Around the Balkans in 20 Days – Part 4

Our last full day in Skopje, and we had our sights set on leaving the city limits. Following our prompt to the taxi driver yesterday, her enthusiasm for Matkasee drove us to wanting to visit even more. So we followed our usual morning routine, including packing a lunch, and left the apartment, heading for the Ramstore. Another still and warm day, ideal for an outdoorsy day within a ravine and amongst the forest.

We dipped in to the supermarket at the Ramstore and bought plenty of water. We didn’t know how long our trek would be, so wanted to be armed with enough liquid to see us through. Now, instead of calling the chirpy taxi driver from yesterday, we decided to go rogue and just call at the taxi rank. After a minute or two of standing on the opposite side of the road to the taxi rank, with faint hope of eyeing up a suitable driver that agreed with us (and that those who didn’t would have picked up custom and moved on), we inevitable had to get in the New York style cab of a guy who was there two minutes previous. I’m sure he was baffled by our indecision!

We communicated effectively enough for him to know that we wanted to go to the Matkasee, so off we sped. The air con was a godsend, filtering us with its chilling breeze as the sun shone forcefully through the untinted windows. We coasted along the main route west out of town, lined with 1960’s, post-earthquake brutalist constructions, and over the Vardar. Once over, we followed a road that ended at a junction. To the right was the main route eastward, north and around the city, to the left the road headed towards Tetovo. We turned left and ran parallel to small parades of shops on either side of the avenue. The suburb we entered was definitely distinct from the city centre. It was a lot more of a suburb, every road leading off the avenue leading to low-rise brutalist residential accommodation. I know this because we had to detour through the side streets as the main avenue was dug up for resurfacing. As we passed through, the sanguine effect of the sun was ever present on the residents. Lackadaisically, they ambled around, perhaps from a household chore or to the shops. It was the summer after all, and the temperature was rising.

As we skirted through the suburbs, we stopped off at a petrol station so the up-til-then silent driver could fill up the tank. Swiftly back on the road, and no sooner that we were back on the main avenue, we turned left down what I would call a country road. This was our route to Matkasee, off the beaten track. Originally, I had hoped we could have taken the bus, and that would have been cheaper and a rather more real experience. However, the further away from the city we travelled, the lesser the confidence grew in me as we entered unchartered waters. I was glad of a local to guide us through.

We entered a village called Saraj, the first that was evidently Albanian. This was the first time I had seen the Albanian flag being flown in what seemed a more official capacity. The village itself stretched about half a mile or so. It obviously suffered from a lack of investment. The road was bumpy, there were pavements for all of about 400 meters of the village, a bus stop that was basically a pole in the ground, and a public building that was either run down or was never completed. You could feel the resentment, and I would too, from the lack of attention from the Government. And this from a Government that had an ethnic Albanian party as its coalition partners. Romantically, I became fond of it as we travelled through. Once Saraj passed by, we drove along a flat, country road then started going up hill and into another even smaller village. This one was more tightly knit architecturally as the road whisked past the edges of peoples houses and near to their front doors. We finished climbing as we approached a small river, heading upstream as we were. We then entered a flatter floodplain, the road and river snaking along side each other. Part of the river was now more man-made, with kayaking facilities clearly visible, but also a gathering of individuals and families bathing and sloshing around in the river. We carried on.

We scaled another small hill and before us appeared the hydroelectric dam. Signs warned not to take pictures. I couldn’t fathom what the state secret could have been! As the dam disappeared behind us, we came to a halt. Our mute driver soon explained that we should walk 500 yards or so and that would be where our trail would begin. We paid him our rather cheap £9 for a 40-minute taxi ride, and walked up a narrow path into the mouth of the ravine. A couple of groups passed us walking in the opposite direction as we weaved along a narrow path that sheltered under hanging cliffs – a momentary respite from the sun.

As we turned a corner, we opened up from a bottleneck into an open expanse. To our right, the continuing path reached a canopied bar terrace and long stone building. In the centre was a turquoise green lake that stretched on ahead. To our left were what looked like scar-damaged, chalky white-gray cliffs that rose out from the lake like pyramids to the crystal-blue sky. As we approached the canopied area, it appeared the long building was a bar and restaurant. Before reaching there and ordering a drink, we noticed that we could hire kayaks to go up the lake.  A few visitors were ambling into them as we walked on, others beginning their voyage. We decided over our beer and cola to hire a kayak from the end of the trail, so that we could return in style after visiting some caves. There was a nice mix of people there – families, couples, groups of lads, tourists – but mostly locals of Albanian background, which cheered me immensely.

After our drink we decided to set off. I used the wifi to try and map our walk but, with little satellite mapping, only a limited amount could be done. After we passed the restaurant there was a large sign for walkers. Mostly in Cyrillic, but accompanied by pictures. The one that shone out for me was of a snake. Bloody SNAKES! Poisonous or not, I didn’t care. Their slithery bodies would freak the hell out of me anyway. Included in this collage were the flora and fauna of the canyon, as well as lizards. Surely I could deal with them. So our walk began with my heart rate at a rather higher pace than anticipated.

My movements through the rocky and dusty path were commando-esque. I flinched at any sound I heard, and recoiled at any movement that emanated from the steep hillside or rock face to our right. The only promising escape at times was a 50-foot drop into the lake. John just giggled most of the way at my paranoia and hysteria. The start of the walk was beautiful, the water twinkling in the sun, and the historic cliff faces showcasing scars from an age gone by. Kayakers paddled on by, with the odd accompaniment of a diesel powered boat chugging through. The first lizard really did make me jump. It was the more the realisation that it was there that scared me, not that it could do anything to me. On the contrary, it merely scarpered as it saw me. We continued.

