The End

Tirana

Because we didn’t´t want to have a hitchhiking disaster again, we took a bus from Athens to Tirana. The last week of our journey begun, we started to went out of money and to get a kind of travel-fatigue why we stayed the most time in the hostel. We found a really nice „backpacker-hostel“ were we spent three nights. It was a great place to be, there were instruments, good food, cheap drinks and especially really cool guys who hung out with us. We made a trip through the city together, went out at night and and had a lots of fun.

From Tirana to Sarajevo

The Small Cylades – Schinoussa and Donoussa

Then the most relaxing part of our holiday began. We spend five days on two very little Greek islands. 206 people live on Schinoussa, Donousa instead has  263 inhabitants. Petroula recommended these islands to us because even for Greeks they are very unknown and therefore less touristy.

In Schinoussa camping is forbidden. So we slept with our mattresses and sleeping bags directly at the beach. During the day there were some locals around us but at night we had the whole beach to ourselves. We ate, swam, snorkelled, read, chilled, made music and had very good home made wine from a restaurant close by. At the second day we already had kind of a cozy home. Hans „organised“ a solar lamp and some pillows and life couldn’t´t be easier these days. Then we took a ferry to Donoussa. There´s a free camping site and we were excited to meet some new people. But what happened there was kind of strange. There were quite a lot of young alternative people, most of them from Greece, but also some internationals. When we arrived, we immediately felt weird. Nobody said „Hallo“ or anything to us and the whole atmosphere was spooky. The people were sitting in front of their tents, nobody talked, made music or other things you would expect, when a bunch of alternative people come together at the end of the world. We built up our tent and went to the beach bar at the evening. Also it was not easy to come in touch with the people but we tried hard and met finally a guy from Denmark and one from Greece. We asked them what´s the problem with these people on the island and they explained to us that they really try to do nothing. And doing nothing really means doing nothing. So we got an idea  as to the reason why everybody was so closed. The people who made vacation there probably didn’t want to experience something, they just want to be on their own. But after two nights we were happy to travel further on to Albania. We left Greece with mixed feelings. First thing: we spent a third of our money in that one week. The buses an ferries were expensive and also when we went in bars we spent plenty of money. Second problem: the Greeks. We met some really friendly people but if you compare it with the Balkan countries the most of them are closed and unfriendly. Salesmen in shops and barkeeper most times ignore you at the beginning. Then they are pissed off if you want to buy something from them or if you have a question. But all in all we had a very relaxing week, perfect weather and overall lot´s of fun. Next Stop Tirana!

Athens

We spent two days in Athens. Lemonia, a friend from Petroula offered us a place to sleep. Just some pictures of the city:

What we ate:

Delicious Souflaki for not much money!

And what we did:

At the Syntagma square we played some street music. After one hour our guitar case looked like that:

It seemed that the Greek people are not very exited by German street musicians. We didn´t care at all and stated to improvise some songs. Then suddenly a few Iranian guys came and started to dance.

They broke the ice and at the end we got some groupies and also some money.

At the end the Iranian guys and the Greek girls danced together to „Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen“ from Tocotronic – certainly one of the best memories of our trip!

From Ohrid to Athens

In general borders are very good spots for hitchhiking because all cars have to stop and the drivers can see you easily and often you can even ask them, if they have the window down. We tried it once, we tried it twice, we tried it maybe 100 times and what happened at the Greek border was just spectaculary shitty. All the drivers reacted like stupid assholes. Most of them didn´t react at all when we asked them, others just looked at us like we were ghosts. It was really strange because so far we only met very friendly and helpful people and the Greeks at that border did not even said „no“ or something else to us. They acted like they could´t understand what we wanted from them or completely ignored us. So the first impression of Greece was really bad. The concept of hitchhiking is not very well known in Greece but when I heard that it´s hard to hitchhike there, I just said „Ah, come on! There are friendly people everywhere!“ Then we figured out that a possible reason could be that the Greeks thought we are from Macedonia. The two countries don´t like each other because of that -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute

The only nice guy over there was this beautiful peacock, which was at the border.

After two hours we gave up and decided to hitchhike back to Bitola to catch a bus from there to Greece. By the way: the first car stopped and gave us a ride 🙂 In Bitola we figured out that there are no buses to Greece and we have to go over the Greek border to catch a bus from Florentina, a city in the north of Greece. It started to rain, again nobody picked us up and we started to become pissed off. After an hour we took a dubious private taxi to Florentina. After all we were very happy to catch a bus to Athens, even though it hurt our hitchhiking-honour doing so.

 At 4 AM we arrived in Athens very tired.

The first thing we saw at a newspaper kiosk was this:

Two ours later Petroula (a friend Tobias met in Rom) picked us up and we got a first impression of the city.

