​Should I go from here to Litochoro, where I can meet Anna (a good 100km out of my way) or go to Thessaloniki straight, do not pass go, do not collect £200?  After breakfast I will get pedalling and decide.   I realise belatedly that I have lost an hour!  So I thought I was getting up at 6am but actually it was 7am.  (It’s a terrible thing, to lose an hour when one is not expecting it).  Just as I am setting off the couple next door come out into their garden and spot me.  I say “hello!” brightly, and perhaps rather cheekily. 
 
The next 10 miles are spent wading through humid heat watching the hills draw slowly closer.  This flat plain between mountains is FULL of birds of prey: the valley of the hawks.  I see small kestrels fluttering, static above the fields and large hawks soaring, about every 100 metres or so. 
 
Autumn is coming – the hedges are full of blackberries with occasional apple and plum trees too.   
 
I went a bit astray and inadvertently went further south than I’d intended.  This was a happy accident as it then meant I had to cycle north along the shores of the Lake Vegoritide.   I’m hungry (it being 3pm when really it’s 2pm – I always do this when the clocks change – tell myself it’s ‘really’ something o’clock when actually it just is!).    Need food.
 
Later, much later, after lunch in a cheery place (with Volkswagen campervans wallpaper – Nina Bailey) in Aminteo,  I am cycling from one lake to another.  I ride past vineyards and mountains and I realise I am muttering to myself.  This travelling lark not only broadens one’s mind and enhances the suitcases under one’s eyes but also, I fear, increases the eccentricities already inherent in one’s character.  Good job your average Englishman is usually markedly tolerant of eccentricity.    I’ve always been a bit scatty, but am in serious forgetful mode at the moment.  I’ve just realised I’ve left my travel towel (or left SARA’S travel towel) draped over the balcony at Goldy Hostel.  I even took a photograph of it.  I’ve also lost my sunhat (left on the floor as I was packing up Rowenna).  I’ve lost Sue’s painting of a manadarin duck – all packaged and labelled.  And now, the last straw, WELLY!  I’ve lost WELLY!  I wail to the world.  She jumped ship when the bungee rope slipped.  I’d just climbed a 4 mile  long hill so I wasn’t going back to find her.  She’d been losing weight so perhaps she wasn’t very happy and will be better off in the wild.  (Now there’s a rationalisation if ever there was one!).  POORWELLY! 
 
I peeked in a little church alongside the lake – painted with icons and the sunlight just catching the figures of Mary and Jesus.  I rode on and spotted ripe figs in the hedges (along with a few other interesting shrubs I photographed for identification by those horticulturalists out there – Kathryn).   Gorging myself, I decided I preferred the sweet yellowy-green figs over the more normal looking purply-green ones. 
 
I decided to camp in an orchard down by the lakeside.  The trees had been harvested (of peaches I think) and there was absolutely no sign of other human beings.  There was a colony of hundreds of cormorants sitting in a line of dead trees jutting out of the water.  I could see the town of Arnissa across the other side of the lake.  The tent is still sopping wet after last night’s storms – whoops!  I can’t dry it well as I’ve lost my towel too L - I use my leggings instead.    
 
After pitching my tent, I gathered wood for my first campfire.   There’s nothing quite like gazing into flames with ones legs roasting.  (Even when there are hundreds of sand flies leaping off the wood in your direction! – didn’t last long). 
 
It was the day after full lammas moon – and it was still a luminous globe rising over the lights of Arnissa, its golden reflection shimmering in the water: a magical evening.   There were frogs and crickets sounding off to complete the opera.     Fire’s getting low, and I’ll survive the damp tent I’m sure. 
 

​In the morning I went for a Byrek and yoghurt breakfast with Kasper and Mavi (who looks really well this morning!)– then we joined up with Daniel and all went off for a coffee.  Kasper has been hanging around in Bitola for a week, so knows his way round - the coffee bar was great- innovative decorations (a bicycle on the wall) and excellent taste in music(for which I’ll forgive the springs sticking through the seat of the sofa).    We wandered back through the market and a part of the old town I’d not seen.  I REALLY like Bitola – but I have to move on or I’ll never get to Australia. 
 
