Today’s ride along the shore of Lake Ohrid and then the Black Drim, Lake Ohrid’s only outflow, was easy. We covered the 70km to Debar in a bit more than 3 hours.
The Black Drim’s valley is beautiful – if you don’t look at the details. It is full with plastic bottles, plastic bags, and other rubbish. The lack of sense for every-day, visible pollution is a serious problem in all of Macedonia. But the real problem is that we (‘The West’) just export our oh-so-civilized progressive achievements without teaching about the consequences. People here are just not aware that plastic doesn’t decompose within any reasonable amount of time.
A pleasing attempt has been made in the Galičica National Park, where notice boards inform about decomposition times of various packaging materials. Interestingly only in Macedonian language, whereas all other signs are bilingual (English/Macedonian).
After Debar we said Good Bye to Macedonia, the land of the open Wifis, and crossed the border to Albania.
The road became much hillier and far worse in quality almost instantly. The people seemed even more friendly than in Macedonia – almost everyone greeted.
So, the last 20km to Peshkopi were far more exhausting than the 70 before.
Arriving in Peshkopi we were quite the attraction with our bikes. Though not only in a positive way. The streets were filled with mostly male youths and youngsters, some of which cracked jokes about us in a loud and obvious way. It wasn’t the most cordial welcome… However, as soon as you speak to someone directly people are friendly and helpful.
Cycled: 93km
