Marathon Over the Mountain

"I can't wait to go to bed tonight," said Conor.

He and his wife, Kacey, both PCVs, were visiting us for the weekend and all four of us were sitting in the town square. It was pitch dark, which lent the impression that bedtime was, indeed, a near event.

Actually, we'd been up only twenty minutes. It was a few strokes before 4 a.m. and though the sun would eventually bring with it temperatures in the 80s, an early-morning breeze had us huddled and hugging ourselves on the pavement as we awaited our taxi. Along with thirty or so other hikers, we were catching a ride to a monastery in the village of Lesnovo and then hiking back over the mountain range to our own town's monastery. The day's grand total: 44 kilometers, or 27 miles; the local hiking club's annual marathon hike. So at that particular moment bedtime felt like years away.

Spurred on by too many cups of Turkish coffee and encouraged by constant Formula 1 coverage, the taxis spent the next ninety minutes passing each other on the windy mountain roads all the way to Lesnovo. Now exhausted and carsick, we explored the Lesnovo monastery where Jillian and Kacey were obliged to wear borrowed skirts due to a monk's presence there. Sunrise over the 800-year old complex noticeably improved our spirits and by the time the group set off up into the hills the weather was already clear and warm.

At the Lesnovo Monastery before the hike

Twenty-seven miles up and over a moutain range is pretty much what it sounds like: really long and really tiring. We passed through no less than half a dozen terrains and I think several microclimates on our journey, including a boggy marsh, a beautiful meadow, some loose boulders and for about 500 meters, a desert. But the hike's best moment came at the river crossing when we waded through with the help of a rope strung across the water's width. It wasn't particularly deep, but the bottom was rocky and dark, making each step a tad precarious. I think everyone crossed with the same thought in mind: I don't want to be the one who falls in.

[I should note here that Conor's dad is currently in the midst of a hundreds-of-miles long trek through northern Spain that began with a climb through the Pyrenees. I reminded myself of that whenever I felt fatigued or sore along the way.]

At a break along the way...10 miles to go!

We reached our destination, the Osogovski Monastery, as dusk approached. Having drunk our weight in water throughout the course of the day, we happily filled our packs with beer just outside the monastery, plunked down at a table, and toasted a great hike. Following a short ceremony, dinner was served to all the hikers, though Jillian and I had to skip out to dash home and shower in time to be two hours late for Bube's graduation party. After 44 kilometers, I could think of nothing better than dancing oro with her grandmother.

No doubt the day's best performance goes to the little black dog who lives at the Lesnovo monastery. When he was still with us after fifteen kilometers, it seemed that he intended to make the hike with us and after he successfully navigated the river it was obvious that he would. As the hike neared its conclusion, we remarked to the trek's leader that this little dog was quite the trooper.

"Oh, him?" the man asked with a shrug. "He comes along every year. Then he walks home alone."

Of course he does. Probably climbs the Pyrenees every few weeks, too.

Crossing the river

With a few miles left, this guy wanted an interview. No chance.

A Sort of Hiking Trail

We're in the full grip of spring and all the things that come with it: unpredictable weather, allergies, suddenly overgrown lawns, the greening of the hillsides, the swelling of the river and, finally, an opportunity to do some hiking. There's no shortage of hiking destinations in these parts, but there is a lack of what we Americans would term "hiking trails." This frustrated us during our first spring and summer. From the municipality we obtained a rather well-produced hiking map, made in conjunction with a town in Bulgaria as part of a cross-border project. Problem is, the map shows only two "eco-trails" (as they are called) in our greater area. And we've hiked them both.

Turns out we were going about this in the wrong way. It's like the last scene in Back the Future. Marty says, "Whoa, Doc, there's not enough road to get up to 88 mph." And wild-haired Doc Brown smiles and replies, "Roads? Where we're going we don't need any roads." And the Delorean lifts up from the ground and blasts off into the sequel.

Trails? Where we're going we don't need any hiking trails. We just pick a village and start walking.

There are three distinct settlement types in Macedonia: cities, towns, and villages. The cities, like Skopje, Tetovo or Bitola, have a distinct Western bend and include most things you'd associate with America or western Europe: expensive shopping, fast-food, movie theaters, malls, albeit with a blocky concrete/communist twist. The towns? Well, they're just lesser versions of the cities; they hold a certain amount of rustic-ness but also offer enough Western amenities to make you feel comfortable.

