Hiking Tips for Worst Enemies

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I push open the wooden window shutters of *our room. It will be a hot day.
We are not sweating any less a moment later when we see a giant iron safety anchor bolted along the mountainside
– as a memorial for the fallen hikers.

Hiking in North Macedonia is rewarding but also, well, sometimes challenging.

If you prefer to read in Finnish, continue here: Patikointivinkkejä pahimmille vihamiehille.

We have arrived in the Matka Canyon, located on the outskirts of Skopje, to spend a couple of nights here, doing day hikes.

At best, hiking in Northern Macedonia is indeed quite rewarding, but it is not necessarily easy – at least if you are not previously familiar with the terrain.

No need for a car to get on trails

As we rely on public transport nowadays, for our travels we also choose destinations that are easy to reach.
That means we won’t go to the remotest edges of wilderness but instead to places that are within walking distances from the bus stations of cities, or that can be reached by taking local buses. In an emergency, we can hop into a taxi or also do hitchhiking.

Indeed it was by taxi that we traveled to the Matka Canyon from the Skopje bus station after we arrived there from Albania via Kosovo.

You can (also) do it an easy way

The website Discovering Macedonia describes hiking in the Matka Canyon like this: “The hiking trail stretches for several miles ahead, and it is neither dangerous nor demanding.”

Right, right. This is the path I talked about that hugs the canyon, runs practically on flat land and that many people visit even with high heels from the terraces of one of the restaurants in order to admire the canyon views.

The terraces are located just a few hundred meters from the parking lot, so if you are not interested in hiking, it’s not necessary by any means.
You can even get to know some local history before enjoying a beer or a glass of Macedonian wine on the terrace: there is a beautiful old monastery in the yard of the hotel and restaurant.

But indeed we are in Macedonia to do some hiking.
All I can say is:
Be careful what you wish for.

Be aware of hiking trails in North Macedonia

Whoever it was that wrote the article for Discovering Macedonia, it’s clear that the person had not even found the real hiking trails of the Matka Canyon.

I’m not surprised. 
I only looked at the website for the first time while writing this post.

Before our trip, on the other hand, I had done Google searches to find information about the trails from credible websites.
I had managed to find exactly two hiking blogs where they wrote about the hiking trails of the Matka Canyon.
Both of these experienced hikers had gotten lost there.

The first one mentioned that he wouldn’t wish for even his worst enemies to go hiking at Matka.
The other one wrote that the only thing worse than this hiking trail would be a vertical drop straight into your own death.
Now that is promising. 

Preparations at the base camp

It’s time to scarf down our breakfast and to go get our gear.
Full of enthusiasm, we rush off to buy a map at the wooden shack that has been dubbed the base camp.

This basic camping shack is located in the yard of our hotel. While from the outside it may look like some Himalayan or Kilimanjaro base camp, when we step inside we are confused.
Inside this nearly empty shack, there is a person sitting in between life vests and a couple of postcards.

Life vests?
– Uhm, we would need the hiking trail map, I manage to stutter.
The person looks at me equally confused.

Apparently, they only arrange boat transportation to the other side of the manmade lake, to the spot from where you can reach another beautiful monastery in 20 minutes.
Or we could rent a kayak too.

– Oh… well… I guess we will just buy a couple of water bottles. 
– We don’t have any, but you can buy some at the restaurant, says the somewhat friendly man.
This is probably his first time encountering people who actually want to hike.

Or maybe he feels sorry for us poor souls who are bound to get lost without a map on the fenced trail that follows the borders of the manmade lake.

Google Maps is not helpful. In this location only a big green patch loads up.
We could use that map of the terrain now.

But drinking water is useful too if you plan to hike in the mountains in +30 Celcius heat. (Tap water is not drinkable at Matka.) Thus we reverse back to the hotel’s restaurant, the whole 20 meters.

– We would like to buy some water for the hike, let’s say four bottles of 1.5 liters, please.
– We only carry bottles of this size, says the waiter, holding three tiny 1 dl bottles in his hands.

The price is one euro each.
That means 10 euros per liter. God help us.

May the church help us 

We end up buying way too little water for what we would need that day and then we turn towards the church.

We have been making short rounds between the holy trinity of the yard for so long already that the pagan hiker in me is starting to nervously look at the watch.
If we don’t make it to the trail soon, we will never make it back alive.

The final building of the yard that we have yet to visit is the monastery’s church.
We walk in feeling quite small and humble.
The priest looks at us gently and is apologetic; the maps have run out.

We light some candles and wish ourselves a good journey as we head out.
It is all up to God now.

This is where I struggle with myself.
The experienced hiker in me says:
“Do not, for fuck’s sake, go into foreign terrain without a map.”
Without adequate gear.
Without adequate water.

In devil we trust?

Bravery, my stubbornness or the devil on my shoulder says, “None of those things have ever held you back before either.”
Go for it! Bring a knife to a gunfight! I want to see your name in the memorial of the fallen hikers!

We look up once more.
A giant iron anchor is securely attached to the side of the mountain.
It honors all of those hikers that fell off the cliff because they did not have the help of a safety anchor.

