To Skopje and Bulgaria…

The narrow road hugged the sheer mountainside...

Autumn was on it's way... I was herding Willi through the mountains before winter set in and trapped us here...!!

We rode out of Przren, heading for Skopje in Macedonia, the city we had hoped to reach the day before…

We took a short cut through the mountains east of Przren, and were glad that we had done so… It was as beautiful an area as those we had ridden through over the past few days, and the road was in good condition….

Not much traffic seemed to pass this way, but on the odd occasion when we had to pass a large truck, the road seemed barely wide enough… I had a dicey moment when one rounded a bend in front of me, and made use of the entire width of the road…!!

Not often you see a speed limit for tanks on a public road...!! But this is Kosovo, and the military is out in full force...

Willi the clown keeps the kids entertained...

There were a number of very smart hotels along the route, tucked away in the mountains… I wondered why they was little or no advertising for them…

The area is perfect for mountain walks and cycling, and must attract many visitors in the summer… For now, the hotels stood undisturbed and empty…

The temperature had dropped steadily over the course of the morning, and the leaves on most of the trees were beginning to turn yellow and orange… We stopped at the little village of Brezovica, so that Willi could refuel…

Besides his regular stops for coffee, and something to eat, Willi was also one of those bikers who liked to refuel after covering a few hundred kilometres…

We hooked up with the main road running north to the capital of Pristina, and south to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia… We rode through the town of Kacanik and then on to the border at Goranca…

The border officials did not like the fact that I had my camera out, and would not let me take a photo of the huge flag that was flying proudly in the breeze… I found this ridiculous and told the guy who came trotting over to tell me to put my camera away…

We were headed in the right direction...

Bicycles and carts again...!! A major nuisance...!!

Edgy border guards awaited us in Macedonia...

Willi works his way through a plate of chicken soup in Skopje...

The Skopje Skorpions hit the road...

Our passports and registration documents were scrutinized before we were allowed to enter Macedonia…

We were also asked for our green cards, and it would seem that as long as you have a green-coloured piece of paper with your registration on it, you will pass inspection…!!

In the last few countries we have passed through, I have not been registered in any of them, but have been allowed to ride through without a problem…!!

On the outskirts of Skopje, we stopped for an early lunch, and while I refueled, Willi went to check out the large restaurant on the side of the petrol station… While we ate, a pair of local bikers arrived and sat down at the table next to ours… After we had eaten, and requested the waiter to bring us the bill, we were told that the bikers had already paid for our meal…!! We thanked them and invited them to join us at our table…

Our biker friends from Skopje, Xhevat and Habit, paid for our lunch...!!

Macedonia has a strong claim to the memory of Alexander the Great...

Athens was 720 km away, but we were headed for Bulgaria...

Both guys were from Skopje, Xhevat is a radiologist, and Habit worked in the security industry…

They were enthusiastic bikers and often took short tours around Macedonia… They were able to advise us which was the best route to Bulgaria, and what we could expect along the way… We chatted for half an hour, before they left to go back to work, and we set out for Veles, on the motorway south of the city…

Willi catches up... A rare occurence...!!

We passed through two toll gates, where I had to wait for Willi to catch up, as he was the only one who had any Euros on him… The road was worth the €2.00 we had to pay, as it was well paved and the double lanes allowed us to zoom down the highway, making up for the time we had lost earlier…

Vegetable stall out in the Macedonian countryside...

At Veles we headed east through a low range of mountains, and up onto a plateau that ran towards the town of Stip… The area was well cultivated. Although some of the machinery the locals were using must have dated back at least twenty or thirty years… The combine harvesters were akin to Model T’s when compared to those I had seen in more developed areas of Europe…

In some fields, large groups of women were bent over, picking peppers by hand…

Women working in the fields... And I wondered then, as I wonder now...

