Day 38

Before long, we reached the border crossing at Gyueshevo. The Bulgarian authorities stamped our passports out of Bulgaria, and we were ushered through the barrier and into no man’s land. Then we approached the North Macedonian side of the border. This is where things didn’t quite go to plan.

The North Macedonian border authorities were happy enough with Grandma and Koro’s New Zealand passports. But they were not at all happy with Helga’s registration and insurance documents. It seemed that we were missing some documentation.

“Where is your green card for your car?”, the man asked Koro.

Koro had no idea what a green card was. The man frowned and shook his head.

At this point Koro was shitting himself, because the car rental company had said we had all the proper insurance documents in Helga’s glovebox.

“We might be walking the rest of the way”, a worried Koro thought to himself.

The man from the North Macedonian border authority had a far better grasp of English than Koro did of Macedonian. Even so, the man’s English was heavily accented and broken. But Koro understood the message, which was that we needed to purchase additional car insurance before we would be permitted to enter North Macedonia. Thankfully, there was an office within the border control area where we could buy cover for fifteen days, and it would cost 3,065 Macedonian Denars. Which turned out to be NZD$89, or about €50.

The man pointed at a concrete block building sitting in no man’s land, about fifty metres back towards the direction of Bulgaria. So Koro started walking over to the building. The building looked old and run down.  It looked closed.  It looked like no one was there.

Koro tried the door. It was locked.

Koro knocked on the door and looked in the window. There was no answer.

Koro walked to the other side of the building, but the windows were covered over. This side of the building had definitely been abandoned.

“Maybe he meant that building over there”, thought Koro. Off Koro went, walking further back towards Bulgaria.

A man started shouting.

“I wonder what all that shouting is about?”, thought Koro to himself. “Probably shouting at some truck driver”.

Koro carried on walking.

Then Koro realised several men in uniforms had appeared, and they were all looking at Koro. No, they were not looking at Koro; they were glaring at Koro. Then Koro realised the man who was shouting wasn’t shouting at a truck driver. He was shouting at Koro.

That was when Koro thought about where he was and what he was doing: wandering aimlessly around no man’s land, without a passport (that was still being held by the man in the booth), no idea how to speak Bulgarian or Macedonian, and surrounded by lots of serious men with serious guns.

“THAT BUILDING OVER THERE!”, the shouting man shouted.  He was pointing back at the first building Koro had tried.

“Lady at lunch. Five minutes. Wait. THERE!”

“Oops”, thought Koro.

The shouty man was shaking his head as all the men retreated. They were probably thinking, “geez, these bloody New Zealanders. Happens every time”.

Within a few minutes, the lady who worked in the building returned from her lunch. Unlike the shouty man, she was in a happy and helpful mood. She opened up the office, sorted out the insurance paperwork and relieved Koro of ninety-odd Kiwi dollars.

Back at the booth, the shouty man handed back our passports and Helga’s paperwork, and we were on our way. From the look on the man’s face, I think he was glad to see us leave.

From there, the drive to Ohrid was pretty uneventful. North Macedonia is a small, mountainous country. We seemed to have crossed at one of the lesser-used border points, so there was very little traffic.  The scenery was beautiful.

Straight away, we could tell that North Macedonia is not a wealthy country. The roads are rough in places, and the buildings in the towns and villages are nothing flash.

As we got closer to Ohrid, we started heading South down road E65, which is an international Euro highway running from Sweden to Greece. It sort of runs parallel to the better-known E75, which also runs through North Macedonia. However, there is a lot of work still to do to finish the E65, at least in North Macedonia.

There were times that we’d be climbing a mountain pass, and from around a blind corner would come two trucks side by side, one passing the other. We can report that Helga the VW Golf can brake from 80 kph to a complete stop really damn fast!

Some of the towns and villages look a bit run down. There were a lot of old cars on the road.  Apart from the E65, the roads were narrow and rough. Our expectations for our apartment were not high.

Our host could not have been more gracious and welcoming. And our apartment? Wow! It was flash! In an almost brand new building, we had a large apartment with acres of space. AND it not only had onsite parking for Helga, it was free parking, and it was undercover.