40 Years On

40 years ago I walked across Europe. Ever since, every 10 years of so I thought about redoing the route in some way. In the end I have decided to visit a couple of places that were really key to my experience back in 1984.

The photo below was taken in the village of Lomnice in what was then the Republic of Macedonia in Yugoslavia. The village was high in a valley that led to the Sar Plannina mountain range that separated Macedonia from Kosovo. There was no road to the village, just a track. A man in Negotino in the main valley put our rucksacks on his horse and showed us the way up the path. Once in the village, everyone around gathered, tea was served, stories told. As was common then, no one had a camera. When I asked if I could photograph the group, people formed this perfect composition for me. The image has been in a couple of books, and consistently sold over the years. It is one of my favourite shots, and resonates with a lot of people. Lomnice was an ethnic Albanian village, in a predominantly Slav region. Over the border in Kosovo the first village I came to was Brod, which was a Slav village in a predominantly Albanian region. Given that the Milosovic wars of the 1990s would doubtless had stirred up such geo-ethnic complexity I was a little anxious about revisiting: not sure what I would find. To put it bluntly this could have been prime ethnic cleansing territory.

So I set off from Ohrid in a hire car, taking the route north that I had previously walked 40 year before. A new road much further up the valley side, meant that I was not able to see if a group of three girls who had invited us to camp in their garden, and whose mother brought us hot milk for breakfast, were still around; as three women in their 50s. I did see a stretch of the old road, far below the new one, to remind me of that walk long ago. The landscape looked incredible, huge gorges, mountains rising to the heavens. Just amazing.

Eventually I found the village of Negotino again. This is what I wrote in 1984 about this area.

"We head towards Gostivar, but luckily our route turns off before the town. The morning is spent on a back road through a string of busy villages. Many carts whizz by propelled by more decorative horses than before. The men wear skull caps, the women are wrapped up with many colours: a very eastern feel. We stop and have sweet tea in a cafe, and later we meet a young man who speaks English - likes Ray Charles and the blues, chats to us, helps me shop and is generally friendly. Then after Dobri Do it is on to lunch at Negotino where I try in vain to get some meths for the cooker - they thought I meant vodka. The guy had explained that most people around here are of Albanian of Turkish descent: a real treat. In another shop, a man has no meths but some paraffin, I am not so sure it will work so he conducts an experiment by putting a bit in our burner. Very messy and it doesn't work, but I appreciate his kindness. Then amidst a whole crowd of people we are told 

1] do not try to cross into Kosovo over the plannina, there are Albanian border guards who will shoot you, wolves that will eat you, and snow that means you will not find your way.

and

2] here are directions for you to try.

We head on the path up to Lomnice, on our way a man with a horse and two lads stops to give our rucksacks a lift. We walk up next to the horse, enjoying not having rucksacks on for a change. At a village one boy gets a huge bowl of bread and yoghurt for us to eat - yummy. They show us the way into Lomnice where we are followed by a hoard of little children (we have seen kids of 9 today in charge of horse and carts) and feel like the pied piper, the muslim women hide their faces from me, and finally we come to the centre of this great village. Here we are treated to a cola and grisini and coffee from someone's home and talk from a man who had worked in Germany. And as we set off on our way the man who had given us coffee comes with his horse to take our rucksacks and guide us up to where we can camp, en route to our treacherous route for the next day. Even if we do not make it tomorrow it will have been worth it for these marvellous experiences and people. But please let us make it?"

That was then, but what will I find when I take the tiny road up to Lomnice now in 2024?