Day 2 – A new country

Today will reach north Macedonia. The road is beautiful, I look at the mountains, listen to podcasts, and enjoy the road. It’s much better than yesterday even if the day will be hard.

View of kilkis, 20,000 inhabitants
Stop at the store to get food and water
Reaching north Macedonia

After passing the halfway, point I decide to keep going until the next hill top. It is much harder to reach than expected but once there, I make some food. And then take a 20 min nap in the shade. It is now time to go again, 42km left to bike.

I met a Canadian biker going to India, so going the other way. He let’s me know to avoid a route I was planning to take and tells me where I can sleep tonight. We split, and after 20 min, I stop quickly to adapt the GPS. I have 23km left, it should take me 1h20min, I will do it in 2 stints.

Ended up listening to a podcast, these 23km were hard but the views got better and better. The road was close to the cliffs, and on the other side, a river and mountains. I arrive at a small camping spot for rock-climbers that come in the area, I am alone and everything is self service here. I really want to rest, but i have to set up the tent, eat a bit, and do laundry which is hard.

When tired, it is so hard to find the energy to do stuff, especially when it is chores that are necessary but slow. At the camping, there is a small house that seemed abandoned at first but there are toilets, shower and a small kitchen. There is even wifi!

I came from between these mountains, also a famous rock climbing here.
Quite a big day, yesterday I managed 11kph average with the wind, today 18kph

Later at night, I meet a German couple sleeping here too. They had a kid 8 month ago and are enjoying parental leave. They told me that the owner of the camping, a rock-climbing fan that created over 200 routes in the region and used to coach the Kazakhstan team, died in September.

Day 2 – A new country

Leave a Reply