The Ham Nomads

5 May 2015. <MK> Grovci; Rankovce; <BG> Dupnica, & Studena Pernik —

Our cowherd came past, taking his herd out to pasture. The shepherd settled in with his flock across the road, We departed on our way to Bulgaria.

Not far along our path, we called in to the village of Rankovce (Ранковце) to buy some bread for lunch. We found that it was market day in Rankovce. We wandered the stalls, not unwilling to spend as we had heaps of Macedonian denari and we weren't planning to come back through here. Susie got some small towels, and we bought some local fruit and veg.

Some blighters will overtake into the face of an oncoming van!

We then continued through pretty countryside and, as we were nearing the border, we stopped off at a little restaurant by the road — a weird name, Ресторан Хантерс, until you realise the transliteration comes out as 'Restaurant Hunters'. They would have had a rather bleak outlook, a stone cliff, except that they have painted the whole cliff with a bucolic scene which merges in with the natural vegetation — quite clever.

The little valley village of Krklja (Крклја)
just before the border

After a pleasant rest and a cup of coffee, we continued on to the Bulgarian border. This was one of the smoothest crossings we have had — the customs inspector only wanted to chat up Suzie, and the girls who sold the vignettes at the border couldn't have been more pleasant. So we came through into Bulgaria with only good thoughts.

The bus stops may be decrepit, but they still give shelter!

We found we were going via Dupnica (Дупница), which took us past an old stone bridge in the village of Nevestina. We stopped off here for lunch, wandered around exploring the old bridge, Kadin Most (Кадин Мост), which dates back to the 15th century. It was built by the Ottoman Turks, and still bears a Turkish inscription (in Arabic script) at one end. We were also entranced by the dark lilacs growing near the bridge.

We drove on, at times where the roads are very susceptible to landslide. In fact, we drove past a few recent landslides. They accept the fact that there will be landslides, and put up barriers to minimise their effects.

Huge roadworks against a mountain background!

We passed through different but beautiful countryside in Bulgaria, and then noticed a Maccas on the other side of the highway. We decided to make a U-turn a few km further on, and come back to do a little blogging at the McDonald's at Studena Pernik (Стуена Перник). Then we travelled a little southwards to a stop at Staro Selo (Старо село), in an abandoned service station, which gave us some welcome shelter from the hot sun. All was well until about 10.30pm, when a traffic policeman pulled up and advised us that we should move on, as this site was not safe. So we went about 15km further south, to a site we had noted earlier, where we spent the night.

Distance driven — today, 123 miles ( 198 km ); to date, 19,486 miles ( 31,360 km )