Around 3pm, despite the rain forecast, I packed up.  On my usual circuitous way out of town, I spotted a portrait artist.  She’s excellent at what she does, but has to stay commercial.  She said it was a shame I hadn’t made it up the mountain Pelister – named after a 5 leaved pine tree unique to the area called the Macedonian pine or Pinus Peuce.   Pine trees normally have twin leaves (I knew none of this).  She showed me these extraordinarily long cones she had in her shop.  I wanted to eat – so she ordered me a meal at the café opposite – meaty, but good and cheap (at less than a couple of quid).  Thanks Biljana (yes – another Biljana!). 
 
So, after stuffing myself, I didn’t really get moving until gone 4pm.  Despite threatening rain and feeling a few plops – it held off, and it was a fine, breezy late afternoon/evening for cycling. 
 
I rode past fields of sunflowers – the first I’ve seen.  They brought back memories of a Magic Bus ride from Athens Steve and I took with Chris Perrons back at the beginning of the 1980s (one of those epic journeys that put Steve off completely and had me longing for more!). 
It was an easy ride to the Greek border  - and then another 9miles or so when it started to get dark and thundery.  I turned into a small village called Papagiannis (spelled differently depending on which sign you looked at) to look for somewhere to camp.  I spotted a deserted house with an excellent looking garden – ideal.  However, before I could sneak around the back – I was accosted by the gentleman next door, who was emerging from his gateway on a bicycle who asked if I needed help.  I used my ‘point it’ book to point to the camping page.  He didn’t speak English, so he fetched his granddaughter – who had only schoolgirl English herself.   They (the daughter who was obviously visiting parents) decided I needed to follow their car back to Florina (big town I’d just ridden around).  I stayed put and eventually they all went away and I snuck around the back of the house in the dusk (as I’d always intended) and put my tent up just in time to miss the huge thunderstorm.  It rained heavily, but Rowenna was dry under the balcony at the back of the house, and I was dry and cosy as a dormouse tucked up in my sleeping bag.
 

​Going to stay on for a day because Goldy Hostel is lovely, the city is lovely and there’s even a small craft fair going on.  Whilst nosing around there, was spoken to by a journalist who told me she was trying to attract funds for the new crafts umbrella organisation who had organised the show.  She had been interviewed by a TV station earlier as I walked past into the exhibition.  I also spoke to a felt maker and a Russian amigurumi maker (who had been married to a Macedonian man for the past 2 years and ‘likes it so far’).  The standard of crafts in the exhibition was variable – some of it was amateurish, some of it was wonderful  - with little attempt made to distinguish between the two.  
 
I go back to sit in the same Bourbon Street Pub that I went to last night, because I like the ambience, the music, the food – and I blog. 
 
Then I walk to Heraclea-Lyncestis, because I’ve been told that the mosaics are unmissable – only I go the long way round and explore the back streets of town:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclea_Lyncestis will tell you the historical stuff.  It was supposedly founded by the same Phillip whose statue dominates Bitola town square.  When I finally get to the site – only 45minutes before closing time (but thankfully, the people who run it are vague about time) – I get a rapid history lesson from the guy in the small gift shop and where traditional music emanates from.   He says that the Macedonians were probably more advanced than the invading Romans – and after they left, Cyrillic/Azbuka became dominant over latin alphabet in the part of the world.   It was a matter of pride, to reassert their own culture. 
 
Wondering around, the mosaics are indeed beautiful – but it’s not clear to me how much has been reconstructed (with the aid of a CAD/computer imagery) and how much was there originally.  The amphitheatre itself is more than 75% reconstruction.  There is also still a lot of excavation to be done – with much of the original city (disrupted by earthquake as well as various sackings byVisigoths, Ostrogoths etc) still waiting to be unearthed.  Someone reviewing the place on ‘Trip Adviser’ online said the museum looked like it had been ransacked (by visigoths?).  I could see what he meant.  It was very empty, with dustmarks where previous exhibits have stood.
 
I was much quicker to walk back (fraction of the time it took me to get there!) – and I walk past a sports park that is full of joggers, cyclists, families with children playing in the park on the slides etc, volleyball and football teams.  I sit and draw one of the grand trees. 
 
