Day of questions...

Before asking myself to many questions....

Waking up to the view on Ohrid

My still sleeeping company

The main question actually being what to do and when and where to go into the national park. I decide to by a map of the park but first sort out internet stuff, the blog has been with no news for a couple days...

So i find a wireless cafe and start posting. 15 posts later, 6 long hours or more have passed, it is late, sun is slowly setting and i have gotten nothing ready. I rush to the supermarket buy stuff for 3 days and get a map. The map is crappy. It looks old school and nice but in the end the only useful information on the original map, the level lines, the doted foot paths and lined roads are over lined with big fat colored marker like lines that seem to be hand drawn. Looks bit like a child's work or one of those maps i used to draw at school in geography class. The cities names are unreadable because of big dark spots added on top of the original map, the level lines are hidden by the many green horizontal lines marking forest... Very nice... Also the walking tracks will turn out to be wrong... or at lest have no correspondence at all with the track marked with paint in the park.

It is to late to get into the mountains but i head for the start of the trail where i get more info on the board thats standing there... But impossible to find the proper info bureau. Never mind, i got a map, food, water, a phone and this is not the everest. I find a spot next to the begging of the trail to get sleep and rest for tomorrows first day of walking.

Sad day on Ohrid Lake

Aproache :)

Landing:)

Today is not such a funny day, everyone from the club is asked to stay for police inquiries, sad faces everywhere and nobody flies...

I try to relax and go for a long swim where i meet with a water snake (which i did not know at the time but is completely inoffensive) and make my way back to shore.

Camping beach

Galicica Nat. Park.

In the late afternoon, I leave the camp with Natasa and get to Ohrid by night. There i meet her friend Jasmin with whom i chat a bit a drink a beer. He is working in a betting center and telling me people her spent soooo much money on this. The record for a single day in the sole office where he works was 3 million Euro! cant believe it. People her complain they he so little money and nothing to do. Then they waste it on sport bets... Which I am told are set up most of the time, especially in football. The thing is run by big mafias and there is not much more space for sport...
Tonight I go for a quiet beach to sleep on. Tomorrow i will get into the national park and explore the mountains a bit.

Para gliding!

We wake up early, hope for great weather and drive up the mountain, on the top, wind is blowing in the wrong direction. But this changes soon and we have counter wind, light, nice and easy. After preparation, Mina takes of first... she flies away! I m getting excited! Ivana comes next and then it is my turn. But things don’t happen quite like we would like them to.

Two other women slides in and takes Ivanas turn. Tourist, picked up on the beach, they probably were charged her a bit more than us, and they got first despite Ivana has been waiting for 3 or 4 days... We wait and wait and finally we drive down. At the bottom, surprise, we drive back up, 7 of us in a jeep, Natasa in the trunk and a crazy frog guy on the roof. We will all fly since we found experienced par gliders to control the tandem.

My tandem is called Mendo Veljanoski, he is number 20 and something in the world top ranking of Aero flying. He regularly does crazy shit and i am getting real excited, i feel like i am the luck one. On the drive up he talks about speed gliding which he is testing wings for, about Tigne were he flies every winter, about Australia...

This man lives for extreme sports and especially para gliding, I am fully in trust and very excited thinking i will get a good ride with strong sensation. Para gliding can be like an old mans ride in his air chair or better than the best roler coaster. Despite asking for the roller caster, i will get a very quiet flight... :( he does couple turns, takes a thermic and a couple more turns before landing. All easy and soft. mmm I am a bit disappointed, i flew and it all seemed so natural and almost boring. The view was exceptional however.

The afternoon, we relax, swim and laugh. We rapidly stop laughing when on of the beginners goes into a deep spiral and does not get out of it... he crashes into the water at full speed. Poor man survived the impact but lost consciousness right after it and never woke up. Those are the dangers of para gliding. Not a sport for me i think. To long to learn and to dangerous. But i might give it a try. Mendo said you got the best schools in France and I should learn it there.
Tonight, Mina and Ivana leave for Montenegro. i still feel tired and stay one more night, get a lot of sleep.

Para waiting.

