Fifth day

Right in the morning, we set off to the center of Ohrid, near which we had camped by the lake of the same name the previous day.

At first glance, the city seemed very touristy, yet also evoked a sense of peace. We wandered through modest little streets that led us to the promenade on the shore of the lake, from where there was nowhere to go but up.

In the relentless heat, we clawed our way up a rock that overlooked both the city and the lake. We even encountered the first of many turtles.

After that, we had no choice but to head back towards the car and drive a bit further, unaware of everything that awaited us that day.

A little further beyond the city, our path, which I can't say I would completely call a road, began to twist uphill into the mountains, where an abandoned village was supposedly located according to all available information.

Eventually, we reached the village, as did our car. When we later descended the same way, we just hoped not to encounter any cars coming toward us.

In the afternoon, we passed through a national park across the mountains to the neighboring lake, where we quickly dove in for a swim and then headed toward the border.

Despite the concerns some of us had, the border crossing between North Macedonia and Albania went suspiciously smoothly.

We crossed the border, and here it was, finally the real, pure Balkans that we had been waiting for. Bumpy roads, flocks of sheep on the roads, cars following their own road rules.

We drove through the Albanian countryside across mountains and hills, one serpentine after another, all the while admiring the beauty of the local nature and the stunning views.

By evening, all that remained was to find the ideal place to spend the night, which turned out to be the main stumbling block.

In the end, we drove off somewhere into a field, passed by a few farmers, and continued toward the river, where instead of cooking dinner we had to grab a shovel and start digging out the car since we got stuck and repeated attempts to push it out didn’t help.

Ultimately, everything ended well, and we could calmly toast to another successful day behind us and lie down to rest.

Slice / Vlad