Having supper in the Bourbon Street Pub (why go elsewhere?) I meet my dorm room mates- or rather Kasper spots me and hauls me over to join him, Daniel from Australia and Mavi from Netherlands.  Kasper is a Polish psychologist on a road trip.   Daniel is a farmer from Melbourne whose father is Macedonian/Greek and is trying to get a European passport so he can work in this part of the world.  Mavi is an art graduate on holiday from her childminding job, walking the long distance old Roman road from Albania to Istanbul (though she’s probably deviating in Thessaloniki to go to Athens) aka the Via Egnatia (part one).  She is able to walk the same distance as I go on the bicycle (but she walks all day – I sometimes don’t start until the afternoon).  Kasper likes Mavi, this much is clear.  Daniel is in a quandary as to what his future holds – it’s all so complicated.  I have a great time with them –  we move on to the loud bar next door.  I have four beers which is more than enough to give me a hangover as I’m a cheap drunk.  Mavi goes back to the hostel early as she is just about comatose after a few strong cocktails. 
 

 By the time we’d all had breakfast (Byba already gone to work by the time I emerged) and I’d drawn a quick portrait of Kosta, it was gone 10.30hrs.  So then it was time for another coffee – of course.  Zhivko cares for his mother and was very patient with her – though she also seems very amicable and easy going (doesn’t always happen with folk who have dementia, as I know from experience). 
 
After this, we finally got going – I followed Kosta down the road – to his mum’s hairdressers shop, where Marija was also helping out.  Good job we did, as I soon discovered we’d left my camera at Kosta’s house.  He zoomed off on a scooter and fetched it for me. 
 
The museum was only 3 miles off my route and I’m pleased I went.   Beautiful, beautiful festive dress/traditional  costumes designed to show off the wearer’s wealth.  Mostly women’s dress, but a couple of men’s outfits too. 
Elaborate tops were adorned with coins, and embroidery using silver and gold threads and cords.  Skirts were woven, quilted, made using rug techniques.  Aprons looked like they were made from strips of inkle woven bands and elaborate caps could have hundreds of tiny cords wound around into a crown or long scarves weighted down with tassels and more coins.  One particular outfit weighed more than 60lb.  You could tell a woman’s status, religion and location by variations in design, colour or pattern.  For example she might have long cords hanging forward from her cap, with stripes running down her skirt if she was young and unmarried, but the stripes would run across ways and her cords would be tied back if she’d been married a year.  During the Ottoman period in the Macedonian region, wearing any kind of crucifix was banned – so patterns would have small crosses subtly inserted or placed somewhere not immediately visible like underskirts.  Muslim women would be more likely to wear heavily embroidered harem pants under long tunics or coats.  Aprons could double up as table cloths.   Socks, of course, were hand spun, knitted and intricately patterned.   So much work and painstaking effort and love in each hand crafted item. 
 
The guy who put this collection together started 47years ago, when a large number of his family emigrated to South America, to Buenos Aires and Patagonia.  These people were throwing or giving away any belongings that were extraneous to their needs (I know the feeling!).  He’s continued to collect costumes over the years and has one of the largest collections in the country.   He also had a room full of yarn making and weaving apparatus – his grandmother’s loom, reeds, shuttles, spindles and combs, carders and swifts.  
 
My only whinge is that there wasn’t really enough time to browse – We were rushed through each room which was then locked behind us before going on to the next.  I would have loved to sit and sketch.  But I was lucky in that I went around with another couple – one of whom spoke English, so was able to translate what the proprietor said.  It was still well worth the time and effort taken to visit.   
 
I stayed around for a picnic lunch on the well tended lawn after the chap had locked the house up and gone off somewhere, watched intently by their Pekinese dog.  I completed a daily draw of the jumble in the shed in the garden.  There’s a geocache in there too! 
 
It didn’t take me long to get back to the junction where I needed to turn off for Bitola, but then the heat was hot and the hill was up.  What with roadworks and pushing Rowenna up the hill, it took a good few hours to cover the next 4 miles.  At some point between leaving the Museum and getting to the top of the hill – DISASTER!  Welly jumped ship.  The bungee rope holding her in place must have slipped and she boinged out.  I wish her well and am sad, but I wasn’t going back to look for her – it was just too far.  It then only took me another hour to do the next 15 miles as it was mostly downhill. 
 
