Sunday, August 5, Skopje

For many reasons today is a day of rest.
The enveloping and smothering cloud of heat makes it impossible to be motivated to much physical activity.
I need to write my column for San Leandro Patch.
I need to read more than I've been doing this trip.

Yesterday I got myself stranded, again. Lonely Planet touted a lake, Lake Matah, above the city that they recommended as a place to visit. They explained that you could get there cheaply (seventy cents) on the #60 bus from downtown. So after I finished a small foray into the old city in the morning I sought out the bus. The avenue that seemed correct (remember there are no street signs) was, alas, treeless. That meant standing out in the afternoon sun with temperatures above 100F, waiting for a bus that I wasn't certain would come. Then I found two blessed sycamores offering shade near a bus stop. There I ensconced myself and hoped. Buses came, buses went, all belching black smoke, with no evident air-conditioning, with numbers like #2, #24, #88, but no #60. My only solace was that there were other folks standing with me who had been there for as long as I had.
Then #60 arrived. I sprinted for the door and paid my fare to the driver. There was only one other passenger. Could it be possible that no one else wanted to take refuge at the lake on a sizzling Saturday afternoon? Perhaps I was on the wrong bus.
The bus itself seemed a parody of public transportation. The seats were clearly salvaged from old school desks. You may remember the kind, hard, made of shiny tan plastic made to look like wood. There were no advertisements on the bus walls, really nothing on this thing except the bare walls and those uninviting seats.
I sat down. We headed for the city outskirts then came to a river, which we crossed. After about 15 minutes of travel I saw a body of water to my left. Several people got off. I figured this must be the lake so I exited and walked towards the lake.
It wasn't a lake, just the river that emptied the lake. I was in the wrong place. Sullenly I returned to the main avenue and found a shady spot to wait for the next bus. And I made some friends.
First an old guy tried to talk to me. Once he realized I was a tourist he asked if I spoke German.
"Bischen Deutsch," I replied.
We then tried to converse in a language that where I knew, at best, one hundred words. All we got established was that I was from California and a teacher. After a few minutes of staring, trying to think of some way to overcome the language barrier, he drifted off.
Then some schoolkids came over. We talked a bit, mostly via hand motions. Their English vocabulary consisted of two words, "Justin Bieber". We did establish that I was headed for "Matah".
I waited. And waited. An hour passed. Someone called over a friend, from London, who told me the bus was due at 6pm, in twenty minutes. Six o'clock came and went.
Finally, after nearly 90 minutes a bus came. I jumped on along with the schoolkids. We traveled uphill for about five minutes when the bus stopped.
One schoolkid looked back at me and yelled, "No Matah".
I got off and started walking. At this point I was so hot and tired I would have descended to the level of hiring a taxi if I could find one, but none came. Three other people were walking with me, or at least in the same direction. One of the walkers, a woman, told me Matah was "far".
I trod on for about 30 minutes till I came to a gathering of folks around a rushing stream. The water was too cold for swimming but the coolness of the air was a splendid antidote to my dyspeptic mood. I kept going. The road narrowed and I found myself marching with dozens of locals towards the lake. The path was carved from out of the mountain and was somewhat scenic. But the lake, when I found it, was a bummer. Full of trash and forest refuse, small, unusable except as something to gaze into. Had I endured all the preceding to visit this dump?
I had.
The only sensible recourse now was to retreat back to Skopje, except I didn't know how to do that. There were no taxis. No bus had passed me on the way up. Had the buses stopped running? It was past 7pm now and the skies were showing their first signs of darkening.
I bought a drink and asked the proprietor about buses. She told me there was a bus at 7:30. Hallelujah, I was saved. Other folks began gathering nearby, apparently to take the same bus. I sat and waited.
The bus came, headed upstream. It passed me and, in the tight space provided, turned around. No one got on. I sensed that he would go around and pick us all up.
But he didn't. He barrelled quickly past me and was gone in a flash. All the folks who I thought were waiting for the bus, were not. I ran after the bus but he was long gone. I was bereft. I put my hands to my head and nearly burst into tears.
The thought of walking the two or three hours back to Skopje seemed impossible even for someone like me who is accustomed to these kinds of treks. It was just too hot and I was too tired. I stumbled around for a few minutes until one of the people in the group surrounding me sensed my discomfort and asked about what had happened. This woman understood enough English to get the drift of my plight.
"Let me ask our tour guide. Perhaps we can give you a lift," she said.
They were Polish tourists with their own luxury bus. Soon several of them became solicitous. Was I going to Skopje? If I was, they would give me a ride. Which they did, in their honey of a tour bus.
That's how I got home.