I wake up to that beautiful lake, a sunny day and nice friend around me. I expect a nice flight today, but today, not much happens, i discover the other side of para gliding, para waiting... Since the conditions are not good for beginners or tandems, we will not fly toady. So we lay on the beach, play stupid, swim, eat, and go out for dinner again. a nice and calm day like i did not have any for a while!

Beach

Mina and Natasa, para waiting :)

DOWnkey!

Sunset on Ohrid

Getting to Ohrid.

An early start today is a good choice, the 150 km separating me from Ohrid are as always in the Balkan, long 150 km. But i am happy i got 500 km from Belgrade in such a nice, surprising, happy, experience, fulfilling way! After helping a couple fixing their exploded cooling water tank. Actually it was just the lid that popped. They drop me in town which i have to wake trough, getting money, new currency, dennars, they are worth a bit more than dinars 60 denars to 1 euro) and a Sim card to contact my friends in Ohrid.
I then get a ride with a taxi driving out for a pick up from a nearby village. Then one with a truck driver where i fall asleep despite the shaky ride. It feels like ages since i last hitchhiked... he drops me at a crossing where a young dude is trying his luck. He i not patient and gets on the next bus. I get onto a ride to th next town with a delivery man which whom i speak about living standards and future possibilities. The next ride is the most interesting of today and will get me all the way to Ohrid. Amen is a very active men with two businesses, He wants to create a third one, he want to buy terrain and take out marbor from it. He tells me he needs 3 millions euro and i should help him find them. Anyone has 3 million euros to invest into marber??? it is guaranteed reimbursed in one or two years! :)

In Ohrid i get a bus down to Lubaniste camping where i finally meet Mina Natasha and their friend Ivana. we share a nice, old trailer.

After sitting down for a fresh drink, i run into the water, get myself a little bit clean. I had no shower since blgrade... By the way, the bath and toilets here are very communist style, old, smelly (right next to rotting garbage) and very uncomfortable. But still a blessing to get myself nice and clean and get of that smell that attracts all the fly towards me...
We go out to a nice spring next to Sv. Naum. It is called black water but there is really no reason for that! the water is SO clear and the river is actually a very small one, there are only a couple hundred meter form the spring to the lac. The water comes out the bottom of the lake, making little moving sand heaps. Magical place, unfortunately my camera is still out of battery and since full moon i cant take pictures. We get to drink of that water, nice and cold, 12 degrees all year round. After the small boat trip, rowing around the river, we sit down for a nice meal by the water. mmm Beans, specialty, local way.

Some pictures stollen from Mina and Natasa:

Ride down to Macedonia

Heading off, one of the only pictures of the surroundings since i was low on battery and had no plug available...

This morning, we meet Paul at 9 to head of south. Christa, Sarah and Helena are coming along to Prizren where they will catch buses or trains to go back, up north. There are 4 more on the ride, Dimitra, a girl from Norway, a german couple and me. Thats 8 happy hippies going back to civilization. And quite happy about this. But we ain't there yet, the old VW bus wont jump on, the battery is empty. We push it down the hill without success, we finally are lucky enough a diesel camper van helps us starting it. We can now make our sloooww way through those bumpy macadam roads. i still cant believe they are marked on my Balkan map. The first thing we see getting back on the main road is a lake, besides a tourist complex where we of course stop for a good bath! ahhh it is good to swim in fresh waters!
As we arrive in Prizren, except for Christa and Sarah who need to catch their bus, we all head to a restaurant for some meat! No meat for some days, for some it has been many days, we are all sorta craving for meet. Serbia is the right place to catch up on this! We get huge platers of meet!
We are full with food and have prepared some sandwiches with the leftovers and the ride down south can now begin. It is a very nice one, all sitting, chatting or sleeping somewhere somehow in the back of the van. The boarder crossing is a funny on, the dude is amazed by the weird mix in that car and jokes around with us. The Norwegian girl speaks a pretty good basis of Serbian and does all the chatting.
They all need to get to Greece so they drop me where i need to go west. it is past midnight, i have no envy at all to hitchhike any more so i find a nice quiet spot by the road and get some rest.

The day of all activities.