When you picture Peace Corps Volunteers serving around the world you probably don't envision them in places like Macedonian towns and you most certainly don't think of cities. No, if you close your eyes and conjure a PCV hard at work, what most closely resembles that image in your head is a Macedonian village. Rural and antiquated, villages are scattered everywhere across Macedonia.

In our municipality there are around 33 villages tucked into the hillsides, ravines and mountain slopes. It's quite common to hear someone in town refer to "my village" or "my family's village." Many families trace their roots back to these small settlements and have relatives still living there. So these villages become destinations in the summer, when their altitude provides some relief from the heat.

Getting to these villages--and getting out of them--is not always easy. Once you leave town, the roads quickly lose their pavement and become rough dirt trails. They're also quite narrow and every half kilometer or so there's a small turnout to assist any drivers that may meet head-on coming up and down the mountain. During the winter one particularly rural village found itself snowed in and Red Cross helicopters were called in to deliver the necessary supplies.

In other words, a walk to a village is all the hike you could ask for. Now we've realized this and begun picking villages at random and setting off. Recently we took a rather satisfying hike with our friend Tina. The original destination was a far-off village but then Tina had the idea of attempting to find some local waterfalls she'd heard lots about.

We were standing at what passes for an intersection in a village. There's a school at the intersection. It's K-8, but serves only ten or fifteen students. [And here's where the communist mentality lives on: I asked a teacher at the high school why the municipality doesn't just drive these students to the central primary school every day, rather than operate an entire school. It'd certainly be cheaper. Her reply: "But then those teachers would lose their jobs."]

At the intersection we came upon two older women who were more than happy to point us in thr right direction. They were en route to a day's work in a nearby field. We passed the field a few minutes later and saw a couple of men tilling the ground with a horse-drawn plow.


The trail soon ceased to be even that. We were walking along the side of a small river, one which, we hoped, would include some falls. Every 500 meters or so we were forced to cross the river--I couldn't tell if it was the river or our path that was winding. Most of the crossings required a simple leap; others needed some serious ingenuity, like moving a felled tree to create a (very) temporary bridge. We were determined.

Then, in a mass of enormous rocks bordering on boulders, the path ended. The river continued, but we really couldn't see any practical way to go on. Frustrated and tired, we found a seat in a prime landslide spot and had some lunch. While we were discussing the trek back and other things unrelated to waterfalls, Jillian spotted something through the trees. Closer inspection revealed that we had, in fact, found not one, but two small waterfalls. Fifty more meters of scrambling over the rocks and there we were. There was a even a makeshift picnic table constructed at the base of one of the falls. How thoughtful of someone.

So we sat there for awhile, beside two waterfalls, near a village, on no hiking trail, in Macedonia.

Backpacks, Borders and Beer

This small town doesn't really do advertising. For any given event, whether it's a Red Cross fundraiser or an art exhibition, you're lucky if a few fliers find their way up in store fronts. Eerily, about the only thing that's well-publicized around here is death, in the form of announcements posted on telephone poles.

But then it's not really that important around here, in this town where word of mouth spreads faster than internet chain mail. A culture based on personal relationships and socializing doesn't really need posted announcements to know what's going on--sitting down to coffee with your neighbors is a better source of local events than checking email or reading fliers in the library windows could ever hope to be.

Problem is, unless someone specifically seeks us out, sits us down, and talks Baby Macedonian to us, Jillian and I won't really pick up on the word of mouth network. More than once, I've been asked by one of the teachers or students at school why I didn't attend such-and-such. Well...because this is the first I'm hearing of it.

So imagine my delight when, walking home from school a few days ago, I crossed paths with the head of the local hiking club whom informed me that there was an organized climb of the region's highest peak on Saturday. Then she said something else. I didn't catch it, but felt lucky to have the day and time of the hike. That something "else" was of some importance, and it sure was one hell of a surprise yesterday...

So about this mountain. It's called Ruen--or, literally, "Mt. Everest of Northeastern Macedonia"--and its peak sits directly on the Macedonian-Bulgarian border. Compared with the more majestic and lush peaks in western Macedonia it's not a whole lot to look at, as if someone planted a wide swath of blueberry fields on the moon. The terrain is the stuff ankle sprains are made of--loose, large, hard rocks--but the view was quite impressive and the hike fast. Before we knew it, the group (numbering about 60 people from various hiking clubs around the country) was approaching the summit. At this point many of the long-abandoned military outposts from WWII, crumbling and haunting, were clearly visible along the extended ridge.