Went straight to the Goldy Hostel and checked in: Elena, on reception, gave me excellent instructions on how to get to the Bourbon Street Pub and to order the ‘cheese with kulen’ dish, and I liked the pub so much I went back several times over the next couple days.   The melted cheese and the sesame seed coated bread were so filling I couldn’t finish it.   Got lost on the way back to the hostel – and it took me half an hour to walk what should have taken only 5 minutes maximum.   How on earth did I make it this far across Europe I wonder?

d​I met up with Dragan and his wife Biljana – who was also in the workshop sewing up a leather case.  Really lovely warm and  welcoming couple.  Nina Fenner would be interested in their work – I admired their bags and books – and very reasonable.   I said they could be running their workshops for at least £30 the day  (especially if they threw in lunch) – they said I could come be their manager and take half the profits at that rate.   But the hostel is new, so they may get new customers via that route.  They do well enough to make a living.   They like to offer free workshops as it is a way to make friends – and they often get a donation (but only a couple euros at most).  They make little tiny books or a bookmark in the workshop.   I reckoned they ought to charge even a small amount for their workshops – just to cover costs of materials – or that and a fraction more – as, in the Western mind, something for nothing is worth nothing.   (Comments please – I’d be interested to hear what you think of that?)
 
  Biljana  accompanies me downtown to the post office to post my parcel (was so useful to have her translate) and then to the market to a wool shop – knitting needles!  I bought some cheap acrylic/wool to knit a Macedonian square (a blue lake).    Biljana didn’t want coffee or anything to eat – she said she had plenty back at workshop.  I finally leave Dragan and Biljana…  reluctantly at around 3pm.  And a wonderful morning it has been.  In retrospect, perhaps I should have donated something more to the coffers than just buying Steve’s gift? (but I’m so mean I have to make a conscious effort to open the purse): I will definitely keep in touch. 
 
It was a pleasant cycle out of Ohrid and into the hills, until the flies found me – they were small irritating types that flew in a cloud around the bike and me (the sort one sees around cow pats!)– their mission in life appeared to be to fly into my eyes or be inhaled.  Wearing sunglasses helped, but I felt like a molecule with atoms zooming around me.   I stopped where the road crossed over a small stream – to see what a man was doing with old carpets in the water– I thought at first he was washing them, but I think he was creating a small dam – maybe for fishing.  Anyway, that’s where the flies found me. 
 
Shortly after acquiring my personal cloud of flies, I saw a sign to a restaurant/hotel/art/eco community.  There was also a pretty church perched on a mound overlooking a village.  Intrigued I turned off the main road (and I was hungry too).    The church was locked – but peering through  the window, I could see one room with what looked like an enormous block of stone – the font?  And in the other room there were chairs, a coffee table and an ashtray – not what I’d expect but there you go.   I took some pictures of some of the older buildings in the village as the construction looked similar to the green oak building Sean the neighbour built.
 
I carried on cycling to the ‘hotel’ along a dirt track, following the signs.  A couple of stray dogs (though most people leave their dogs run wild it seems, so it’s not clear which dogs are stray and which aren’t) ran after me and I noticed they had their own clouds of flies too!    When I got to the hotel – the gates were closed, it looked deserted and there was a sign up saying ‘private property’ – altogether uninviting.  I retraced my steps to the main road accompanied by my black cloud.
 
I finally hit a long and lovely downhill with enough breeze to shift the damn things.  It was getting dark when the road evened out and I came to a long road works – there were traffic lights as the road was single lane, but cars were getting impatient with the really long queue and were trying to take short cuts – creating more havoc and longer waits.  A police car with a couple of officers were trying to sort the mess out.  One car had entered the closed lane and couldn’t get out, as there was a very high kerb which it couldn’t get over so was having to reverse at least a quarter of a mile!  I sailed past the lot on my trusty steed.  
 
I reached a fairly large town where there was a supermarket open, so I popped in with my trusty ‘point it’ book and pointed at the camping  picture.  There were three women present and they had an animated discussion before shrugging.  I went on up the road and paused at a junction.  A young man approached and said “Problem?” – he could speak English!  I explained I was looking for somewhere to camp.  “No problem – come back to my place” Kosta (for that was who he was) said – and so I met his parents, Byba and Zhivko, his grandmother (who has Alzheimers) and his girlfriend Marija.  Kosta’s sister is married with two children and I got shown a picture of the little girl and boy by proud grandfather.  They are a well to do family with a roomy home.    Byba is a hairdresser with her own shop, Zhivko is an electrical engineer (who was off to Skopje on Wednesday to assist after the flooding and landslides).  Kosta himself is a medical student in his second year. 
 
