulty, and all trains that cross borders have been discontinued. Why? I don’t know what one has to do with another? So we went to the Tourist Bureau to find another option, and they didn’t know. They didn’t seem to know much of anything. So, basically we walked around and let Boris run into people he knew and asked them. Somebody said they knew a taxi driver who was willing to drive to Greece. Well, I guess that’s gonna be expensive, but I gotta go. We go to the taxi driver’s house and his mom starts arranging for me to hire her son for the day. Only then the taxi driver shows up himself and tell his mom to shut up and lets us know that he also owns a van service that goes to Thessaloniki every morning. Which is a whole lot cheaper and makes more sense then hiring a personal driver for the day. So I got to Greece without any further hiccups. However, transportation in Greece will have it’s own problems. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

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