National flag? Check. Beer? Check. Let's go.

Jillian near the peak

After a final scramble up a steep incline, we arrived at the summit. And saw around one hundred people already there, eating and drinking. Ummm...? A few Peace Corps volunteers from the other side of the mountain who had hiked up with their own hiking club gave us the scoop:

"Oh yeah, there's supposed to be some sort of ceremony and then we're all crossing over the border for the party...barbeque, beer, dancing."

I glanced down at my clunky hiking boots and tried to imagine doing the oro, the traditonal Macedonian dance that tends to spontaneously erupt at any social event numbering more than three people. Well, this certainly explained why one of our guides on the hike was carrying a backpack bulging with two-liter bottles of Skopsko beer. Over the next hour more people arrived, many by four-wheel-drive vehicles from both sides of border. Border police from both sides stood together, chatting and laughing, as the crowd swelled.

Then the ceremony began. It was a sort of gift exchange between the two sides signalling their peaceful relationship. Well, I'll say. No sooner had that official business ended then everyone high-tailed it over to the Bulgarian border station (a mere 200 meters away), where the grills were already working overtime and the sound of carbonation escaping beer bottles filled the air. And people were dancing.

The fact that all of this was occuring at 7,000 feet on a grassy plateau from which we could see into the infinity of southern Macedonia, western Bulgaria, and southern Serbia, never ceased to be funny. Oh yeah, and there were some horses meandering in the area, no doubt waiting to be photographed for a calendar of inspirational quotes. Sausages were served off the grill and some friendly Bulgarian men invited us over to drink from their pail full of white-wine-and-lemon spritzer.

After a couple hours of this, we heard the by-now familiar shriek of our leader's whistle. It was time to go. At the bottom, we hitched a ride with some Skopje-bound hikers. I sat in the front seat, feeling sufficiently car sick from the twisty road back into town while Jillian sat in the back of the van laughing it up with a rambling old man. He was probably passing on some worthy word-of-mouth information about next year. Who knows? We'll just have our beer at the ready, just in case.

Just your average Saturday spent rejoicing with border guards

On the border with the flags of Macedonia, Bulgaria and the E.U.

Monastery Mexican Madness

Last weekend, following the high school debates, Jillian and I played host to a group of volunteers from around Macedonia for a couple of days of hiking and tortilla rolling. Even though our much-vaunted local monastery is only a mere 1.5 miles from the center of town, we optioned for a roundabout, eight-mile hike during which we climbed far above the monastery and approached from behind.

The temperature was in the 70s and the sun was shining as we made our way out of town and into the foothills. After a couple hours of climbing the winding trail, we made a hard left turn and descended the ridge towards our destination.

We hadn't actually attempted this hike before and as the monastery came into view in the distance we found ourselves bedeviled by a common theme in Macedonian hiking: unmarked trails. Sure, we can see where we want to go, but how the heck do we get there, we asked ourselves as we stood at a wooded intersection. After some indecisive backtracking and an ill-advised attempt to forget the trail altogether and make a beeline through the woods, we finally guessed the correct route and found our way down. Our guests must have been seriously impressed. Luckily for us the monastery sells beer.

After the monastery came the mexican food: tortillas rolled, vegetables diced, and chicken grilled, we devoured our self-styled smorgasbord of taco delight.

Along the trail towards the monastery

At the monastery on a beautiful day

A Mile High

Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time. Sitting in the teacher's room one afternoon last week, I happened to overhear the gym teacher say something about hiking (luckily, it's one of the verbs we know). After I raised an eyebrow inquisitively, he explained that the local mountaineering club was organizing a hike up to one of the peaks that surrounds the town. He pointed to a nearby flyer posted on the wall and said something like, "Haven't you seen these up around the school?" Well, yeah, I had. But considering that the literal translation of the flyer's title was "Everyone to the Snow," you'll forgive me if I didn't instinctively recognize it for what it was.

