After some planning during breakfast I have still not decided if I am leaving Ohrid tomorrow or the day after but I have decided to do a small hike from Trpejca, a small village at the lake to the monastery of Sv. Zaum.
I walk towards the center, hoping to find some Tourist Information or anyone to tell me where and when the bus to Trpejca leaves. I find the bus stop after asking around but the bus had just left and the next one is in two hours. Another girl at the stop is in the same situation and we find ourselves a Taxi to share. The driver is quite annoying (the first annoying person I meet here) but he gets the job done. Trpejca, which I am still unable to write or pronounce correctly without great effort, is a very small fisher’s village with a few houses and two beaches with bars.
From here, I follow a trail that some wikiloc users had discovered and blogged about two years ago towards the monastery that is generally thought of only being reachable by boat. The trail is very solitary, even for my taste maybe a little too solitary, and leads over a hill and then along the shore and many completely deserted beautiful beaches. It’s a very short hike and I reach the monastery after 40 minutes. It is not very spectacular in itself and I turn around after a short break.
The way back is even quicker and I reach the first houses with their personal little beaches and fishing boats very soon. After walking along the shore for a while, I select my perfect spot and stay there for a couple of hours of reading and swimming. The water is even clearer than yesterday and swimming along the shore I observe the plants underneath me and the steep rocky walls of the shore, where I even see two climbers.
Around 4, I make my way back to the village, this time taking the short way along the shore which requires some climbing and jumping. The bus back to Ohrid is supposed to come at 16:20 (Macedonians have timetables!) and comes around 16:40. Two years ago I took this bus from sv. Naum and in my descriptions I called it a “sardine can”. Now they have a new, modern bus.
I go home to get the bike and ride back to the center to do some shopping. Unfortunately I am just a little too late for the grilled trout so I get a raw one and some potatoes for dinner and stock up my breakfast stuff and water. I have decided to stay one day longer in Ohrid and my mind turns around the idea of fulfilling my yearlong dream of a Paragliding flight tomorrow.
I ride my bike through the streets of the center as if I had never done anything else and feel so familiar with everything as if I had been living here for years. I drop the stuff in the fridge and hurry to the beach for a last swim as long as the sun still warms me. As soon as the sun goes down, it gets cold very quickly around here and in the morning I always find it very fresh until almost midday when, out of nowhere, all of a sudden it’s really hot.
I sit watching the sundown and reading until it’s too cold and the evening wind rises again and go back home for dinner and shower.
