Friday 12th September

We departed from Leskovac and managed to get a lift in a lorry to Dzep.  We paused for a while, and lunched by a spring.  We then got a lift into Skopje in one of two cars belonging to a party of German, Italian and one English youths. 

At Skopje we walked to the Municipal Park Official Camping Site and prepared to pitch our tent.  However, the kindly young Turk, who had directed, or rather who had shown us the way to the site, then insisted that we sleep at his house.  We accepted, and were taken to his little home and introduced to his crippled friend, our host’s sister, her children and his younger brother.  We were then served with the customary coffee together with glasses of water.

With Turkish Friends at Skopje

Our host, Nehat Raius, spoke a little English, French and German – also a little Latin and Italian – so we were able to converse quite easily.

He took us out to a restaurant for an excellent meal followed by a visit to one of the local cinemas to see “Broken Lance”.  The film was, of course, in English but with Serbian sub-titles – and was excellent. 

Our host told us, in the cinema queue, that he was anti-communist – his reason appeared to be that they didn’t pay him enough!  He is a clerk and is paid 10,000 dinars per month (bread is 50 dinars for a large loaf, and cheese 420 per kilo – while lambretta cost 300,000, and auto-cycles 150,000 dinars).  We slept that night in a pleasant little room, together in a narrow bed.