The hike's destination was an 1,800-meter (5,580 feet) peak south of town and the outing wound up being approximately 12 miles round trip. Though the temperature sat firmly in the 30's when the hike began at 7am, by mid-morning the sun was shining brightly and it was soon pushing 50 degrees. The group--about 40 strong--was made up mostly of teenagers, who the hiking club apparently targets for these activities.


As we rose above the town, the scenery and views were fabulous and by the time we were within a mile of our destination we were trudging through the white stuff. Everyone to the snow! Near the peak was a small complex comprised of sleeping quarters, a kitchen, several bathrooms, and a really nice playground. Apparently this spot is quite the destination year-round and can be used by hikers as a stopping off point on their way to the highest peak in the region, which was still another six or seven miles further on.

Like most American hikers, Jillian and I came with our efficiency mindset: like Julius Caesar, we proclaimed "Veni, vidi, vici," or perhaps more accurately, "We climbed, we saw, we ate lunch. Can we go now?" But we should have figured that Macedonians would hike like they live, with extended breaks for food and drink. As the students carried on with snowball fights, makeshift skiing, and generally teenage behavior, the adults gathered on the picnic tables for what seemed like several courses of coffee, tea, wine, various meat products, and bakery goods. While Jillian and I accepted their generous offerings (all we could counter with were some crackers), we really were beginning to wonder how long we would be staying up there...

Three and half hours later the descent began and by late afternoon we were home, quite exhausted and quite happy to have made this connection. There will be another expedition in February and it sounds as if the club goes out on a regular basis during the summer, including some overnights.



Meanwhile, back down here at our normal elevation (which happens to be around 2,300 feet), school has started up again and Jillian and I are starting to get busy. We both have begun our English Clubs, which gives us a chance to offer extra English instruction to those students who want it. Even better, perhaps, it exposes these students to a different type of instruction. Thus far, they have responded very positively to the games and activities and there has been a lot of interest. Just today, Jillian received the sign-up sheet from the 5th graders...54 kids! Looks like she's going to need to add a few more sessions.

And to those of you not on Skype...why not!? It should be noted that Grandpa Kimes was the first to jump on and others have followed. The calls are extremely clear and FREE. So get out there and buy that $10 computer microphone and give us a ring, we'd love to hear from you. Everyone to the Skype!

Myth or Mother Nature?

Over two thousand years after his death, Alexander the Great still carries a hefty political legacy in this part of the world. Despite the fact that he was neither Slavic, like present-day Macedonians, nor Greek, both sides claim him and he is particularly emblematic of the currently tense state of relations between the countries. Because his kingdom, Macedon, included an area encompassing both Macedonia and northern Greece (which the Greeks refer to as “Macedonia”), there’s always been a lot of historical tug o’ war. The most obvious example of this today is the dispute over Macedonia’s official name, which you can read more about here.

I bring this up because once again we were reminded of this game of keep-away with Alexander when we hiked to Devil’s Wall, near the town of Sveti Nikola (Saint Nicholas). It was an absolutely beautiful day, with temperatures pushing 60 degrees, when we set out with a group of other volunteers. The legend behind Devil’s Wall, which is located along the side of a small mountain, is that it is the remnants of a structure built by Alexander’s army to protect his treasures. Or is it simply a natural formation that lends itself to myth-making?

From a distance it didn’t look like much, but as we approached, it increasingly began to resemble a wall, constructed from separately cut stones. Plus, it stands in considerable contrast to the other surrounding rocks in both texture and color, and pretty soon we were all scratching our heads. Here’s the wall…what do you think?

Well, we won’t keep you in suspense. Luckily for us, two members of the group had asked a local museum curator and received the skinny: American and European archaeologists studied the wall during the 1960’s and determined that it is, in fact, not man-made.

The church in Sveti Nikola

Now that training is winding down, excitement and anxiety are running high as reality is setting in: we are going to be on our own soon. Language classes continue to go well, but at times we are frustrated by our language limitations. There are times when we can carry on whole conversations in Macedonian, and other times when we struggle to answer simple questions. Accents, dialects, rate and volume of speakers, new tenses, and phrasing all can stifle our attempts to communicate--not to mention the abundance of vocabulary that we have yet to learn. Next week, we have our final oral language assessment. It is basically just a conversation with one of the language teachers where he/she asks us questions in Macedonian. The object is to speak fluidly--and quantity counts. So don't be surprised if your ears are burning next week as we speak of your professions, hair color and birth places.