Trumpets and Mud in Serbia - Steep slopes in Macedonia

We are at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, it's raining and raining here. The big raindrops drum on the roof and we drink coffee in the bus :) mind you, cooked inside. If you master the exact order of the necessary clearing up, no problem at all. In addition, we finally have time to write and edit photos.

It's been almost three weeks since we arrived in Guca (Serbia). We arrived in the small idyllic town in the late afternoon with three people. Halfway there, we picked up the Frenchman Baptist to drive together to the festival.

Once we arrived in Guca, we followed the precise directions we received for our booked campsite. We ended up in the garden of an older lady with a lawn that is probably regularly trimmed with nail scissors. We briefly wondered why this fancy garden is being converted into a campsite for the festival, but before we knew it, we were sitting in the kitchen and were warmly welcomed with water and homemade jam. Only after some time, when the English-speaking son appeared, it turned out that we were completely wrong - thankfully we didn't leave too deep traces on the beautiful lawn. Shortly after, we found the right campsite at the other end of the village. In our defense: we were sent the wrong directions.

The trumpet festival puts Guca in a state of exception every year and is a rather extraordinary and somewhat crazy event! We quickly formed a funny festival group with whom we had a really good time! The fact that we can still hear is almost a miracle, because Guca is primarily very, very loud! This is due on the one hand to the fact that trumpets are not quiet instruments... but three or four trumpet bands playing at the same time on a few square meters while competing against the techno music from the speakers of the bar opposite, is especially loud! But the festival also has a big stage where a contest between the bands takes place over the four days, quite properly and civilly. The more it gets wild in the streets of Guca, with parades and a huge selection of freshly grilled meat, suckling pig and of course many trumpets.

After the festival, we drove to the village of Pocekovina, where we lived and worked with Milos for a week. Milos renovates his late grandfather's over 100-year-old house with natural materials and produces organic rakia. The plums for this naturally grow in the garden. We slapped a mixture of straw, clay, lime, and sand onto the wall, explored the surroundings together and drank rakia by the campfire.

After that, it was time to visit another country, namely Macedonia! We started directly with the capital Skopje. The architecture in Skopje is extraordinary and a matter of taste, if you're into fancy, newly made Greek architecture, you will be in heaven. We mainly stayed in the Bazaar neighborhood, which is still very original with many small alleys.

Inspired by the Petzl-Rocktour 2014, our next destination was Prilep, where there are many beautiful outdoor bouldering possibilities. However, we planned a stopover at a campsite in search of a washing machine and ended up in Demir Kapija. We didn't find a washing machine, but we found a super beautiful climbing area!

www.klettern-in-mazedonien.de

Instead of one night, we stayed for a week and had a wonderful time with great people. Lucas was finally able to climb again and it was also a very special week for me because I discovered a total joy in rope climbing. We didn't expect that :) We still went to Prilep, but only for one night.

Tomorrow we will continue, we haven't decided where yet :)

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