My original plan was to show up in Korçë after a 7 hour bus through the mountains, then stay there in a hotel or whatever I could find (I was told there were no things like hostels in this place) then take a bus the next day to the Macedonian border and find my way to Ohrid on either a bus or taxi.
BUT there was no bus going to Korçë on the Sunday. There were other options though thankfully. I took a bus going towards Tirana, got off the bus in this random place that Allan and the bus drivers both told me to exit.
It looked like the middle of nowhere and I thought "ah fuck" but I saw a furgon going to Elbasan almost right away and hopped on.
I arrived in Elbasan by noon. I was one bus ride away from getting myself to Korçë. The driver of the furgon found me another one going to Korçë, but it needed a couple more passengers before it would leave. While the driver yelled out his destination to everyone walking by, I took some photos:
I saw a secondhand bus from Berlin, which reminded me of times taking the bus there, and gave me a pang of missing the place...
but then I was off to Korçë! Well, at least I thought I was. On the bus ride, I looked out the window and realized that the bus went to the Macedonian border right by Ohrid! Two people with their small child were getting out and I thought... well shit this would save me a night in a hotel and a day of traveling back here.
Perfect!!
The driver was quite confused with his limited English, but this taxi came up behind the furgon while I was trying to communicate with the driver and the couple what I was doing. I negotiated a price with the taxi guy to get me to Ohrid. Since it was already a set price, I didn't care how long it would take to get across the border so that was nice. We tried to chat; he was a hilarious Albanian guy that seemed to be friends with everyone at the border. We got through pretty fast! Ohrid was not far away at all, and it was early in the day! Things were going so well!
The taxi driver was making me laugh all the time, and he offered to get me some coffee so I said yeah. I wasn't paying him for time. We went in this nice Irish Pub and had coffee and soda. After this we went through Struga, and I tried to take photos from the cab but they weren't turning out so well...
I had written the name, address, and phone number of the hostel, but the driver dude didn't know exactly where this place was, so he managed to get this person to call the hostel for me and they sent someone to come meet me at the gate of the old town. The driver stayed with me the whole time until I was fetched and led down to the hostel.
The place was awesome - I immediately liked it! I felt like I was back in "Europe" with heating, a big kitchen, laundry, supermarkets... it was so comfortable! I put my wet clothes through the proper washer (I had washed in a bucket with cold water before) and dryer! Went out to buy food at the supermarket and ended up walking a little while:
I had a map, so I was confident that I could find the hostel again. On my way around a cathedral, I saw these two guys with big backpacks looking at a little piece of paper, appearing very lost. I though I could help with my map so I ended up absorbing them while I walked around a bit more. I helped them find the hostels they were looking for, but they weren't sure about the internet situation at them, so they decided to come back to the hostel I was staying at. It had seemed pretty empty being late November and all...
On the way back we ran into these French guys looking lost close to the hostel. They were looking for the same one, so I came back from my shopping spree with about six guys following me in lol. I made some food, settled in, and all of us went out for food (desert for me) and beer/wine. We went out to another bar... stayed there till close. When we got back we chilled out with the hostel staff for a while too. It was a good start to my stay in Ohrid :)
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