theatre of the absurd: Macedonia, part V – Ohrid (ii): Samuel's Fortress

Samuel's Fortress, or in Macedonian, Самуилова тврдина

The only good thing about Ohrid was that I met Kanoko, a Japanese girl 5 years (or 6? I forget) my senior. I absolutely loved Kanoko and thought that she was a girl after my own heart. After being thoroughly bored by Ohrid during the day, it was nice to come back to the hostel to someone interesting and warm, who could hold up a good conversation. Kanoko was one of those people who'd been on the road for more than a year, and she'd been all over EMEA, more or less; in India, Egypt and several other places I wouldn't even dream of visiting by myself, but Kanoko had done them all.

There isn't really much to say about Ohrid. I was there for three nights, and the day I arrived, I climbed up to the fortress that overlooks the city and the lake, called Samuel's Fortress, which was supposedly built upon the fortifications of an earlier fortress that had been built by Philip II of Macedon, most famous for having being the assassinated father of Alexander the Great. And just like that I've also opened a can of worms regarding the political issues surrounding that region. That's where it all goes back to, well partly, at least. Samuel's Fortress is in the same neighbourhood as the rather picturesque Orthodox church overlooking the lake, called St. John the Theologian. If you google it there are some very good pictures, however I was unable to find all the amazing angles that the pictures had been taken from, and ended up having to take undignified pictures from back streets. I was too tired to walk around the front looking for the optimal photoshoot, and in all honesty was looking far more forward to climbing up to the fortress and enjoying the views from there, which is much more up my alley anyway. Which was what I did.

My hilariously bad photo of the famous church

Going down from the fortress and back into city centre was a surprisingly long walk, or maybe I was just exhausted, but it was still a good 40 mins in the sweltering heat which I didn't particularly appreciate. I went into the nearest mini mart I could find the moment I reached city centre and got myself a bottle of sparkling water, which somehow did not taste wet at all, and drank that, and then went back to the hostel where I met a Dutchwoman who was well into her thirties, the outdoorsy camper sort, and an Aussie a few years older than me, in his late twenties, whom I ended up getting very well with, but then again I get along with most people, Aussies in particular. They both left the next day, to be replaced by Kanoko and two other Japanese guys who were in their mid thirties. And you know the rest.

I was glad to be going back to Skopje on the fourth day. The bus back was infinitely better than the tiny cramped van I had arrived on - it was a normal sized bus, so there was that. I went back to the hostel I'd stayed at in Skopje, said hi to the hostel owners there, and had the entire room to myself and actually the whole hostel too. Skopje seems to be so thoroughly off the beaten track that it's dead, or maybe it's that time of the year, but all the other people I met in that region agreed with me that Skopje as a whole was not really a good place for meeting people as it was just so empty.

Onwards to Prishtina and Kosovo, which I'd been looking forward to for ages. And it didn't disappoint, but at the same time - I don't really think I will be going back; I've had more than enough of it. You know what they say about a good thing.