Enroute To Sofia, A Night In A Skopje Bus Station

My friend Peggy, whom I met in a cafe in the White Mountains of Crete, sent me advice in a cautionary email after reading a brief post I wrote mentioning my night in the Skopje bus station.

Skopje is the capital city of Northern Macedonia, one of the Balkan states in southeastern Europe. It was formerly part of Yugoslavia until it gained its independence by referendum in 1992 following the Yugoslav wars.

I was just passing through on my way to Sofia, Bulgaria.

“Be safe and make good choices,” Peggy said

I wrote back, reminding her that in my style of travel, suggestions like that rarely result in a good story.

That’s when you start “embellishing reality,” she replied.

“But no need,” I said.

I hadn’t told her yet about the friendly, grateful homeless guy with whom I shared my almonds and apple; and a devious, scheming taxi driver who badgered me most of the night.

“All a good show!” I promised. No embellishment necessary!

Curious things can happen when traveling. Keeping your senses attuned to the possibilities lets reality play itself out entertainingly.

My bus from Tirana, Albania, to Skopje, Northern Macedonia, was scheduled to take five hours. It was a night bus, leaving at 7 p.m. But it was more a large van than a full bus. There was room for 22 passengers, but only four boarded, allowing us to stretch out and relax comfortably anywhere we chose.

A young Norwegian cook on holiday, who spoke English well, and I talked about our lives and travels.

A couple of Albanian women were cordial but spoke little English.

The ride was indeed pleasant.

However, the Norwegian departed abruptly on the outskirts of Skopje when he saw his destination on a highway sign and beckoned the driver to stop.

I had yet to get his name, but I gave him one of my cards and hoped he would use the info on it to contact me later. Some travelers do; others lose them or throw them away.

The women departed shortly after the Norwegian, so only the driver and I arrived at the Skopje bus station. It was after midnight, a new day, dark and chilly in Northern Macedonia.

Before I left Albania, the ticket agent in Tirana led me to believe that I might have to wait in the Skopje station for as long as three hours for the next bus to Sofia. I imagined then that there was a relatively busy all-night transportation hub in Skopje, but it wasn’t like that. 

A few casinos and dance clubs were buzzing with a late-night party crowd brought by taxis waiting outside for new fares.

But there were no buses. The bus driver from Tirana told me just before he dropped me off that if there were no buses, the train station was on the second level, and I might catch a train there to Sofia, my destination across the border in Bulgaria. But there were no trains, either.

I went inside the station where all the ticket windows were closed. The glassed-in offices behind them were dark.

Dirty street beggars walked by asking for handouts. I sat down near the homeless guy who I shared my snacks with. He was quiet and didn’t lie down to sleep on a row of seats like most others. He sat upright, still as Buddha, staring straight ahead. I thought he might ignore me when I walked over to him.

“Almonds?” I asked.

He looked at me like he thought I was pranking. I dug a handful out of the bag and held them out to him.

His eyes brightened, he extended his hands, and I poured them in.

I sat down where I’d been biding my time in the terminal about a half dozen seats down the row, watching out of the corner of my eye as he savored them one at a time.

We were each in our seats with bags of stuff surrounding us that we kept our eyes on.

I cut my last apple and offered him half. He looked up at me, accepted it, and said, “Thank you very much,” in clear, deliberately spoken English as I walked away. I looked back to acknowledge him with a nod and took my seat, where I ate my half.

We were both tired, I think. Neither one of us seemed inclined to go the routine of small talk. We were merely a traveler and a transient passing through this tiny bit of time and space, perhaps wandering and wondering where it all takes us and where it all ends.

The taxi drivers eyed their prey. The first one wanted 400 euros for a ride to Sofia. I told him I could have flown from Tirana non-stop for half that. That took some of the steam out of his boiler, and he went to work on the casino and party crowd. However, he returned later with a friend who really went to work on me.

He also started at 400 euros, and we quickly scaled down that peak to 350, then 250, and that’s when he played the card up his sleeve.

“You know, no buses tomorrow,” he said. “A strike, the government … no buses.

On the next day would be buses,” he said. “No tomorrow.”

He didn’t know that I’d already been to the police substation on the second floor earlier while hoping to catch a train. I talked to an apologetic officer, telling me the buses wouldn’t be operating until later that morning and that I’d have to spend the rest of the chilly night waiting in the bus terminal until around 8 a.m.

I didn’t tell the taxi driver about that right away just to see where he was going with the price. When he was down to 200 euros, he struck a new tactic. He offered to take me to the Macedonia border with Bulgaria where a shuttle  – there were lots of shuttles, he said – could take me the rest of the way for 7 or 8 euros.

“Nah,” I said, “I’ll wait. I have nothing to do, nowhere else to go. The bus is way cheaper, and this chair’s kinda comfortable, so I’ll sleep right here if you let me.”

His persistence was beginning to wear on me. But he nearly reeled me in when he dropped the price to 90 euros. I started to walk to his cab with him when a cold blast of wind slapped me in the face. 

What was I thinking? Everything about this guy screamed scam. At first, he wanted to charge me 400 euros – “good price,” he said – and was now down to less than a quarter of that.

Both my bus driver from Sofia and the cop I met in Skopje said there would be a bus in the morning. There was no indication whatsoever of any disruption of service.

How could he be the only one who knows anything about the bus strike?

I started reciting all this to my wannabe driver as I turned around with my bags and walked back into the station to reclaim my seat.

“There’s no strike,” I told him bluntly, “so I don’t trust you. I’m going back inside and wait for the bus.”

I thought the edge in my voice would shake him, but he followed me back in, still insisting there would be no bus in the morning.

Silently marveling at his persistent duplicity, I suggested we both walk upstairs to talk to the police officer on night duty about this bus strike.

He nodded his head up and down, which inexplicably means “no” in the Balkans, and I saw the deadened look of defeat in his eyes for the first time. He lingered silently for a few minutes, probably thinking about all the lost time he’d invested trying to get me in his taxi, then disappeared.

I slept a little after that. My arms went through the straps of my backpack and day bag for security while my feet perched atop the large duffel bag below my seat.

Daylight broke as a large, overweight man with a long stick, who I think worked for one of the casinos, chased after one of the all-night beggars who’d been working the room hoping to find a casino patron leaving the premises in a good mood after a lucky night.

The guy I thought was a police officer watched the futile chase and laughed as the fat man returned, huffing, puffing, and yelling between heavy breaths what I only assume were angry Bulgarian obscenities.

It was close to 5 a.m. when the fluorescent lights in the ticket offices began flickering. The few of us in the station who wanted transportation, not just overnight accommodations, started moving toward the ticket booths.

For about 18 USD, I bought a seat on the 7 a.m. bus going straight through to Sofia. I moved to another area of the bus terminal with a view of stall number one, where my bus was supposed to arrive and start loading.

My homeless friend with whom I shared snacks appeared asleep, sitting straight up in his seat.

Others remained slumbering in prone positions across the plastic undulations of four or five seats in a row.

My bus arrived on schedule.

As I stumbled out of the station awkwardly with my stuff, the police officer who had seen everything that night, caught my eye, smiled and winked.

***