After such a night of dancing I would have hoped to be able to sleep well. But as I lay myself to rest in my seemingly comfortable bed, after some internet and short chat I found the almost holy air-conditioning rather irritating. On night modus the damn thing kept turning off and on with quite the noise. Then my bed was too hard and my pillow too big, the last one I could change however, but as I woke  up after a short sleep I was kind of ruined. On a scale from one to Kaiafas Lake Hotel I would almost consider creating a new scale, if there had been a bug problem too. Best of all, I even had a nightmare but the content isn't to be repeated in here as it's not very meaningful for others. Breakfast was very good and soon we were in the bus and on our way to the winery. After a short trip without working airco and difficult to open windows, we arrived there expecting a tour by the manager. But since he was nowhere to be found we entered the restaurant and started our wine tasting. As wine is really not one of my favourite drinks this promised to be interesting. And indeed, one white wine and three red later I found myself a drinkable one, white dessert wine that didn't even taste too bad. As one of the group already pointed out, white after red results in a disaster and immediately after that last glass everyone that had drunk a respectable amount started acting quite tipsy. But anyway, we headed to the ancient city of I don't know what to view the ruins, very nice but not as great as Greece if I must say. Right now we continue our journey to Prilep, to a tobacco museum, and then our mountain hotel. Cheers until then! :)

Prilep was nice, not that we did much different things than walk and look for souvenir shops that weren't there. As half of the group decided not to want to go to the tobacco museum, without telling so the two times Milan asked them, he had to cancel it and we had some extra time to walk around in Milan's hometown while he visited his family. I suspect that that was his only reason as it wasn't really a touristic place but fair enough, I had a really good time there and the place was nicer than it looked from the start. Afterwards we got a new and improved bus and went upwards and upwards. Once we were almost at the top of the mountain, having travelled across very small roads, no chance of passing cars on it without sending them in the abyss. Where I'm now is a quiet mountain hotel with great interior and a nice big room for us three, only disadvantage is that the beds are probably worse than in the last hotels, so I'm going to put two chairs against each other and lie there. Hope that's better and now heading off to dinner in some minutes. Up and until now, this city Bitola looks gorgeous seen from this height. Except for the occasional industry chimneys of course. 

It's half past three in the afternoon and we're in the bus to our next village and hotel. The hiking lasted for a couple of hours and I couldn't be too relieved when the guide told us that we arrived at the highest point on the mountain. The way up was heavy, not long but pretty steep. My heart was failing like I already suspected and breathing wasn't too nice nor easy. The way down however was much better. Together with the only young person, besides my brothers, I walked down at a reasonable speed, sometimes half running when the paths required it. Obviously we were the only people that smart and the rest was just a tiny bit slower. All the more break time for us, so that was ideal. Before the start of the trip, we shortly visited a monastery, that was just across the street of our hotel. Apparently it was built for the growing community as a second church, but under the rule of the Ottoman empire, the inhabitants had to ask permission to build. The conditions were that it should be invisible from the streets, making it very low and partly underground, that it was built in forty days, though I assume that was exaggerated, as it looked pretty solid, and that the local Ottoman ruler was to marry the daughter of the priest. The priest agreed, but the daughter wouldn't and fled the country, leading to the priest's arrest. As for this background story, it took longer than us getting In and out the place, because it was small and dark and not really beautiful, the interior at least. In a moment we will arrive in a place I don't dare to try and pronounce let alone spell correctly. Really looking forward to the gypsy music evening, but a little conspicuous about the food, as my lunch was bread that was supposed the very white but had some grey spots on it.. Although, I'm still alive so it wasn't too bad.