Full moon aoooowww

The day starts by a bread and cheese mission for Timothee who has his Tai chi workshop in the morning. I engage Christa to come along on the mission whch unfortunately fails... the farmers have nothing left to sell :) good business it seems. At todays very rich first food circle where few people are present and we all get second time food, a lot of activities are proposed. Not only there are heaps of things to do in the afternoon but they are all very interesting. A men speaks about his experience in amazonia, there is a chacra meditation, a medicinal plant introduction, massage workshop and a plum mission to make jam...
With Timothee we join the plant workshop. We are with a bunch of about 20 eople, following a guy around who tells us much about the different properties of plants. Antibiotic, photoactive for less depression in the winter, against head aches, for reinforcing the immune system etc.. However, writing this 3 weeks later, it is hard to remember everything.
I remember much more about the last part where an other brother started telling about nutrition. The fact that our stomach is not appropriate to eat meet. Not any meet i should precise since soft parts like brain liver, fat etc are very well digested. This is no big surprise to me, i notice very well that big meals of roasted meat are not always well digested. The meat has to stay at the butcher for a while and is broken down by some bacteria to make the job easier for our stomach. The job is even easier when it is white meet or when it has been marinated for a while with fruits. The acids in fruits break down the meet a bit more. More surprising however is the little story from the Berlin zoo who's lions could not give birth to living offspring and that the zoos vet solved the problem when he saw lions in the savanna go for the soft parts of their pray first, intestines, liver, hart, brains... As they fed thees parts to the captive animals, they rapidly had a happy living bunch of kids...
All this seems very reasonable and the men seems to know what he is taking about but still could be checked. He will tel us much more about eating, That you find more vitamin C in onions than in oranges, that there is a lot of vitamin b12 in everything that tastes like marcepan, namely in the seed of peaches. That the blackberries give you fruit sugar but at the same time lower your blood sugar, that you can eat the rhizomes from reeds (roseaux in French), the sprouts from fern (fougere in French), that there are some bacteria in soils (clean soils) that our digestive system can need... and much more.

We leave this workshop full of new knowledge. After last nights serious history class we now got a nutrition introduction. All this made us a little hungry and we decide to go looking for mushrooms. It has not rained in awhile and hope is low but we almost immediately find some Plerote, growing on a tree. Timothee is an edible plant expert and also knows a lot about mushrooms. i fully trust him when i taste this little acid mushroom growing on the bark of trees. We then finish our walk around with a huge plum picking session. We find a plum tree with ripe fruit and get good 10 kilos of it. This will be shared at tonights food circle where we make one round of plums for everyone.

Tonight there is a workshop on cannabis :) i know this story which is actually more about the amalgam between hemp growing for industrial purpose and cannabis consumption. Introducing the illegality of the later is very linked with US cotton production and was sponsored by Dupont corp who just invented nylon... for those who are intrested there is a documentary explaining this very well. just google video it! i will report on thing doctor Otman said however. when a farmer now buys hemp seeds with less than point something percent of thc in the plant (to comply with international law), well he has to do so every year because the thc level naturally increases over the years :)
Because we know this story already, we prefer to sit around the fire, talk with our French, Israeli and German brothers and sisters. And when we get tired of standing around the great fire, lite our own small fire where we grill mushrooms with olive oil, salt and cheese :) mmm delicious!

An other day with simple, great people.

The night was short, i was waken up by my neighbors who started a fire and telling stories, selling like wolves once in a while making very animalistic noises some other times.., Crazy but great people around here. i finally get a bit of sleep and wake up to some new neighbors. Two girls, Sarah from Switzerland, Christa from Germany and a Frenchman, Julien. Julien is looking for a ride further out into the west, he only stayed a couple days. He is a medical student and works in a hospital. He is very happy to be away from all the stress and we joke about the little contradiction that you sometimes find in the camp. Hippies with those very trendy plastic sandals that he wears all day at hospital and cant see anymore, those couple bosses that organize everything and are always full of great ideas and projects but whom you never see actually do something etc... The normal stuff you find in any society.
After the first food circle we all relax in the shade, take a nap, read a bit and chat around. Julien found his ride and left, I for my part meet a German brother who is driving down to Greece to sell his van and has plenty of room! So he can take me to Macedonia! We met that Frenchman, Timothe, whom i was cutting vegetables with yesterday and as we sit in the evening circle, he pulls out cheese and bread out of his bag. He has been round for more than a week already and for him it is a great achievement to finally have bread again. he is a real Frenchman after all :) So we share some of his delicious fresh goat cheese and bread before getting tonights meal which has been prepared by the Czech brothers and sisters. As before every food circle, tonights activities are announced and we decide to join the Yugoslavian history workshop.

