Day 15, from Bitola to the Fisherman's Hut

September 14, 2019

Day 15, from Bitola to the Fisherman's Hut

In the morning, we took a taxi to Makovo at around 8:30. We decided to do this because there is a coal mine and a coal power plant next to it, to the east of Bitola. The taxi driver charged us €12 for the 25-kilometer drive. When we arrived in the village of Makovo, he stopped at the only mini shop, which was closed. Willi was a little disappointed because he wanted to have a coffee before starting. As we looked inside the small building through the heavily polluted window, we heard someone speaking behind us. We turned around and saw an old man. He tried to explain to us that the shop was not open, but he signaled for us to go to his house so he could make us coffee there. We thought for a moment and decided to go with him. When we arrived, we saw a very old stone house with a crooked, ancient wooden staircase leading to the first floor. He said something and gestured for us to go upstairs. At the top, there was about a 2-square-meter balcony where peppers and tobacco were hanging on a line to dry. We then entered the small hallway. There were 2 swallow nests: one on the wall above the door to his small bedroom, and one hanging from the cable of the ceiling lamp. We entered the kitchen through the second door: a small room with a very old, worn-out couch, a table, a wood stove, and a small kitchenette from the 1960s with an electric stove. There were utensils lying around everywhere, dusty or protected by cobwebs. He invited us to sit down. He immediately started to make Turkish coffee for us. In the meantime, he cut some very large tomatoes that he had harvested from his garden, put them on a plate, and added spices and salt. Then he served us coffee and tomatoes. We communicated with him using hand signs and a few Croatian words that I still knew. This old man, who lives in very poor conditions and invited us and didn't want to accept any money from us, impressed both of us greatly. When we thanked him and said goodbye after about an hour, he had moist eyes and hugged us tightly. We had to walk 2 kilometers on an asphalt road first, then we turned left onto a dirt road that led through a wonderful landscape. After about 9 kilometers, we reached the village of Čanište with about 35 houses. When we arrived in the village, we saw that no more than about 5-7 houses were still inhabited. It was a visually beautiful village in a depression, surrounded by original uncultivated landscape with few trees, rounded granite stones, and steppes with brownish grass due to the drought. From there, we continued for another 7 kilometers through the steppe, which was repeatedly interrupted by large granite boulders. The panorama was simply gigantic. After the 7 kilometers, we returned to an asphalt road. Our plan was to try to hitchhike a few more kilometers since walking on asphalt was not so great after 6 hours of hiking. After 20 minutes, only 2 cars passed by and they were either too small or had no space for us, so we decided to continue towards the river. Willi said, 'I only wish for one thing - that we get a bed 🛏 to sleep in today!' 5 minutes later, there were 2 large couches on the side of the road (see photos). Willi had sent his wish for 2 beds to the universe, and the wish was promptly granted 🧚‍♀️! Unfortunately, he formulated his wish a bit too vaguely because walls all around would have been nice too 😜! After a few minutes of relaxing on the couch, the sun had already set, and we continued towards the river (about 2 kilometers) to maybe set up our tent there for the night. Finally, when we arrived there, we discovered that there were about 5 houses next to the bridge. Now we saw chances again to get some food and beds with walls all around. We headed purposefully towards the last house. There was still a man working in front of the house. We asked him if we could find a room and something to eat here. He immediately called his wife, who spoke a little English, and she quickly came over. She explained to us that she could make us some food and that they had a 'somewhat messy fisherman's hut' where we could sleep for €2. The fisherman's hut was indeed 'somewhat' messy and smelled musty. But for now, we gratefully accepted both offers and were happy with the good ending to the evening. We sat under the linden tree in front of the fisherman's hut and drank a total of 3 bottles of beer 🍺 while the woman prepared dinner. However, I didn't feel quite comfortable with the idea of sleeping in the musty hut, not to mention that on my journey, I'm most afraid of the smallest creatures, namely bedbugs. While drinking beer 🍻, I shared my concerns with Willi about bedbugs, and we quickly unpacked our tent and set it up right next to the hut under the linden tree on a nice flat spot in the meadow before it got completely dark. In the meantime, the woman brought us a large plate of salami, air-dried ham, olives, sheep cheese 🧀, and bread 🍞! We were incredibly happy about that. After that, we soon went to sleep in our tents⛺

During the day, we ate fruits again from the roadside: pears, blackberries, and wild cherries.