June 16

A short story

Leaving at 8.30 AM, we ride to the border of Albania. It takes 30 minutes to cross the border as a large Greek tourist bus is being documented, and a pile of perhaps 40 passports are on the table. It is best to do and say nothing but stay close by and in sight. After 15 minutes a 1 star general of the passport control unit takes pity on us and take our passport and bike papers inside the building. After 5 minutes he hands back the papers and begins a 2 minutes speech in Albanian.  We don’t understand a word, so he calls for help translating what he had said. Again at least a minute is spent talking to the translator. The translator looks at us and says: “All is OK, you can go!”

From here, my Michelin maps show a thin white line where our road is positioned. So what is a bus doing here?

Today we do 200 km, which takes five and a half hours of hard work. My hands ache, and my shoulders ache. The road is just over one lane wide. It has 100.000 patches of asphalt and patches over patches which may consist of enough materials to make a brand new road.

We face rock, dirt, sand, potholes, corrugations, and bits of the road which are missing altogether. You do need an off-road bike to negotiate this “road” which feels more like a track. There is no traffic, one lone campervan struggling with all. Later another tourist bus faces us. That will be interesting when the two buses meet.

10km out of Korce it suddenly improves and changes into a brand highway where I can’t resist to put the speedo on 180 kph for a few seconds.

We reach Lake Ohrid, the clear water beckons but most of the waterfront consists of rock.

The plan is to head for Skopje. In the distance looms a mountain range but it is surrounded by black clouds with a grey haze around it. Flashes of lightning are visible. When the road goes up, we pull over and have a look at the map. Let’s go east back to Ohrid, then go to Bitola and head north from there. When we get to Ohrid and follow the signs east, we ride around a large mountain and observe that the conditions consist there as well.

 It is three pm. Ok, we have an early stop then and pull over on the side of the road. Herman pulls out his  phone and via booking.com we secure a place in 2 minutes only 500 meters away. When we arrive, the first heavy drops are falling, and the thunder is getting closer.

Ok, bring it on!