We passed through Stip and rode on to Kocani, climbing higher and higher into the mountains… An hour and a half after having lunch at Skopje, Willi’s bladder sent him an urgent message, which he felt compelled to obey… We stopped in the little village of Istibanja, where we discovered that there were no suitable toilet facilities… Willi did however buy a large packet of biscuits and a cold drink, which he began consuming on the spot…

“I thought you needed to take a leak…?” I asked…

“Yeah…but I also needed something to drink…!! We’ll have to find a spot a bit further on to stop…!!”

I sighed deeply at the thought of yet another stop so soon after this one… A large crowd of young boys had surrounded us by then, and one of them spoke enough German to converse with us… He translated everything we said to his mates, who stared at us in wonder… Willi shared his biscuits with them, and when the last one was handed out, I hopped onto the Big Fella, firing him up and gunning the engine…

“Willi… I’m heading out… See you in Bulgaria…!”

That got him up and into the saddle right smartly, but within a few kilometres, he had to pull off to take his long overdue leak… I motored on slowly, climbing up to almost 900 m.a.s.l. where the air was crisp and cold… We passed through Delcevo, on our way to the border, the cold mountain air a huge change from the warm weather we had been riding in… We had not been prepared for this, and at the border, it was even colder…

Could have been outer Mongolia for all we knew...

When I took my gloves off to get my passport and documents out, I had to clap them together a few times to get circulation back into them… The border official thought I was applauding him for a job well done…!!

I was once again prevented from taking photos of the “Welcome to Bulgaria” sign at this border post… Perhaps there are hidden codes somewhere in that message…!!

By the time Willi arrived, I had cleared all the border formalities, and waited while he went through the motions… We then climbed higher into the mountains, crossed over a ridge, and began descending towards the town of Blagoevgrad in Western Bulgaria…

Capital of Western Bulgaria... We decided to overnight here...

It was not nearly as cold at the lower altitudes as it had been at the border. We found a very smart hotel, whose rates were reasonable, and chatted to the owners while petting their two large dogs… The Apart Hotel, had decorated each room in the style of various cities around the world… Willi was installed in “Paris” while I got “Harare”…!!

Parked inside the hotel grounds...

Additional security had been arranged...

Our rooms were by far the biggest we had enjoyed so far, and we immediately decided to spend an additional day there…

It was not only located on the edge of the city where it was peaceful and quiet, but we were the only ones in the hotel, and basically had the run of the place…

The two receptionists, Kristina and Milena, were very helpful, and chatted to us about life in Bulgaria, their studies, and what there was to see and do in town… While Willi rode into town “to scope out the action”, I stayed in my room, taking advantage of the opportunity to get some writing done, and to plan my next ride into Greece…

The "Harare" suite, my apartment in the Apart Hotel...

Spacious and comfortable...

Milena of the Apart Hotel... Friendly and helpful...!!

A mere five slices of French toast for breakfast...!!

Later that night we enjoyed a huge dinner of Chicken Kiev and salads, and then Willi went to locate some spares that he wanted me to have… He gave me a set of inner tubes, some brake pads, as well as a tow rope that he thought might come in handy… He had earlier also discovered a packet of stickers from South America that he let me have…

I had enjoyed his company over the past few days, even though our riding habits differed to some extent… It had been great to chat to another biker about their own exploits and compare “stories from the road”…

He was heading into the mountains and up to Sofia, and then would try and hook up with me again in Turkey… When I told him I was leaving at about 6.30am the following morning, he raised his eyebrows and said,

“But that’s in the middle of the night…!! It will still be dark…!! You’re crazy, man…!! That’s the most dangerous time of the day… Slippery roads, drivers half asleep… No way…!!”

He left my room, muttering to himself, but asked me to wake him up before I left anyway…

It was after midnight before I managed to crawl into bed, having uploaded my route into Greece, and packed most of my gear away, in preparation for one of the earliest starts I would make, since Budapest a few weeks ago…

©GBWT 2010