The sign that are all over the place, despite them, one brother wil run around naked, choking the Nons.

It is held around a fire, Otman passing roasted hemp seeds around and telling his story about Yugoslavia. It is a long story which i might tell soon in a separate post. The mood is very relaxed and more people are listening very carefully than in most lectures i attended at Uni. After he has finished, questions are asked about the subject and many others, we start talking about universities, creating new schools of knowledge and have more talking circles like this one. We also mention that the activities proposed at the gatherings are becoming fewer and try to argue about the reason for this. Some say it is a general thing, that more and more people just shlap along as one would say.
After the talking circle, i join Timothe spot for sleeping and finally find a real flat spot! Timothe has a very nice sleeping spot ,his mosquito netted hamac is covered by a tent tissue to protect from wind and rain. Under this he can stand, store his bike and bag and sleep in any weather. Much better than a tent and way lighter! of course you dont sleep 100% flat and are not protected from the wind but who cares in this hot summer.

Morning light in the camp

First day at the camp.

Tonight is fool moon! big ass fire

The Austrian takes us to the main site of the gathering. Tonight is full moon and should be the peak of the event. We arrive into an open space after an good hour walk through forests. this place is real remote, probably 100s of kilometers of the next big city. because of tonight celebration, today is silent until the first food circle. I use this to get some rest and sleep in this complete tranquility, in the shade of a tree. The camp is not t all dense, people are scattered around, some have put up a real tippy, others build a shelter with wood and a big plastic sheet.
A while later, Helena comes back and tells us it is time for th first food circle there is watermelon and muesli! What i find down at the main circle is quite surprising... All this new vocabulary is too. So as i get down three, some hundreds of people are forming two concentric circles around a huge dead fireplace. They are singing a song about the sun, the sky, the moon and some other quite crazy stuff:). It all looks like a bunch of religious freaks but i cant refuse the kind invitation of one of them to join in. So we are there, holding hands and singing this song of freedom and preparing to get food. After raising our hands above our heads, putting them together and bringing them back down in front of us, we knee down to the floor and put our head to the ground. This feels ridiculous the first time and i actually did not knee down all the way. Thinking back about it now, it is a pretty good ritual to precede a meal. It is like thanking the sky and earth for the food but also and mostly to me it is an act that makes you more conscience that you are about to eat. i mean by there to avoid just get the whole plate down in 5 sec mechanically. Some very healthy food in healthy portions (all the contrary of Serbian food) is served in circle. Muesli first time and you hand out your plate. The people serving the food are going around the circle clockwise and you get the different things in turn. Today it is different sorts of muesli, polenta and watermelon and we get two rounds. A first time and a second time. I will learn that this is not always the case and that some meals are really minimal. We eat, i chat a bit with my neighbors, but getting into all this is not easy.
To integrate better, i join the wood chain and go gathering wood for the big fire of tonight. I meat a Brazilian living in Germany, a Frenchman and a Serbian. After sweating and walking through the wood with big amounts of wood, i wash my hand, with ashes (it is real efficient, or at least it feels real clean and ashes can technically not be dirty) and join the kitchen. 10 to 20 people are cleaning and chopping vegetables. I must have cut 30 tomatoes, 10 cucumbers and 5 whole cabbages that afternoon! you realize ho much so many people eat... next to the chopping table, people are cooking soups and rice in huge pots over the fire. I meet Timothe a French who came to the Gathering by bike. All these people are cooking by the sounds of musicians playing us some incredible song such as I cut the cabbage (but i didn't cut the watermelon) or i dont want no polenta no more... It is a real great spirit here. We then proceed to squeezing the cabbage to release its juice. This is pretty hard work when you sit in front of some 30 kilos of sliced cabbage... The salad is going to be delicious (sauce of salt and lemon juice) and so is the rest of the meal: filled paprika, soups and chapati. The whole cooking is simply done by people who decided to organize todays food. Everybody participates, one or two focalizers keep everybody going in the right direction, together. It is a real good feeling. finally, every thing is about to be ready and we make the first food circle call. At the count of three everybody in the kitchen sings out loud :Food Circle!!! Now!!! This is the second or third call, the previous being done an hour before. The call propagates through out the camp, everyone singing it out. Beautiful communication!
We carry the food to the circle were meanwhile, a huge wood pile has been erected. the sky is a bit gray and threatens to rain on us but for now nothing, just a bit of wind. The wind of change... Tonights food circle is once again a nice one, nice neighbors, everyone is nice and friendly. Or not? That one neighbor does not car about the first or second time and just hold out an other plate every time he gets the occasion to. I am still la little lost in this exotic crowd... we eat, it gets cold, i go back to the kitchen and heat up some remaining soup, delicious bean soup! I meet a couple from the ride, the radio guy and his girlfriend. We drink Mate tea and talk a while. they leave and i meat Lara from Barcelona, chats, laughter, simple interaction with no second thoughts. Beautiful, once again!