Ohrid

After two nights in Skopje we hitchhiked to Ohrid, a beautiful lake in the south of Macedonia. It turned out that Macedonia really is a hitchhiking paradise. We didn`t have to wait at all and the people were incredibly friendly. The man who gave us the first lift bought us some food and Cokes. At the second car the guys asked us to play some songs…. of course we couldn`t say no:

After three hours we arrived in Ohrid (the bus would have taken 3,5 hours):

Ohrid is the number one holiday destination in Macedonia. Fortunately we stayed there before the main season, so we could explore the beauty of the lake without the fucking tourists.

Some impressions of the landscape:

 

We rent a paddleboot and made some poser-pictures:

The first night we camped outside the city beside an abandoned hotel area close to the lake. In the evening we played the guitar and had a private dance under a tree:

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The next day we met a bunch of hippies from the rainbow gathering -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering who invited us to stay with them. Unfortunately the description of the place wasn`t very precise and we couldn`t find them at night. But nevertheless we found the best spot for camping:

We slept on a hill in front of an old church directly beside the lake. Next day we figured out that this place is on every second postcard you can find in Ohrid:

In the morning we made two new friends. A scorpion:

and a survivalist who woke us up and told us stories about the lake, live, mother earth and so on in exchange for cigarettes and coffee 🙂

In Ohrid we finally found time for some street music:

…. and we really earned some money:

Next stop Athens!

Skopje

In Skopje we stayed in a very nice hostel called Hi Skopje Hostel, which is run by two friends. We made a city check and recognised that there are a lot of sculptures in the city:

The uncountable sculptures and the new representative buildings in the city centre are part of a project called „Skopje 2014“ with the purpose of giving the capital a more classical appeal by the year 2014. The project consists mainly of the construction of museums and government buildings, as well as the erection of monuments depicting historical figures from the region of Macedonia. Around 20 buildings and over 40 monuments are planned to be constructed as part of the project. The project has been criticized for constructing nationalistic historic kitsch. It really looks strange and reminded us of something like Disneyland, because it is obviously that all the sculptures and buildings are new, but trying to look historical. „Skopje 2014“ has also generated controversy for its cost, for which estimates range from 80 to 500 million euros. (Wikipedia)

The second day we decided to go to lake Matka, which is a 45 minute bus ride from the city centre. There you can find a beautiful canyon which has awesome caves to discover. We rent a kayak to explore the lake and the caves:

 

In the evening we went to the city centre again and crashed into a Macedonian wedding:

….. and had a home-made Absinth at the bazar:

At night we stayed at the hostel and had a interesting chat with the owner of the hostel and the other guests from Canada, Belgium and Switzerland. There was a dog who immediately felt in love with the smell of  Tobias` shoes, because he knows what`s good:

Next destination: Ohrid!

From Belgrade to Skopje

Thursday 27.06.2013

After three nights in Belgrade we decided to head to Skopje. It`s only 440 kilometers far away from Belgrade, so we thought it shouldn’t be a big problem to hitchhike that distance in one day. The first lift gave us a Serbian police officer. He barely spoke german and drove the whole time 200 km/h and said always „radar, no problem, i am police“ and when we saw a huge SUV with dark windows he just said „Mafia! Mafia Scheisse, Polizei gut“. He had to call his „Kollegah“ from „grosse Polizei“ from time to time and then he stopped at the highway and the „Kollegah von grosse Polizei“ stopped at the second line and they had a small chat in the middle of the highway:

Then he got a call and had to work immediately, so we had to leave the car on the highway. It started to get dark and before we left the car he said a couple of times „Dunkel, trampen, Scheisse“ (e.g. „Hitchhiking in the dark is shit, right?“) Thanks for that advice man! We tried to go at least to the next petrol station and we asked him what the Serbian word for petrol station is and he wrote it down for us: „Vladicin han“.

We made a new sign with Vladicin han and an old man stopped and we tried to explain him that we need the next vladicin han on the way to Skopje. He didn`t seem to be very amused and shouted something in Serbian.

Then he stopped and we left his car in a small town in the south of Serbia. We bought something in the supermarket and wanted to search for a quiet place to camp in the wildness. On our way somebody shouted „musicians, musicians, where do you want to go??“ So we met Igor, who invited us to stay at his place. It turned out that he and his whole family are musicians and so we ended up having a jam session at his room before we went out for drinks:

When we arrived at Igor’s home at 5 AM, his mother woke up and prepared a delicious midnight meal for us. Hans appreciated that:

So we slept very well this night after we made a lot of music together and watched uncountable YouTube videos:

When we woke up Igor’s mother made a great lunch for us. Thanks a lot. After that we were not able to move at all and we had to watch Rambo 3. Around 4 PM we had a last coffee with Igor, before we headed to Skopje.

Igor, thank you very much for everything. We had a great time and we wish you all the best for your music career and your future. Hope to see you again.

