Day 118 SOLO BIKEPACKING ADVENTURE Cycling Around the World – North Macedonia

Hello, my name is Susan and I’m a 62 year old woman that retired and I sold my house and I’m traveling the world on my bicycle. I hope you will join me for my adventure. Thank you. Good morning. Still here in my hotel room in Kosovo and um I only have like 15 miles to ride today. mostly downhill and so uh to Tuscodia in North Macedonia and I um I don’t want to get there too early. I can’t get into my apartment until 1:00 and I don’t have to check out here until noon. So it’s about 11:15 right now in the morning and I’m just waiting. Uh so which is kind of hard to do. It’s like I’m all packed up. I’m really ready to go. I have I did edit a video this morning, so that was good. Um, the guy who rents out the apartment that I’m going to tonight called me on WhatsApp and said that I can bring my bicycle into the apartment. So, that’s wonderful. But apparently somebody stayed there last night. So, he said that I could not check in early, that the cleaning crew would leave at 1:00. So anyway, um so I’m I’m waiting and um yeah, looking forward to that 15 miles mostly downhill. So I will uh I’ll check in when I’m about to go across the first border control. Kind of tempted to just leave my camera on. I don’t think anybody would have noticed at any of the other controls. So uh we’ll see. Maybe I’ll ride through with my camera on. I think the no man’s land between the two controls is um pretty uh pretty short. So, might be a good time to do that. Um all right, I will uh check in later after I leave here. All right, there’s the Kosovo side of the border. And not really sure here. Maybe this lane for the Is that a motorcycle or a bicycle? I don’t know. We’ll try it. Now it looks like a bus. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe they’re only concerned about people coming in. There’s nobody to nobody there. Oh well. Hey, welcome to the Republic of North Macedonia. Have to get a picture. There we go. All right, let’s check out this border. I think this is the more important place to get a stamp or some type of recognition that I’m entering. Hello. All right. I think I can be a walker if I start walking my bike up here. We’re going to try it. Oh, wait. No. Maybe not. I’m not sure. Huh? Look like I could go this way. Is there anybody? Hello. Am I in the right place? Oh, good. Okay. Did you give me a stamp? Can I Can I get one, please? Thank you. Thank you so much. Not real sure again how to go. Should I go that way? Okay. He doesn’t know. Maybe I’ll Maybe I’ll I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try this way. This is kind of where they’re going through stuff. Customs. All right. And I am out the other side of the border. I’m officially in North Macedonia or North Macedonia. I’m not going to keep saying it two ways. I hear both. And to get to Scodia, I’ve pretty much got to go down this highway. There’s no other choice. But doesn’t look very busy right now. So hopefully it’ll stay this way. All right, I’m turning you off. Hello. Hi. I didn’t want to get I didn’t want to get wet. Thank you. So, this is nice. I’m uh now off of that main road, kind of paralleling it. Some of it’s been paved, some of it’s been dirt, but no traffic. This is the main road. I’m going to cross over and get on that road. There’s a lot of mining in the area and industry. So, yeah, I’m about halfway there, like seven and a half miles in. Overall, it has been a very pleasant ride. All right, I made it into Scopia and It’s a lively city. I guess that’s not too surprising being it’s the capital city. And um I enjoyed listening to a guitar player out there. So the music that you heard was actually a guy playing a guitar there in the uh plaza area. And um yeah, just a a happening place. I realized once I got in that um I crossed the 4,000 mile marker today. So that’s exciting. And um so yeah, it was it was an easy ride. Like I said, just like 15 miles and um mostly downhill and beautiful scenery. No problems at the border. So, I’m going to go out and get me some dinner and maybe some groceries for tomorrow and uh call it an early night. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.