After 30 minutes or so we started to question where the end was. After 45 minutes, we did so even more. After an hour, we asked people coming back the other way if the end was near. In patchy and unclear English, they said “Yes, not far” and pointed ahead. Thrilled that the end was near, we walked on with more of a spring in our step. 20 minutes later we reached the end - a green barrier, and a path that evaporated into the ether. An exhausted and exasperated look crossed our faces, similar to Wily Coyote when he fails to catch Roadrunner and the anvil lands on his head instead.  After holding our toilet break for over an hour, we climbed a few yards into the lizardy mountain and relieved ourselves. We could both see and hear the boats mooring nearby for the promised caves, on the opposite side of the canyon. No bridge or boat to connect us, and no boats for us to hire to take us downstream.  So now my thoughts turned to those wretched snakes, almost as if they had planned this trek, leading me to a dead end so that they could haunt me further on my return to sanctuary. My initial relief at reaching the end of the walking element of our exploration now turned into an even more insufferable return to a tortured path littered with imaginary snakes. As usual on a return journey, it seemed shorter. And so, I celebrated my return with a drink or two, John paying for a couple of rounds of beers to relive my stress.

Whilst there, and with access to wifi, I decided to FaceTime Michelle from the lakeside. A drunken call for 20 minutes went by in a blur. Back I went – now onto cocktails. 20-something Albanian lads occupied a rock jutting out into the lake partaking in camaraderie and diving into the lake. It then dawned upon me that I had no cash, and John had just spent his last on the drinks. No kayaking for us, although we had enough for the planned bus we planned to take back to Skopje.

So we departed, I slightly annoyed that we couldn’t go kayaking, but relieved that the organiser in me knew we had scant information on when and where to get the bus back to Skopje. We walked back where the taxi dropped us off earlier in tandem with other visitors now heading back home. We walked down towards the man-made kayaking facility as no bus stop seemed evident up to that point. A little further on, a busy car park was emptying slowly – cars doing u-turns and queuing whilst spitting up dust from the chalky road. We carried on past a couple of buildings, one housing a pedestrian bridge to the other side of the river, and onwards to a restaurant placed opposite an exposed, wooden hut. This may be our bus stop, as there were a couple of people there who looked like tourists. I persuaded John to go to the restaurant to double check. The waiter confirmed this.

It was getting late in the day, deceptively so as the sun was ‘setting’ behind the hills to the west. After 30 minutes or so, 4 young lads came to join the small but growing contingent in the wooden shack. After overhearing their conversation, we knew they were British. At a guess, they were 19 or 20. One asked if this was the bus stop, and John replied yes. This opened up conversation starting with the Matkasee and led on to our travelling plans. It seems that they were heading from Skopje to Belgrade by night train, then Berlin via Budapest, and onwards to Amsterdam. John and I affectionately called them the ‘In-betweeners’. They had the same characters in each of them – Briefcase, English ‘lad’, the dopey one, and average one obsessed with Carly. After 20 minutes a clapped-out old bus with no passengers onboard came from the direction of Saraj and passed us. In the immediate confusion of whether the bus stop was actually back up the road, one of the In-betweeners went off to explore just beyond the bend where the pedestrian bridge was. He came back and said that it was attempting to turn around.

A taxi soon passed by with the driver offering anyone a lift to Skopje for about £14. We declined and said that we would wait for the bus, to which he replied that it was broken down. We didn’t want this potential ruse to lure us into paying over the odds, so we declined again. No one else took up the offer. The In-betweeners were relying on the bus, as they hadn’t brought enough cash for a taxi. Our conversation with them soon drifted. After another 25 minutes of waiting, John unilaterally decided to take the next taxi – we could get cash on the way.

One passed by soon enough and John leapt into it, no doubt getting tired and restless. The taxi was metered and the driver suggested the fare would be about £12. We just nodded and off he drove. As we coasted along towards Saraj, we had hit upon a turned over truck in the road with a set of tyre marks veering off to the right. A black, expensive car was at the end of these marks, down a steep embankment. Clearly the car was trying to overtake the lorry but must have misjudged and ended up on a sort of car park area below. We skirted around the chaos, with the driver expelling grunts of disapproval. We sped on through the village and onwards to the main boulevard. As we merged onto a roundabout, a car to our left veered on to our lane and clipped the taxi. A near miss that sent our driver off on another tirade of grunts. We just wanted to get back, undamaged preferably.

A shattered John asked the driver to pull up at an ATM near the police station we registered at. He came back with a wad of cash, happy to be able to pay for the easier journey home. However, he got ten times as much cash out as needed. Instead of 10,000 denars he got 100,000 - £100. His tiredness was clearly showing. He found an exchange office and changed the rest into Serbian dinars ready for our bus journey north.

We headed back to the apartment, where we showered, changed and undertook some preliminary packing of our belongings. We had our last drink on the balcony as the sun was setting before returning to the police station. We had the police officer complete our small registration form to say that we were exiting the country in the morning, and he signed this off in his official book. We then returned to the main square and onward to Carpe Diem again for food. The halloumi with honey and sesame seed starter was to die for. As we had to get up very early, we finished up our food and wine and decided to get as much sleep as possible ahead of our mammoth trek tomorrow.