Hey guys, since I’ve last talked to you I have traveled through Macedonia and have arrived in Panichishte, Bulgaria.

On Friday morning, Anna Maria, Mary, and I set off from our Airbnb in Skopje to Matke Canyon, which is a few miles outside of the city. We wanted to do a little hiking there and take a boat tour through the canyon. It was nice to get outside and move around, and the views of the canyon were great!

After finishing up at the canyon, we headed south to Lake Ohrid, which is basically where I had been holed up for the last several days before coming to Skopje with the car wreck situation (although on the Albanian side of the lake). I didn’t mind going back, particularly because we took a more scenic route to get there than the one I had already driven and I wasn’t under a time crunch on this drive.

I mentioned to my Albanian buddy Andi that we were going to be in his area that evening and he was eager to take the one hour drive over the border to see me and meet the ladies. While we waited for him to arrive, we got checked into the hostel and had a great meal of traditional Macedonian food at a nearby restaurant in the old town. It was good to see Andi again so soon, and we shored up our plans for when I come back to Albania early next week for a couple days to get the car repairs finished. If all goes according to schedule, I’ll be heading out on his fisherman cousin’s boat to go fishing for the endemic Lake Ohrid Koran fish on the first night and having a fire and grilling said fish on the second – along with putting on a country music show for the village. I’m really looking forward to that!

The hostel we stayed at in Ohrid, Sunny Lake, was interesting. The place was basically falling down, but it had a lot of cool counterculture memorabilia hung up around it and a good social vibe. Anna Maria’s favorite part about the place was the turtle they have living there in the garden that she met on Saturday morning. She had a good time feeding it some tomatos she had leftover in the car.

After checking out of Sunny Lake, we walked up the giant hill to see the fortress. There were some good views of the lake from up there – but between the climb and the lack of sleep from the night before – I wasn’t feeling like doing too much sightseeing in Ohrid on Saturday. After the fortress, I walked back to the car and took a much needed nap while the girls did a couple more hours of looking around. It was more important to me to be rested up for my show in Skopje that evening than to see more stuff in Ohrid!

After they were done exploring, we hightailed it the 3 hours back to Skopje so we’d have time to check in to our Airbnb and grab some dinner before my gig. Dinner was at the old bazaar in Skopje and was more really good traditional food.

After dinner, we went over to the bar and got set up for my gig. The crowd was a little small, but enthusiastic. This was a holiday weekend in Macedonia, so evidently a lot of people were out of town. Either way, I had a great time playing for them and was glad that the girls got to see me perform while they were traveling with me. Vlatko, the owner of the cafe, kept the bourbons coming – and since he was a nice guy and there wasn’t a huge turnout for my show, I told him to keep the 30 euros he had agreed to pay me. He was glad about that, and I’m hoping to maybe play there again next Sunday when I take Anna Maria back to Skopje to go to the airport.

Here are a few videos that Anna Maria got of me playing:

After we got everything wrapped up at the bar, we had to head straight to the airport for Mary’s 4am flight home to Germany. I was sad to see her go, but we really enjoyed our time traveling with her. She is a teacher back in Germany and she asked me to come to her school and play some country songs for her 7th graders when I return to Germany later this fall – and I’m looking forward to that experience and to seeing her again then!

When Anna Maria and I finally got up and moving early this afternoon, it was time to set off for Bulgaria, where we’ll be for the majority of this coming week. The drive across Eastern Macedonia and far western Bulgaria was very pretty, and the border wasn’t too hateful this time.

This evening we arrived to the hotel in Panichishte that Anna Maria found called Hunter’s Residence Lodge. It sits on the top of a big mountain in the woods and is filled with a bunch of stuffed and mounted animals. A little weird, but it’s a nice place and the best part was the restaurant where we had an incredible meal and the sauna/steam room in the basement where we hung out for a bit after dinner.

Tomorrow we have plans to do some hiking in this area and then we will be headed about 3 hours east to Plovdiv, which is the second biggest city in Bulgaria, for the next 2 nights.

Talk to you guys again soon!