Not that we have one either. “If I slip and fall, it’s so cool that a memorial is already set up!”
The latest hiker to fall to their death saw this beautiful scenery less than a year earlier.

There will be marked trails, who cares about not having a map, I tell myself. 
Off we go!

The beginning of the hiking trail is like a walk in a park

In the beginning of the trail we still meet many other hikers, even a stray dog starts following us.
The trail is in good shape.
It follows the edges of the manmade lake at a few meters’ height. 

I remember one of the hiking blogs mentioning that the path becomes steep in the very beginning already. 
After a while I am feeling suspicious. We are still on flat land.

It feels like a walk in a park.
Because it is.

It turns out that we have taken the wrong trail.
This is the path meant for a leisurely Sunday walk. 

Returning to the starting point

”Hiking on the edge of a cliff. The hiking trail stretches for several miles ahead, and it is neither dangerous nor demanding. It provides a garden, variety of panoramic photography opportunities, and a unique way to appreciate the scenery. The cliffs are huge and equally steep, though lush, with green vegetation. The trail walks their very edge. All in all, it is a sensory overload of another kind…” 

The article from Discovering Macedonia makes the hike sound beautiful. It sure is, but the word “cliff” is quite an exaggeration. The trail that is described is basically a beach path with fences, located a few meters above the manmade lake.
The trail is still absolutely worth hiking though and you don’t need any gear beyond regular sneakers or sandals. 

The clock is ticking and we are no further than the initial warm-up hike.
We return to the beginning of the trail – the yard of our hotel.
The staff is not of any help. Not in the hotel nor in the restaurants.
Nobody understands which hiking trail we are talking about. 

Finally my eyes come across a faded sign on a wooden fence in the end of the hotel and restaurant building, right in the beginning of the beach trail. It alludes to a hiking trail starting here. Yeehaw!

Even hardcore hikers won’t be disappointed 

Or maybe only those aren’t…

We open the decrepit door and peek into the yard. It’s filled with piles of empty cardboard boxes and other random stuff. 
This seems to be some sort of a junkyard for the hotel and restaurants.

But this is where the sign was pointing to, so we bravely start climbing up the mountain of cardboard boxes. 
Once we get past it, it is indeed time to start climbing up an actual mountain.

The trail certainly gets steep right in the beginning of the trail. Or a former trail, we should say.
A machete would be useful. 
Luckily there are some signs in the terrain that someone else has also walked here back in the day.

The bush becomes less dense after a while but the terrain doesn’t really get easier to tackle.
Next we are facing a steep climb up in boulder soil. Loose rocks roll out from under our feet and every two steps up are followed by one down.

This will soon end and become easier, right?
It does end. It becomes easier for a moment too. 

Here starts a section consisting of pleasant medium-level forest trails. Their difficulty rating is around a three.  
You can even clearly recognize them as actual trails.
So at least we are not lost. 

We start rejoicing – we’re moving along smoothly!
Until we see an almost vertical smooth rock wall in front of us. 

This can’t be the trail, right? If it was, then surely there would be at least a rope to hang onto, right?
But the trail ends at the foot of the rock wall and there are no hints nearby of an alternative route.

Is this too hardcore?

My fear of heights starts bubbling to the surface.
I can’t do this.
We are missing safety anchors in this world of mine!

I think about quitting for a while but since we have come all this way already, I just can’t give up. 
My feet are sliding, my fingers aren’t finding any holes to grab for a better grasp. 

Ismo follows me. It’s nice that I have a back-up person behind me.
But what if I slip and we both fall? What is waiting for us at the top anyway?

Is this trail going to continue to get worse?
Why is there nobody here to tell us?
What if I will be too scared to continue on the trail after this climb and I have no other way down besides throwing myself off the cliff?

Breathe and climb.
You are the one who wanted to do this.
This won’t kill you.
I think.
I hope.

And that is when they attack us. The bees.
They come right onto our skin.
I’m allergic to bees.

I wonder whether to let a bee bite me in the neck or whether I should let go of the cliff to protect myself from the bees and then fall down.

I’m starting to feel panic and tears coming up.
I will never hike again if I make it out of here alive!
Or well, if I don’t make it out alive, then I will definitely not hike again.

I hate myself. Why do I always put myself in these situations?

The church is always at the highest spot in the village

We are finally up at the top. We have to take a little break. 
I finally dare to look back to see the scenery. I am glad I did not look earlier.
I feel dizzy. It’s not just due to being so high. It’s also due to thirst and exhaustion.

One more cliff and the hike starts to become easier. We arrive at the ruins of an old monastery. 
It was worth climbing up even just for this.
Now it’s all fun and games again!  

We glance at a hat lying at the edge of the cliff and wonder where its owner is.
At least nobody fell down while we were climbing  up. Therefore nobody should be lying in the boulder soil longing for help.

The monastery that was worth seeing is like a pub located at the halfway point, so I assume we are now already halfway done with the trail.
It wasn’t that bad after all.
The hike had been demanding up until this point but not particularly long. 
Well, that’s pretty logical at the mountains anyway: the trail is either long and gentle or short and steep. 