By the way: when we arrived at Igor’s house and told him that we had some communication problems finding the next petrol station, we figured out that Vladicin han is actually the name of the town where the next petrol station was and not the Serbian word for petrol station. 😉

So we continued hitchhiking and unfortunately it stated raining:

Hitchhiking on that day wasn`t going that well and after 40 kilometers we got stocked in another small town in the south of Serbia. Fortunately we saw a church and we asked the priest if we could build up our tent in his garden. He offered us a place to sleep in a small building beside his house:

Next day was Sunday and at 9 AM some old men from the village came to „our“ room before the church service to have a tea together with the priest. We also joined them:

After a coffee and a chat with the old men we had the first lift with a truck:

He drove us to the Serbian-Macedonian border. We crossed the border on our feet and after one hour of waiting a friendly businessmen who is working in Munich for the last 25 years gave us a lift. He bought us some beers and drove us directly to our hostel in Skopje. Thanks so much!

Belgrade

The hitchhiking to Belgrade went really easily. At first a hungarian guy who works in Sweden and went by car from there to Hungary in one day without sleeping gave us the first lift. He was really funny and explained us a lot about the south of Hungary and it`s history. At the petrol station where we left his car, we met a czech couple with a caravan who gave us a lift almost to Belgrade.

Because we couldn`t find a place to stay with couchsurfing we took a hostel for the first two nights in Belgrade. With many contingencies we ended up in the coolest and most alternative hostel you can imagine. It`s called „The Three Black Cats“ and actually it`s not a real hostel. It is more or less a normal flat from which a few dudes made something like a hostel. There we met Nikola (the first). He is a 30 year old guy who is working and actually living in the hostel. We talked a lot and we were surprised how much he knew about german literature and we discovered that we like the same writers (Hesse, Remarque). He told us about the war and how it is to grow up during a bombing. He said that he belongs to something like a „lost generation“. He grew up during the war and now he is expecting always something but nothing really happens. He also said that he would go to war against Kosovo always, what was really depressing. Yesteray Croatia became a member of the European Union and we read in the newspaper that in these days the croatian and the serbian presidents are sitting for the first time on one table. So hopefully the relationship between the former yugoslavian countries are getting better and also Serbia will be a member of the EU soon!

On this picture you can see Nikola at his „office“. Above him there is his bed:

Some more impressions with his mask and knife 🙂

His „colleague“ who also hung around in the hostel from time to time, started to drink self made Rakija out of a big tank around 14 PM:

But he was a nice guy as well and shared it with us later:

At our second day in Belgrade we did some sightseeing and explored the old fortress, from where you have a great view of the city and the Danube.

We also tried to visit the parliament, but when we arrived and asked for a guided tour, there was only a scary security guy who said something which seemed to be not very friendly and showed us the way to the exit. In the Saxonian parliament something like that wouldn`t be imaginable. 🙂 Publicity for the democracy doesn`t work like that. Here you can see a great picture of Hans in front of the parliament:

We had to try some traditional Serbian food, which is famous for being not very vegetarian friendly:

Belgrade is a city, where huge contrast between old and new, nice and ugly form the cityscape:

Belgrade is called the „Berlin of the Balkan“ for a reason, because it`s famous for it`s nightlife and nerver ending wild parties. Of course we also had a go. We stayed on a floating boot on the Danube, where a great rock band played. We heart all the good rock shit from Metallica, System of a Down and even RAMMSTEIN!! Unfortunately the audience was quite small but we had much fun nevertheless:

After the concert we had to say hi to the band and ended up chatting for quite a while and decided to have a drink together. Because it was already late and no more bars open, we went to our hostel and had some more drinks. We really felt in love with these guys and when it was time to say goodby, it was very hard for us. Thanks to Direct Drive (https://www.facebook.com/DirectDriveBand) We really enjoyed your concert and your company:

Nikola – who slept directly beside us, a fucking rock`roll band, two lovely american girls and an australian guy, drinking and chatting the night away – didn`t recognice anything. But suddenly he woke up, started the day with a cigarette and a beer and only after a while he realised that it was not 6 PM but 6 AM. On the picture you can see him coming out of his bed:

At the third day another Nikola, a Serbian guy Tobias met in Rome answered to a message we wrote when we arrived and invited us to stay for another day at his place. He cooked a delicious dinner for us and we met his girlfriend and one of his friends. At night he gave us a little city tour:

Here you can see a building which the Serbians call „The Generalstab“, which was destroyed during the bombing in 1999.               -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War. It is located close to the city centre and is nowadays one of the rare reminders oft the war:

Then Nikola showed us the greatest jazz club we saw in our lives – no exaggeration! It is on the rooftop of an old warehouse from where you have a stunning view over Belgrade. Thanks to Nikola for everything!!