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When travelling, the Lonely Planet can often get you out of tricky situations, though it's generally wise not to refer to it for everything. Sometimes, however, it can get you into those situations.

Name games

Conor Meleady
2006-02-28 09:14:21

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When travelling, the Lonely Planet can often get you out of tricky situations, though it's generally wise not to refer to it for everything. Sometimes, however, it can get you into those situations.

So it was when we arrived at the bus station in Skopje, the Capital. After much hassle buying our bus tickets for Ohrid the next, we consulted The Book, and decided to camp in 'Skopje's urban camping option! On south bank of the river. Bring plenty of Mosquito repellent!' So, off we went in a taxi to the dot on the map which I had pointed out to our driver, and we were dropped off at the football stadium, where the campsite was meant to be. We found the reception, which was empty, and not sure what to do, I wandered into an adjacent building, and asked a man about a camping spot for the night.

He almost fell off his chair laughing. When he recovered, he told me the camp-site had been closed down over four years ago, to accomodate the building which was going up beside the stadium. Vesna Maric, the Lonely Planet writer for Macedonia and Albania, had even given phone and fax numbers for the campsite. I'd love her job.....

Anyway, the guy was too kind - first, he rang around looking for another campsite in town for us. When he told me there were none, I said 'no problem, we'll go to youth hostel'. But he insisted we camp, and eventually found a hotel 15km out of town that would let us camp in their grounds. I couldn't turn him down after all that hard work, so soon we were being whisked up the motorway to our 3-star hotel, where we had to have our dinner outside the restauraunt to make way for a couple of functions going on.

The next morning we were off to Ohrid, and were plunged straight into the summer festival. It seemed the whole of Macedonia was there, as well as half the surrounding countries, including Greece.....

Macedonia's relationship with Greece is a strange one. The country still carries the official name 'The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia', as Greece clames the name 'Macedonia' refers to territorial ambitions the 'FYRM' has towards its' northern province of the same name. Amazingly, this petty squabble has yet to be resolved, and in the late 90's, Greece even imposed a trade embargo on Macedonia. Can't we all just get along?

Ohrid sits by a pretty lake, and there's not a whole lot more to say about it, except it has a couple of interesting monastries, some old fort walls on the hill, and is more packed than an ant hill in the summer. We stayed two nights, most of which was spent pondering the Cyrillic alphabet, before heading for Sveti Naum and the Albanian border.....