Macedonian wedding dresses

Ampitheatre and Lake Ohrid

Old town Lake Ohrid

Church on a cliff

Peacock at the Sveti Naum Monastery

Sveti Naum Monastery

Lake Ohrid

Straddling Albania and Montenegro borders

Biking Macedonia

After a 30KM bike ride, near the Albanian border

For the last few days we have been pretty boring and therefore don’t really have a lot to update you on. We had a great apartment in Lake Ohrid, Macedonia and spent our days relaxing by the beautiful volcanic lake, exploring the old town and watching movies courtesy of Sally in Istanbul.  We cooked some great meals and enjoyed some even better local wine.  It was a great place to decompress for a few days after a hectic few weeks.  However, one day we decided to venture out and rent bikes and travel 30km to the Albanian border to view the Sveti Naum monastery. In typical fashion everyone told us the route was difficult, with many steep hills and did not advise us to take the ride. Of course, we thought “we are from Colorado” and we can handle it.  After about 3 hours and some unconscionably steep hills, we made it to the very peaceful Sveti Naum monastery in the hillside.  It was worth the ride, but no way in hell we were going to make the ride back. With minimal exercise over the last few months, we were spent. We talked to a boat caption and he agreed to let us put our bikes on his boat and take us back to town. Several days later our butts still hurt. After a few days in Macedonia we decided it was time to continue our tour of the Balkans…

We are planners in every sense of the word. We always have destinations, hotels, tickets etc lined up and planned out well in advance (at least compared to many other backpackers) before we set out for the day. However, our recent trip from Macedonia to Montenegro via Albania was unusual as we didn’t have transportation tickets or a place to stay for the night. We had a destination in mind but weren’t sure how we were getting there. There was minimal information available and no direct buses. We left Ohrid at 8 am via a shared taxi, which is basically just a local driving his personal car picking up people on the side of the road. Andy was in the front and Adena was squished between two very overweight women and a baby in the back for the 15km drive to the border town of Struga. We arrived at the Struga bus station, which was actually more like an empty office building with a parking garage. We waited a few minutes for the clerk to call the bus driver on their mobile phone to make sure there was room for us on the bus headed to Albania. An hour later the (mini) bus pulled up and it sat about 15 people, but luckily we had seats. We happily headed over the Macedonian border and into Albania. Almost immediately we saw men riding donkeys and lots of beautiful hillside. After about 5 hours we made it to the capital city of Tirana, which was quite frenetic, yet underwhelming. Unfortunately the city decided to skip the whole modern central bus station thing and instead buses and furgons (mini buses) depart from different parts of the city. Luckily, another rider was heading to our next destination of Shkodrer (near the Montenegrin border) and led us to the correct bus “stop”.  About 10 minutes later we found ourselves on another cramped mini bus scarfing down some snacks and water and we were on our way. We continued to chat up our new Montenegrin friend who led us to the bus stop and he said he was going to Ulcinj in Montenegro. Lucky for us, that’s where we were going so we continued to follow his lead. He asked the bus driver to let us off on the side of the road (which we would have no idea to do this on our own) where he hired a cab to the border (and didn’t get charged the tourist rate!), walked across the border and there was a ride (we think his father) waiting for us to take us to our final destination of Ulcinj. After reading multiple blogs on how to get from Macedonia to Montenegro we thought we’d be stuck in an Albanian border town for the night but were incredibly lucky to make it in only took 8 hours! We found a wonderful apartment in Ulcinj and were immediately greeted with homemade brandy shots and wine! We like it here!