Tag 74 to 76 Goricë e Vogël, North Macedonia, Farewell, Birdringing ... and many donkeys

4.10. Part 2

In the evening light, the small village by the lake looks picturesque. In the village, we initially only encounter donkeys, cows, and flocks of chickens accompanied by their roosters clucking through the dirt roads. They all eye us skeptically. With some effort, we find the guesthouse. But there's no phone number, no doorbell, no neighbor (a neighbor can't help us at all, even though it's obvious what we want - oh man, this country is slowly getting on my nerves), nothing at all! A little puzzled, we stand in front of the house. But then Zana, a friendly older, tough woman who runs the guesthouse and speaks a little English, happens to pass by. After some back and forth phone calls with Zana's daughter Sveta, who takes care of the bookings, we can stay. We have the whole house to ourselves (the village is heavily aging, and all the young people have left - as a result, many houses are empty) and we arrange for a dinner at Zara's house. Benjamin notices that we don't have water. Sveta assures me on the phone that this is a known problem and that her mom will take care of it. Zana comes back and initially, with our 'expert' help and then with the neighbor's help, reseals the connections of the pump that pumps water from the well into the house. This takes a while. Welcome to Albania 😁
Once this is done, Zana prepares a lavish feast for us with carp from Lake Prespa, cheese from her cow, and vegetables from her garden. Super delicious! A great ending to the day. On the way back through the village, two barking dogs block our way. We are about to turn around and find another way, when two women come out of a garden gate, the dogs keep their distance, and we quickly tag along with them and safely reach home.

Side note: With a lot of water and soap, we finally find the hole, or rather the holes, in Benjamin's mattress. So far, he has been sleeping on the floor after a short time. But the story is not over yet. A patch doesn't hold tight... You will read about it later.

05.10.
Breakfast is again at Zana's house. Again, almost exclusively products from her garden and from her cow and chickens.
Then I accompany Benjamin to the North Macedonian border to the next town, where we say goodbye. In doing so, we make three nervous border police officers who are inspecting cars from Macedonia to Albania. We are not supposed to stand near them... Well, then we'll just go around the corner. After Benjamin continues driving north, I explore another part of North Macedonia, have pancakes in a small restaurant, and drive back to Goricë e Vogël, while I search in vain for pelicans everywhere. The lake is still beautiful! In the evening, I eat again at Zana's, this time I asked for a smaller meal without fish - I can't feast like that every day. Actually, I only wanted to stay for one more night, but Zana's daughter works on a nature conservation project and she arranged for me to contact the rangers who are currently busy with birdringing here. I only find out what this really means the next day. On this evening, Dea, Miran, and an old man come by to discuss tomorrow's day with me. And suddenly I'm sitting in Zana's living room drinking Raki with four Albanians. There is a lot of Albanian being spoken, but Dea and Miran, both about the same age as me, translate parts of the conversation for me. Zana and Miran initially argue about the correct preparation of dried fish. Dea interjects that Miran didn't even eat his own. Miran changes the subject 😁. Then it's Zana and Miran again arguing about which of their villages is farther back. Very funny, since I already find this village to be very backwards (the most common means of transportation is the hump of old women for firewood or donkeys for everything possible. But Zana is concerned about what the women themselves feel capable of. Right, Zara has a smartphone and can fix the water supply in her house. I understand what she means. At the end of the amusing evening, we say goodbye after arranging to meet at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. I'm supposed to bring my binoculars. I'm excited.

06.10.
After another very delicious breakfast, I head to the information center, where we soon set off in an off-road vehicle. Birdringing means that birds, for example, are caught in nets set up here, measured, and documented together with the ring number. If a bird doesn't have a ring, it gets one. The data is evaluated locally on the one hand and additionally passed on to a central database to investigate migratory bird populations in particular.
In the morning, we wait for a long time without success after setting up the net in a clearing in the reeds. We almost caught a kingfisher with a second net at a boat dock, but the net had too many holes (... I know, a net has many holes... you know what I mean...). Just when we're about to pack up again, a blackcap gets tangled in the net. It is measured and then released again. We change our location. We set up the net between hedges in a wide meadow. There's a lot more going on here. At some point, the rangers can hardly keep up with documenting. Many blackcaps, a few blackbirds, one or two robins. A discussion breaks out between Miran and the old man when measuring the body length. After Miran announces the length to him, he protests. The length can't be right. The measuring methods are criticized. Miran is accused of stretching the bird. I can confirm that he didn't do that! Apparently, we were dealing with very lanky blackcaps. Overall, it was a very exciting day for me. In the evening, I had a last delicious dinner at Zana's, and the next day I said goodbye to this beautiful - for me, completely timeless village, where instead of people, donkeys and cows roam around alone and purposefully through the streets. Ciao Goricë e Vogël!