The way home
Even though after my attempt and in the same time failure to hitch hike on the way to Macedonia many of you told me things like: you're crazy, it was not worth an so on... I've decided to take my chance again and try to do it better on my way back to Romania.It all started in the morning of 7th of July when I was woke up by Sussane, a trainee from Holland who moved in in our apartment in Skopje and who was herself late for work. After making a very strong coffee for the trip and putting in it what I've lately realised that was not sugar but salt and doing some last minute packing and data backup I've eventually got to the exit to Sofia. From there I've changed a couple of cars to the border, out of witch, the last one gave me a lift to the actual border (13 km from the actual city where he was going to) giving as added reason the fact that he wanted to buy some cigarettes from the duty-free shops at the border.
After passing the border walking without any problems or events at all on the Bulgarian side I've been assaulted by the many pirate "taxi" drivers who were giving drives to Sofia for not less than 50 EUR. After kind of learning how to manage these people by telling them that I have no money on me they started developing a king of constructive compassion and even getting me a ride to the closest town, town witch turned out to be the first place where I have actually had to wait to get picked. I only assume that the reason for that was that I had "Sofia" written in the regular Latin alphabet, not in the one they use in Bulgaria witch is different from both the Latin and the Cyrillic one.
In Sofia I got to the train station where the plan was to change some euros into local currency (Leva), leave the luggage in the special place in the train station and go out and see the city in the night. The only problem was that at the time I've got there, a bit over 22:00 Bulgarian time, the change offices were already closed. The only thing I was left to do was to stay in one of the cafes in the train station were I had several coffees and have been visited by the police a couple of times.
The first thing in the morning I started looking for my way to the right exit from Sofia were I've eventually got after about three hours (I hate their alphabet, I'm not kidding) and starting my way to Russe, the border city to the Romanian city Giurgiu. After changing several cars out of witch one was a second world war old 4 x 4 car witch was tuned in the back yard of that guys house with a lot of paint and duct tape that I was very surprised to see that was driven at an average speed of 90 km / hour.
After finally getting to the Romanian border, at less than 100 meters of my country I had a very unpleasant surprise. The Bulgarian border police guy would not let me pass the border walking. He was "friendly" enough to recommend me to take on of those pirate taxi who were asking about 50 EUR for a 200 meters ride and would not change his mind even after explaining that I was an student who was coming home after a 3 months volunteering experience in a foreign country. After realising that nobody would dare taking me in their car over the border as they would not know me and I could carry anything in my luggage witch would have ended up in their car I've started going to Silistra, about 200 km east of Russe, the border city to Calarasi in Romania.
Here I had another "event" being quite hard to find a valid explanation for the fact that a student from Sibiu, who came hitch hiking from Macedonia, would pass the border walking to Romania through Silistra and getting into Calarasi, city witch is at least 100 km further from both Bucharest and Sibiu. Because of this I had a lot of explaining to do and my luggage was for the first time not only opened but actually checked in detail. After taking the fery boat without paying as well I have easily finished my trip from Skopje to Bucharest completely with hitch hiking and totally for FREE :)
I have finally proved to all the people who were sending comments after my first attempt on the way to Macedonia and to myself that the crazy thought was actually possible. Though, as you could see there were a lot of unexpected events and situations I've ended up in so don't try this on your own if you don't think you could manage them or any of the others that might occur.
After the best time of my life in Macedonia,
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