I was offered a meal then told I could sleep inside.  I insisted I didn’t want to put anyone out (with memories of double beds!) and was very happy to camp on the lawn (and had food too).  No, they had plenty of room and I could sleep in the living room on the sofa.  Kosta even made sure I had internet access (thoughtful lad that he was!).  He told me that he was a keen cyclist himself and, when he heard that I wanted to visit the ‘Ethno Museum’ in the morning, said that he would accompany me and show me the way – ignoring my protestations that I’m too slow. 
 
When I spoke of my interest in all things textile, Byba revealed her crochet and knitting – she demonstrated continental style knitting and was interested in my English ‘throwing’ style.  I took some pics of her finished items.  Her grandmother could spin yarn, it transpired.
 
Lovely, lovely family.  (I think 'lovely' must be my 'word of the week'.  Luverly).

​Will move on tomorrow, I think – but today?  Lounging around on the lake front is in order.  Went swimming in the fresh water – little fishes and big weeds.   Oodles of time to sit and reflect and blog and paint a little. 
 

​Oof - I had WEIRD dreams this last night: Woodcraft Folk planning and midwifery/gynae stuff all mixed up in a big collage by the seaside, peopled by familiar faces like son Seth, neighbours Bev and Nina, and Louisa Tanner Munson and her son Digby.   Don’t ask.    I think that unfortunate incident yesterday morning is still upsetting me. 
 
Woke early to watch dawn staining cloud fingers pink, fondling the mountains opposite – and this is one of the reasons why I love this travelling lark – incandescent beauty.  
 
There’s a dog barking this morning as I set off towards Ohrid – probably the one in the goat pen who was sound-o last night.   I pass a donkey on the road a little while later – as you do.   He shied away from me initially, but when I offered him some bread, he accepted with alacrity, taking it from my hand very nicely.  Last night I passed three ponies wandering around loose too, grazing from the verges, and it makes me wonder what the casualty rate is…   
 
I stop at a couple of view points and note – there’s SO much rubbish.  Can you imagine?  Drivers coming along and they stop to admire the view – and, “oh yes, while we’re at it, let’s lob a couple of bin bags full of garbage over the edge – no one can see it!”  I’ve WATCHED them do it!  I haven’t seen any rats, but then, I haven’t looked too closely either.  I’ve spoken about the fly tipping to some of the local guys I’ve met and some of them have said that’s it’s just that there’s too many OTHER things to worry about.  I’ve noticed that local people work hard to keep their own territories clean.  They just don’t bother about the communal environment – about their earth. 
 
Because of my early start, by late morning I’m over half way to Ohrid – so I’ll definitely make it today.  I’m just about to move away from the river that’s been my shining companion all day.  I might well meet up with her again later (I do – about 3 miles from Struga).   There have been lots of wading birds around – big and small herons, egrets etc. 
 
First impressions of Macedonia feel less friendly than Albania – though basing one’s impression of an entire country on a first contact is unfair.  I know my language skills are zero, but I’ve been muddling through so far, using sign language and my point it book.  The first restaurant I  go in,  after a brief attempt at communicating, the waiter just ignores me – I asked for the menu (as I can then point) but it doesn’t happen.  After half an hour I decided to leave because I just can’t be bothered to be assertive or bolshy.  A young stray dog (looking a lot like a Jack Russell) with a badly docked tail which hasn’t healed and a cute face follows me out of the car park, so I have to cycle extra fast and am doubly sad.   Resolve to try and ignore all cute stray dogs from now on– though I know this will be quite impossible as they’ve ALL got cute faces. 
 
I finally got an expresso at a hotel near Sruga.  Thankyou waiter lady for speaking enough English to sort me out!  And thankyou for forgiving my lack of Macedonian! 
I didn’t stop at Struga but went straight on to Ohrid – scrumping small plums from roadside trees as I went.  There were orchards full of large juicy looking purple plums – but the small, cherry, orange and purple coloured ones by the roadside were fine.   I reached Ohrid early in the afternoon – it was cool and breezy cycling, and all flat after the hills of yesterday.  My first glance of the ancient Lake Ohrid was exiting – a great expanse of blue, the Lake is one of the most ancient in the world – millennia old – with Ohrid itself being a pretty old settlement – the original town clinging to the cliffs anyway. 
 