The fire is started, huge, it reaches some 10 15 meters. I decide to go a bit up and make a picture from the distance. Cameras are tolerated but not very well seen by everybody in this camp. The nice thing about this camp is that everything is tolerated, something might not necessarily be supported or some idea not shared, but it is still tolerated and respected. It is all based on respect. I love this Utopia. I go to sleep full of thoughts under that new full moon.

Back on the road, alone

I decide to head down to Macedonia where i will meet Natasa and Mina for a bit of paragliding! Natasa is in a paragliding club and they are going for a week security course. Also it is Macedonia's most beautiful setting, next to Ohrid lake. sounds real exciting but i first need to get down there! its some 700kms away and i will have to get on the highway i did not manage to ride down with Judith last month. Also i decided to buy that camera and it takes me quite a while before i get to the petrol station i will start from.

It is 11 when i am there and past 12 when i walk up to a long haired man, hippie looks, i figure with those looks he will pick me up for sure!
And he does despite that there is not much space left in their van already packed with 8 people, 2 kids and 2 dogs... All these people except the driver and the big dog are sitting or laying in the back. They are from Check Republic and are heading for a hippie gathering in Serbia.
They have been driving a long way and we soon stop at a petrol station for water, a bit of rest and a watermelon. I get to occasion to have a real look at all this nice company, or family as they say. All roots, long haired, dreadlocks, natural clothes, smiles and sparkling eyes. We drive on and as we get on the highway, the exhaust falls down and starts making an incredible noise. Sandy, the driver gets under the car, between burning asphalt and the hot car, he fixes it in a rudimentary way and follow a men who stopped to help us to his friends auto servis. They will solder it back together. We get there and they want 100 euros for this basic fixing... After it is done, the men (only 2 alongside 6 girls/women) argue with the mechanics and pay only 50. It would have been a huge ripoff to pay that much.

Fixin the exhaust

We are bake on our way south. I was first supposed to follow only until Paracin but as it goes i start to like Sandy, his wife, Orlike and their other son, Helena and all the others... I decide to check out that gathering as i have a proper ride to get there!!! The ride is however long and we arrive on the macadam road leading to the parking after the night... It is not an easy road and we are going slowly, some 40km in this manner will take us over 2 hours. Everybody is exhausted, the hot day and now all this retelling and shaking... We find our way thanks to the stones and hanging cravat at each intersection. Even the other car we met with a GPS could not find it without them... We arrive at almost midnight at the parking where we are welcomed by an Austrian who helps us parking. We then sit by the fire, some have tea, i go to sleep.

Front of the Van :)

Orlike playin us a tune, smert 3 year old musician boy :)

Petrol stop, dog is happy the night is kickin in and it is not sooo hot anymore.

