Day 12 – Ohrid

This morning I woke up pretty late. I had underestimated the effects of a big comfortable bed in a quiet environment and not set an alarm clock.
I wanted to hike today and had looked up a 9k- trail through the close mountain area. My hosts had told me that at the moment it was forbidden to go into the mountains because they were having troubles with wildfires but that I could climb the mountain in the east of Ohrid.

Today was supposed to be the good day according to the weather forecast but as soon as I got out it started raining again. However, I am trying not to let the weather have too much influence on my plans so I went on. As soon as I had climbed some 100m I could see the Albanian side of the lake, shining in bright sunlight while I was standing in the pouring rain. By the direction of the wind, I calculated that I should have sun too in a while. And I was right. After about 20 minutes the sun broke through the black clouds.
Plants and earth dried almost as fast as my hiking pants and suddenly it was spring.

The path was very well marked and I climbed up through the rocky-muddy mountainside and its beautiful Flora with flowers, and bushes and trees in full blossom in white and pink; always seeing the snowy high mountains on the other side of the lake.

I had left the originally planned trail and was walking further east but staying on the marked trail until I reached the little mountain village of Velestovo. The familiar sound of barking dogs and cackling chickens welcomed me but apart from them and a few donkeys I didn’t meet a soul.

On my way out, I met a french couple whom I could ask where the path was going and they indicated me to just follow the red and white marks. The only problem was that there are about 30 different trails in this area, all marked in the exact same way so I was thankful for finding an offline Balkan hiking map on my phone that I had downloaded a month ago during my preparations. However, I couldn’t have gotten too lost around here as lake and mountains made it very easy to orientate oneself.

I sat down under a petal-raining white (cherry?-)tree for lunch next to a small chapel with a water fountain before I started descending towards the village again. I crossed a dried river which surely had carried down the melting snow just a few weeks ago. This side of the mountain felt almost deserty with its red-yellow stones and fleeing lizards on the path. Unfortunately this beautiful environment had also been abused by the villagers as a rubbish dump in some areas.

I reached Ohrid again by 3:30 where I took a moment to wash out and change my muddy pants before going to the center where I had arranged to meet Vladimir-Xabier at 5.

It had started raining again and we walked through the old town for a bit and then stepped inside the St. Celement of Ohrid Cathedral which contains the best preserved fresco paintings from the 11th century Byzantium.