I made straight for a juice bar in Ohrid and ordered a smoothie – the owner didn’t mind me plugging in this computer either.  I checked out the local hostels online – and opted for the City Hostel which was just around the corner.  It didn’t have much atmosphere – but was fairly new, clean and very close to the town centre and reasonably cheap.   
 
Directly opposite the hostel was a small crafts leather work and book binding workshop.  The guy running it, Dragan, was really very friendly and his good very reasonable – so I bought something for Steve I thought he might actually use – all handstitched – to send back with the socks I was given.  Dragan offered to box everything up and label it for me – so I said I would come back Monday morning to collect it.
 
Then I went down to the Lake front and strolled around Old Town with many many other tourists.  I finally went to a restaurant on the water side, and ordered ‘chicken curry’ – thinking, mmm spices, rice, mango chutney.  No: it was like the filling from a chicken and mushroom pie with a scant spoonful of curry powder mixed in.   No rice or traditional curry accompaniments – broccoli and baby carrots (which were very pleasant) and the usual basket of bread. 
 
I’m sharing my 4 bedded dorm with two Russian guys:  Hope they didn’t mind me snoring.   The poor blokes looked a bit abashed to be sharing their room with granny, but there are curtains on the bed which can be pulled and I was sound asleep by the time they got back in. 
 

​Besmika didn’t want me to leave.  Just one more day, she kept signing.  
Her son was first home after we got up (and after the donkey tethered up the path a little way).  He showed me his US English coursework book and tried out some rudimentary questions on me. 
 
I was given the chopped fried boiled spaghetti for breakfast – along with fried green peppers with home made cottage cheese spooned into the copious amounts of oil in the frying pan.   I ate a small amount of everything to show willing, and thank goodness my immune system is strong.  Besmika finished off the spaghetti I couldn’t eat. 
Meantime, Besmika’s husband arrived home and also tried to persuade me to stay.  “Nooo”, I says, I have a lot of uphill to conquer today –and the shade is disappearing rather quickly!
 
Just up the road from Bismike’s – up the hill and around the corner, I’m waved over by a café owner who gives me a free coffee.  He has been to London twice in his life, paying £7,000 each time for the privilege.  He was trying to make some money, but without a work visa, so was living with several other guys in one room and earning about £45 a day for hard graft.  I said it didn’t sound like a pleasant holiday – and he agreed – but he said that if he employed a waiter in his café he would pay him the equivalent of £50 a month – that’s how poor wages are here.  I reflect that it’s no wonder Besmike was pleased to have my 1,200lek.  We discuss my work – and when I tell him I was a midwife, he said my skills would come in handy as his wife is expecting her first baby any time now.  They’ve only been married a year.  It sounded like she would be staying at home for the birth – but that she worked in a hospital so wasn’t worried.  I may have got that wrong!  I wished him and his wife good luck and moved on. 
 
I slog on, only managing around 10miles of the uphill, what with the usual snoozing under a bush to avoid the midday sun. 
 
I also stop to have an icecream and drink sat in a graveyard and looking over a stupendous view of the valley.  While I’m sat there, a young man called Albert comes over to say hello.  He points at one of the graves and says  “That’s my grandfather” – it turns out I’m looking down on his family’s farm.  It’s a big house and prosperous looking place with orchards and fields.  Albert tells me they have 10 cows, chickens, a donkey and a dog.  He offers to replenish my water, for which I’m very grateful – and waves goodbye as I set off once more.  I took his photograph – and he approved when I showed it him. 
 
Several miles later, as I am slogging up the last bit of hill and looking forward to a glorious downhill run, ‘Andy’ stops in his car and offers a lift  - he is from Richmond upon Thames, or rather, he’s another local ex-pat come home for the holidays.   Never one to miss the opportunity to meet yet another local I accept. 
I have several options – including being dropped off at the highest point and then going on from there.  This is the one I favour.  But Andy has decided this is NOT the best option (so why mention it then, I think) – because there are no towns for at least 30miles (which doesn’t bother me) – he thinks that I should stay in the 4* hotel owned by his friend – and that it will not cost me more than €20.  This seems a reasonable deal so this is what we go for.  I look a little wistfully out of the window as we whizz downhill through stunning mountain scenery – it would have been a good one! 
 