Onwards we go!

Heading back along a gentle slope 

The trail turns further away from the cliff edge and finally heads deep into the forest. People have clearly trodden this path often. The terrain is easy and there is signage painted on the rocks at regular intervals.

We even encounter another couple.
This is a piece of cake!

The only thing is that the watch tells us we should rush back down soon. The sun is starting to set behind the trees and the forest gets dim already much earlier than at the actual sunset time. 

But why would we worry – we are on the easy part of the trail. All we need to do is put one hiking boot in front of the other and preferably do it with good speed. 
We are half running, simply out of the joy that we don’t need to crawl along cliff walls anymore. 

Suddenly I become alert.
I stop and ask Ismo when was the last time he saw a trail sign. 
We haven’t seen one of those for a while. 
Do you remember if there was a crossroad at some point on the trail?
No, there wasn’t.

Let’s keep going forward for a little bit and see what comes up. Surely we will spot a new sign soon.
They just haven’t bothered putting so many signs on the trail as there is no risk of getting lost here. 

Hiking in North Macedonia is like taking dance steps 

The trail gets narrower and the forest becomes more bushy.
That is not good. 

Let’s go back a bit. 
No signs. Not on the rocks or tree stubs, nor on the tree trunks.
Not a single person around. 

It has to be this trail – what else could it be?
A new try on the trail. And it ends at some mystery water pipe. 

Anyway, we should be veering back towards the waterfront and not continuing deeper into the forest. 
Let’s go with the map on our phones then. Even though it doesn’t show the trails, it shows the points of the compass and the nearest towns, we reason with ourselves. 
If we continue walking straight through the forest, we may end up in a village. Maybe from there we can find a road leading back to the canyon? 

Google Maps shows us the harsh truth: by walking in a straight line through the dense forest, it’s 60 km until the nearest village. 

We go backwards again.
We find the previous trail sign. Indeed it says to go forward but we have already checked that direction. 
We move in a zigzag motion near the sign.
Forward, forward, to the right… and backward. 

Down we go!

I suggest to Ismo that we should go back to the second to last sign, just to cover our bases.
From there we go onwards again instead of reversing further. 

This time we notice a trail leading steeply down on the right, slightly before the last sign. 
At least this would take us in the right direction, even if the next painted dot on the rock says otherwise. 

Soon we already see a new sign, and another and the one after that…
We are back on the right track!

Finally we approach a road. This is where we should head down to the manmade lake of the canyon and not continue toward the road. 
But surprise surprise, there are no signs signifying the trail continuing. 

We do find the trail but without any signage we don’t dare to continue on it as the night gets darker. 
Especially as we are not eager to descend in the dark down some “look mama, no hands!” -type of a cliff.

Thus we choose the road. The boring but safe option. 

“I came from the jungle, from a ditch and a spring….” I sing along the way. This Finnish song by Freeman has come a cult classic in our family. 

A ride from an old sailor

There are turtles along the road and we have run out of drinking water a long time ago.
Wait what? I didn’t know about mountain turtles, but later find out that they are Hermann’s tortoise and actually pretty common here.
I ponder if we should knock on the door of some farm house and ask for water. Instead we swiftly put one foot in front of the other. 
We walk for several kilometers. The original twelve kilometers turn into twenty. 

When we only have a few more kilometers left, a car stops for us.
An old man offers us a lift to Skopje. We tell him we are on our way to Matka, which is when he says to hop into the car at least for a little bit. 

The guy asks if we speak Polish. Unfortunately we do not, but it turns out this man speaks many other languages too. 
We find out that he is a retired sailor as well, just like the host of our first accommodation on this Balkan tour in Kotor.

We get rest and a nice chat for a kilometer’s worth, so for a few minutes. 
Already in the next crossing we part ways.
The sailor continues left toward Skopje and we head to the right back to Matka.

…and finally some refreshments

We only have a few kilometers of walking on a flat road ahead of us and finally we would be back at the hotel. 
Just a few hundred meters before our destination there’s a small local shop. 
We can get big water bottles with small change. 
The first 1.5-liter bottles go down our throats already just outside the shop. 

Next, we sit down at the terrace of the village bar to enjoy a few refreshments.
With a wine glass in front of me, I swear to return to the trail someday with a can of paint to fix the faulty signage. 
This won’t be the end of hiking in Northern Macedonia!

When we get up from the terrace, we see a sign leading to a side road. 
It says the hiking trail starts here. 

The next night in Skopje we meet a plaster-footed ballet dancer.
For “some reason” her foot injury doesn’t surprise us –  but neither does her Balkanese friendliness. She helps us to find our next night’s accommodation.

What to pack

Take a lot of water with you and bring sturdy hiking boots. *This is what I wear for mountain hikes.

Read next: Well done in North Macedonia

This post was translated by Mirva Lempiäinen from the original text Patikointivinkkejä pahimmille vihamiehille.
Mirva is a US-educated travel writer from Finland living in the French Caribbean. 
Her blog is at Guadeloupeguide.com.