2nd destination blues: Ohrid in the rain
- attrillhelen
- Jun 6, 2019
- 3 min read
In theculturetrip.com/europe/macedonia/articles/why-visiting-ohrid-macedonia-should-be-on-your-bucket-list/ Marni Shankman rhapsodises:
Ohrid transforms into a sunny paradise by May, with little rain, and temperatures that range from a balmy 23°C (73°F), to 31°C (89°F).
However, at midday on 3rd June 2019, when it should have been even hotter, it was 12°C) and teaming with rain when I arrived anticipating four days of sunshine and bathing. Here I was in the UNESCO World Heritage listed city of Ohrid, known as the Balkan Jerusalem, due to its large number of churches and monasteries. But I was stuck inside feeling somewhat lackadaisical.
Friends and those I meet are often surprised to learn that I frequently travel solo. ‘Aren’t you scared?’; ‘I could never do that.’; ‘Don’t you get lonely?’ are the typical probes. And in honesty, yes, at times I do get scared and at times it is lonely; however, I have decided that if I am going to travel solo, I will try to transform all experiences into a positive.
However, I wonder if I am only traveler who has experienced the ‘2nd destination blues’; this seems to occur when you are anticipating travel euphoria and it just doesn’t happen; I believe there you are reasons for this; usually you have worked so hard up until the time you depart that everything you experience is exciting because you are not working. Usually the first destination is markedly different culturally to your home and you are that dizzy with jet lag you haven’t had time to get bored. But by the second destination, you have washing to do and then there is the pressure for this place to usurp the experiences of the first one. Will it be as good? For nearly every multi-destination trip I have been on I have experienced the 2nd destination blues: things go wrong, things don’t work; it rains and it’s cold. This has happened in 2002: Madrid to Munich; in 2005: South Korea to Amsterdam and now: Tirana to Ohrid. Sometimes it’s an anticlimax; you are expecting things to happen or are built up that you are going to enjoy the place. In Munich, whilst I enjoyed it immensely, I endured the frustration of trying to call Australia using a pay-phone (no mobiles then) as my sister had given birth to her first child; to make things worse, I had trouble working out the door to my pension, and was chastised by people outside the room as I noisily rattled the lock; eventually I bravely knocked on someone’s door and almost dragged a huge, hesitant man out of his room to help me to open the door; for a moment I thought I’d be sleeping out in the passage. In Amsterdam, it was just so cold, wet and expensive after the heat, food and cultural stimuli of Korea that it got in the way of my enjoyment. Last year, Perpignan was beautiful but again, it was cold and wet and, as we arrived on Sunday and departed on Tuesday we were struck with Sauf Lundi (except Monday) and were unable to visit any museums. So this year, here I am in a beautiful town with picturesque lakes, populated by families and retirees in tourist buses. It’s not quite as grungy as Tirana although the ubiquitous, forlorn, often lactating stray dogs are a reminder of some of the poorer elements of the Balkans.
Turning my sulky morning into a positive, I achieved the following:
· Washing done and dried on various heaters
· Performed standing yoga facing grand mountains covered in mist and rain
· Mastered making Turkish coffee by heating water using the outdoor stove
· Read more of Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan
· Watched Ash Barty play in the French Open on TV
· Blogged
But wait: it stopped raining! Amazingly, with only the afternoon to fill, there is so much you can see with a walk along the lake and through gorgeous old town. Appreciating the outdoors again, I soaked up numerous 14th century monasteries, charming laneways, a fortress and a forest. All is well.
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