Hotel Gjoka is most certainly the lowest point of the valley I have to traverse: it’s also opposite a hydroelectric power station (I can see why Catherine at Rilindja, Valbona is fighting to stop them happening in that beautiful valley).  It’s grandiose in the same way I imagine a Nevada Hotel might be with a fountain outside carpeted marble stairs and a pillared doorway.   It’s a HUGE contrast to Besmike’s house and home!  We sit down with several men smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee outside the hotel: the one with the biggest belly is the owner.
After a brief negotiation, it is agreed I can stay the night for €10, which is fine by me and I can wash some laundry in the shower.
 
Andy does his best to translate the conversation – but he is meeting with friends he has not seen for years, he says.  He is showing off a little – like a small boy - he is twitchy, foot tapping, chain smoking with the next cigarette in his fingers before the old one is extinguished.  He is flashing around a purse full of £50notes.  The other men are leaning back in their chairs pushing their bellies out - so much posturing. 
 
At one point they discuss Albanian women – they say I look remarkably fit and well compared to an Albanian woman of similar age, who would be on the verge of dying.  I say an Albanian woman of my age would have probably had 10 children and a life of hard graft.  Andy agrees that Albanian women are underestimated and keep the cogs turning, but that British women are different.  I disagree – any perceived difference is only a lack in opportunity and education.  They drift off into conversation I can’t follow, but I get slightly paranoid that they are saying what they would do if their wives wanted to go off travelling around the world leaving their needs unattended to!  In fact, my imagination went overboard and I decided the hotel was a front, a money laundering operation for a gun smuggling operation, as all the men looked vaguely gangsterish.  Once you’ve gone down this path in your head, it’s difficult to reset normality.
 
I get shown a room that is up on the fourth floor – for all its vastness, the hotel lacked a lift.   My room was also vast – but seemed slightly unfinished.  There was a huge wardrobe with no hangers in and a TV remote but no TV with wires hanging out the wall – so a work in progress I suspect.  There was an ensuite bathroom and a balcony, two single beds pushed against the walls and an overhead light but no bedside light.  The trusty puff lamp that Keith gave me way back when comes in handy yet again.   
 
I washed just about every item of clothing I have with me, soaking the bathroom while I’m at it.  I have a little washing line that ties across the balcony perfectly.  Sleep well after all that.

​I’m woken up by various noises at 6am.  Gargh, this is far too early.  I do my best to go back to sleep and finally get up at around 7.15am.
I have an audience to pack up the tent.  Three guys lean over the fence and watch every move with fascination.  “Where you from?” they ask, but also “Did you sleep well?” and “Were you warm enough?”. 
 
I make myself a large cup of coffee with the last of the instant, and some porridge – the first bowl I’ve had in ages.  As I sit there eating it, I see ants.  I’ve come to the conclusion that there ants everywhere.  They might be teeny tiny or bloody enormous ones but ants, ants.  I have a couple of small holes in my tent tarp., and I suspect this came from packing away one of those bloody enormous ones. 
 
Four small young hens also squeeze through the fence looking for breakfast – hopefully some ants.  They are accompanied by a scrawny white cockerel (probably the one making some of the racket this morning).
 
There are also two horses being fed with nose bags next door – plus a small foal that has helped himself from his dam, and is now eating grain from a bowl on the ground.   Both ponies have pack saddles on.  
 
Several more people come to peek over the fence – I now know how it feels to be in a zoo – but at least they all seem very happy to see me.  I get my camera out to take a picture of my audience and the one woman scampers away very quickly. 
 