OK, the gypsy music night was everything I expected and more. But first the dinner, it was brilliant. There are very few things that I don't like, but a plate with tomatoes, cucumbers and goat's cheese is just the limit. Main course however was French fries with chicken Schnitzel without any sauce, but I discovered that French fries and lemon juice go perfectly together. Dessert was magnificently sweet and sour at the same time and the view of Strumica was gorgeous. The speed with which the courses were served was a bit overenthusiastic. Once they were finished with my ultimate favourite dish, they immediately started serving main course... After eating we were once again taken by some taxis and dropped at a neighbourhood ghetto of the highest rank. Definitely the place to be, uhuh. But it came to be very nice. The gypsy music was different with strange oboes and weird melodies but soon they started dancing. After I watched the steps I joined in and quite immediately I got them right. Apparently they all liked me and soon some boy started flirting very obviously. Anyway, after some half hour I found out that, one: our guide Milan can not only dance quite well but can also sing. Two: the difference between Dutch and Deutsch is hard to remember for foreigners. Three: apparently the gypsies saw me as the best tourist ever as I showed their little ones how to do their own dance. Four: although they look -and probably are- poor, fancy phones are completely necessary in every environment. Five: they are the awesomest best people I met. The young people swarmed around me like a round a beehive, and the elder looked and nodded enthusiastically. Every time they pulled me up to dance, kids fighting over the hands of every tourist, and one woman hugged me as she kept saying good good and other nice things that I couldn´t understand. If I could choose, I'd stay there at least until tomorrow because they are much nicer than a winery. Greatest night in I don't know how long. Now tired of dancing all night so gonna go for sleep. Next time about wine tasting, yeey....  

Cycling was kinda fun, but very heavy. Only seven kilometres he said, but it was uphill the first part and our mountain bikes weren't exactly capable of staying fit for driving. Many loose chains and Loek fainted on his way up. Apart from my heart I was quite fine, and the lake we visited was very beautiful. Breakfast was quite good too and in about two hours I'm having dinner. Curious what those Macedonians have to offer us, just hope it's not only tomatoes like in Greece last year. Everything is very cheap up here and people look strange upon you if you want to pay with a 1000 Denar paper, although that's only 15 Euros.. Just as I expected, I'll never be able to learn everybody's name, not understand a single word of the languages here. It's just like Russian, sounds cool but also sounds like a bunch of nothing.

Dinner was nice, but not entirely to my taste. Soup was delicious, chicken soup with vermicelli and I guess herbs. But then very quickly it turned bad, somewhere floating in what seemed a pool of red grease, there were white paprikas, stuffed with meat, rice and tomatoes. The stuffing wasn't that bad except for the tomatoes but if you would try to cut it, all would fall into the greasy redness, which was tasting exactly how it looked. Everybody seemed to like it so I smiled and nodded while eating but that was it. Dessert was somehow better, the moist, no, just plain wet cake they served us was good, and how I remember it from Greece. Just an ordinary cake that tastes and looks as if they solemnly poured some juice, grease and water over it. After dinner we got some water for tomorrow's trip and I'm now headed to bed. More about this journey on the next day, I'm going to pray for a goddamn miracle. If only the dogs and crickets would shut up and air-conditioning would appear. Anything for airco!

Just landed in the Alexander the great airport in Skopje, we noticed exactly how everything was. No larger than Eindhoven airport, this was supposed to be the capital airport. Only a handful of people waiting near one of the few conveyer-belts, and then in a long queue for the only ATM of the place. Our tour guide happens to be Mr. Milan, who   studied languages and tourism, therefore licensed to guide us. He seems new in his profession as he nervously welcomes us to the land of some two million people. Exhausted we get into the bus to Berovo, and this will be the only sightseeing in the capital, too bad we can't see anything. I guess we should be glad to have our guide, as his English is high above my expectations. With his vocab and accent is nothing wrong, just lacking of fluency. Just arrived at the hotel after a trip of two and a half hours on bumpy roads I see I'm being send to a rather big room, for four persons. Us three can manage here just fine I reckon, maybe it'll work out too in the next hotels. I try to sleep but a rooster already decided it wasn't the middle of the night anymore, keeping me awake for quite some time. Unfortunately I couldn't close the windows, for there exists no air-conditioning here. Might as well wake up way too early again, just waiting for the rest to wake up and start breakfast at 11. Oh, long live good beds, which this country is probably not aware of.. 

And it's only less than 24 hours before I leave my home to head north, only to fly back south again and a little to the east. With a time difference of zero and a temperature difference worthy to be called hopeful, I will be heading to FYROM, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Apparently the name Macedonia isn't enough because those Greek half gods have decided that it insults their small province with the identical name, Macedonia. And hospitable as they were when I arrived in Greece one year ago, they oddly aren't that fond of their northern neighbours. Anyway, on my trip to this yet unknown piece of land, at least for me, I'll be writing in my journal about all that occurs. But because I won't post it up here before I get back, this is just a goodbye from me, and until a week or so!