Searching for a room in old town

After I am done looking at the monastery it is time to get out and find Martin again. At first I can’t find him - and my backpack is gone as well. Maybe this bloke weren’t quite as trustworthy as I thought. Well no matter what my loss is limited my backpack only contains some old clothes and by now most of it even need a wash. Before my panic attack really takes of I spot Martin he is having a beer with our taxi driver. I guess the limits on drunk driving are a bit more relaxed in Macedonia compared to Denmark.

 

We get into the taxi and the cabdriver immediately tries to get us to take a room from his cousin. Super. This seriously reduces the likelihood of us getting to the centre of town anytime soon.

Well I have a little piece of paper with the address of some accommodation in Ohrid which I had picked up in Tirana and I ask the driver to take us there. The driver claims this is indeed his cousin. Ok this may be a really strange coincidence - but I doubt it. I think the driver is simply telling us whatever to be able to sell us a room. But we insist he shall take us to this spot. He doesn’t take us there because his cousin is busy in town at one of his other places. My trust in the driver is now hitting rock bottom. I am sure he will take us to the place where he gets some sort of commission.

 

We get to meet his cousin. And he claims his place is full - ok if my trust could sink any deeper it just did. We talk a bit to this cousin and he tries to sell us an apartment for twice what the other place would cost and as an added bonus this apartment is further away from the center than the other place as well. We both say no and insist to be taken to a place in the centre. Well he still claims his place is fully book. But he do manage to tell me the name of the owner of the place where I picked up my little flyer - so just maybe he is actually who he claims to be. I am still not totally convinced - I guess I am born a skeptical or maybe I have just learned my lesson previously.

 

We finally get a place in the center of town - but I guess they did not realize the situation and they want us to share a room with sort of one bed. Considering our long relationship of almost couple of hours by now this might be stretching a bit and we ask for two separate rooms. Of course this immediately leads to a significant increase in the prize - but by now our combined bargaining skills kicks in - we tell the owner it is pretty late in the afternoon and he is unlikely to be able to rent the rooms to anyone else but us. So basically he takes our ten Euros per person or nothing at all. He accepts our argument and we end up getting the rooms for what I expected in the first place. So all is good and it is time to head out and have a quick look around the city.

 

We go out trying to navigate the small old city. It is dominated by several old churches. The churches here in Macedonia survived the communist era a lot better than in Albania with the atheist campaign they had. And the small street here in town almost got a church on every second corner.

Up on a little hill towering the city is an old fort with the characteristic flag of Macedonia on top. When you are walking around town you can get some nice views of the lake which share the name of the city - or maybe it is the other way around. The lake is one of the deepest lakes in the world and apparently it is home to a very special fish which only lives in this lake and Lake Baikal. How the same fish can live in two lakes so far apart strikes me as a bit strange but I guess it just managed to survive in those two isolated lakes where they have not been exposed to competition from other fish species.

 

After walking around for a bit we start to have other objective like getting cash to pay for the room and find out where we were supposed to meet up with the group of Japanese and Swiss people from a tiny village in Switzerland.