The sun is coming over the top of the hill and it feels hot again very quickly. 
I start out about 8.30am and pushing the bicycle up the hill, I met a young lad who I thought was a cowherd – as he was with a couple of cows in the field.  However he left them behind and started to walk alongside me, offering to help push my bicycle.  Then he got his willy out (and you’ll have to excuse the euphemism) and waved it at me.  I turned my back on him and pushed Rowenna as quickly as I could away.  Then he ran up and touched me - this made me very angry and I shouted “no” and went to hit him – yelling about being old enough to be his mother and he should know better and various other old English expletives that are probably better not repeated here.  Anyway, he responded by putting his hands together and saying “sorry, sorry” several times, whilst backing off.  I was furious at him for having ruined what had been a pleasant morning.  And for making true what everyone worries about when a woman considers travelling alone.  It was a reminder that so many blokes just have sex on their mind and think unaccompanied Western women are ‘fair game’ and that I could be vulnerable (which I did already know).   I wasn’t too worried that morning as there was plenty of traffic on the road,  and lots of other folk around – in fact we arrived in another small village fairly shortly after this incident, and the road started to slope down so I could leave the culprit behind fairly sharpish.   But it upset my equilibrium.   What a plonker!  He looked more stupid and far less impressive than Besmike’s donkey when he had let his wanger hang out. 
 
Not long after this horrible incident, I was at the top of the hill admiring the view overlooking Mount Korab, when a Campervan pulled up – with a Polish couple driving – Jasek and Viv.  They invited me for breakfast – so I had coffee, bread, cheese and jam with them and all became right in the world again.    They were on their way to Macedonia too – in their two weeks holiday.  Their son, they said, didn’t like travelling (just like Steve) but I said I thought he probably enjoyed the house to himself more than he wanted to go travelling with Mum and Dad! 
 
I continued on to a large town called Peshkopi and had a little debate as to whether I’d need more Albanian Lek and decided not – I was close enough to Macedonia to last out.  I stopped for a coffee and to check I was on the right road out of town (it’s a large town, did I say?).  I was, but I had attracted the attention of all the guys in the café again.  I was bought the coffee and offered a lift to the border by a guy going that way anyway.   This ‘hitch-biking’ without me even having to stick out my thumb seems to have become a habit, so I didn’t refuse.  Which means I got to the border even quicker than I thought, and this time there was no problems crossing (though I didn’t get a stamp this time either). 

​I am feeling slightly sicky this morning (which I put down to mild hypochondria from thinking about the food hygiene at Besmike’s place!) so I sat updating my blog – on the sofa in the stair well on the third floor (ground floor is floor no. one).  There is an open door to one of the rooms and I can see the furnishing (and finishing) is very poor compared to my room, with several beds – this is obviously where the staff sleep (or the gangsters who are in hiding) and explains why I was all the way up on the fourth floor. 
 
It’s very hot out there (having missed my window of opportunity to get up and go early this morning) and my laundry dried out almost as soon as the sun got up.  I have decided not to move until gone 2pm when there might be some patches of shade.  I have about 5 miles of ‘up’ to look forward to, but then down, down in remote Albania.  
 
By about 2.30-3pmish, it’s actually quite cool with stormy clouds on the horizon so I start the long push.  I stopped feeling sick fairly quickly after breakfast.  The 5 miles takes AGES and just as the view starts getting really spectacular – Mount Korab is the highest peak in Albania and is in this mountain range – it starts getting dark so I can’t see it well.  (Good sunset though). 
 
Despite this being a predominantly Muslim country, music is still enjoyed (thankfully) and all afternoon I have heard someone’s party sounds echoing up the valley – traditional music which is really rather fine. 
 
In a café, I talk to another ‘local’ expat – living in England since he was 14yrs old, having moved there with his parents.  He comes here every year for 3 weeks  - but says he doesn’t really know that many people.  He has his own business back in Blighty – in the Construction Industry – and says he works really hard.  He had had an English girlfriend but now has a wife from around here.  Another FB friend made! 
 
A cycle tourist zooms in and pays respect to my laden bicycle- his set up being much lighter.   He is on holiday from his native Poland and touring around the Balkans and off to Macedonia next.  He made cycling up the hill (that I’d been walking up, pushing Rowenna) look relatively effort free, damn him and his youth and energy! 
 
It’s almost totally dark by the time I get to a small village called Vleshe, and I’ve not had much luck finding anywhere to camp so far.  I spot several blokes having a beer in a café so I ask them if they know of anywhere.  They invite me for a beer, ask the usual questions and tell me I can camp in the grounds of the empty house next door – where the gate can be shut to keep the dogs out, they say.  I’ve not had any problems with dogs so far, though I hear them barking often – but I take their word for it.  I am tucked up in my tent by 10pm, which is fabulous.