Once again the magic of hitchhiking has kicked in, i was heading for 700 km of road, i make it mere 200 down south and i am probably no closer to my goal considering the tough roads. But i am discovering something completely new. Tonight we sleep at the parking which is separate from the gathering since the later is without cars or electricity and a good hour walk from the parking.

Back to civilisation

We catch an early bus out of this deserted battlefield. In the morning, all fogy and covered garbage the parking has a real mystical touch. The bus ride is quite epic. All squeezed in, we watch how Lorin gets real close to catastrophe :) At the Cacak bus station we all look quite exhausted. The crazy bunch is going on to Sarajevo, we are going back to Belgrade with Jeremie. The ride is long and hard... back in Belgrade we get a long awaited shower and eat some fruits and vegetables. mmm healthy food :)
At night we go for the ? Kafana where Jeremie now has a waiter friend and gets special treatment :) We don't need a menu, he bring us mix of plates to share amongst us. After starter and a first round of main plates we are quite satisfied... and he comes with a second main plate! Ok no desert please :)
On the next day Judith leaves, back to Switzerland and i am alone again... well not completely alone since i am staying once again at Jeremie's place. The next days are very uninteresting, i wonder if i should buy an eee Pc to blog and Skype. I finally buy it, and right now i am sitting in a camping, thinking back about this and typing the 15th blog entry of the day. Unfortunately the internet connexion is down and i ll be late with all the blogging. But at least i m outside, 100m from the beach :) I also get my camera to the repair shop after dismantling it repairing the dis functioning mode selector and realizing the Jimy Hendrix purple images are due to a defective chip and canon will replace it for free. I will however not get i back before leaving and consider once again buying a serious semi pro camera... the guy from the computer shop advises my to go and see a serious camera shop were they have a used Nikon D70. I go check it out and get to see a well preserved camera with 2 batteries, a bag, memory card and hand harness. The whole lot for 400 euros. I exceeded my withdrawal limit today but might well come back tomorrow. Night will bring me advice.

3 is ok, more would be to much

Third day here, the sound of trumpets is everywhere, the smell of roast is in the air. A little (humhum) hangover from last night so the day is pretty quiet one for me, sleep and swimming pool are the main activities.
Today is the main day of competition, bands play and the best wins the golden trumpet. This the original reason for this festival. The competition takes place in the afternoon and we listen to most of it from the swimming pool right next to the scene. At night everything goes on in the streets of Guca, madness, like the previous days. There are less people and no more trumpet fanfares in the street, just the bars playing the same songs over and over. To kick of the night we have a couple cafes bucheron, special recipe by Manon. we then join the crowd at the various stands after buying a couple souvenir t-shirts. Lorin is on fire tonight, jokes, crazy sentences to the waiters, trying to bargain everything. On lache rien ce soir! Niko is not around, to busy somewhere else. PJ goes to sleep pretty soon, Judith follows a bit later. We go on at the place with most people, with our neighbors from the camp, Lorin, Marcel, Jeremie and I. I ll try to picture the madness since i have no pictures of this day. My camera is down and Judiths out of battery. A simple example of what was going on that night: a car comes in and tries to drive down the street where we are dancing to the 3-4 track play list. The blond chick dancing and hypnotizing most men around gets in front of it, to the pleasure of the driver. Lorin gets on the car, rolling over the hood, then shaking his beer at the windows. Others occasionally shake the car itself and when the car goes 5 more meters we realize it is pulling and empty trailer, people start getting into it, dancing like mad, shaking the whole thing, including the car... Same for all cars passing and when a bigger semi truck passed it is shaken even harder.
This mayhem is not of the polices taste witch will escort all the cars from now on. And one or two policemen are efficient enough to keep the crowd away. They are a bit to efficient also when diving through with their own cars,, going as far as hitting random people in the crowd. Our friend Sarah makes the painful experience...
Later at one o'clock sharp, the police turns off the music and closes the bars. General disappointment but the previous force demonstration calmed everybody and the crowd accepts this intervention without a word. After a while, Marcel gets into discussion with some drunk people asking him what he thinks of Kosovo. we decide it is time to leave. Back at the parking which is now empty, some motivated people make a small fire to heat up. It got real cold tonight... We squeeze into the tent, 5 people and way to many bags... Three days were definitely enough!