Hanging with Fellow Travellers

Had a great last nite at the campground.
After spending a couple of days with Scott from the conference and Mark & Lorna, from England, who we met for the first time in Morocco, outside of Gouillmime. Can you believe it! We were so surprised when they drove into the campground.
Andrew spent some time on the last day hanging with some Macedonian truckers.
On our last evening in Macedonia and into the nite we hung out with a swiss couple, a danish family, a New Zealand/Belgian couple and a Dutch man. All adventurous travelers braving the balkans. It is funny, you get to places where most travellers won’t go. Where simple tourists will never brave and all of the sudden you are part of a brotherhood. You need each other and are there for each other. I missed this all terribly when we were in Western Europe.
We sat around sharing stories, treasures, exotic food and drinks. The Swiss couple are wanting to go to Morocco. The Dutch man found a new country, supported by the Russians and nestled in a little corner of Kosovo. He has come from Serbia, just like the Danish family. They have travelled alot and are thinking of doing it full-time. They enjoyed looking around our truck and our kids had a great time playing together. The New Zealand/Belgian couple have been all over the world. As a matter of fact they met in Tanzania.

One fact we all agreed on. In order to survive with travel is to be patient and flexible. If you don’t know how to find and adapt to the rhythm of the local culture and slow down you have a miserable time and miss out on so much of the beauty. What a great time. We strongly feel that we will find some of them again and again. We decided that this was the secret to driving on the roads around here.

Oh yeah, we still haven’t gotten pulled over by the police in the Balkans. This is a common problem. There are 2 things to watch out for that foreigners seem to always get pulled over. The first is that you must keep your headlights on all the time you drive. Our truck does this all the time so it is no problem for us. The second is to watch the speed limit. I mean really watch it! Sometimes a little tiny sign on the side of a major highway in Albania will say 20km. Yes 20km on a major road! Nothing changes on the side of the road. It is still agricultural land with a few dotted houses. After about 2 km you see a policeman waiting on the side of the road. After that the speed limit returns to 80km. Some people might call that a speed trap. Just keep your eyes open.Technorati Tags: macedonia, travellers, brotherhood