We felt truly privileged to be here, soaking in our second hot spring in just as many days. There were very few in North Macedonia, but we’d managed to sniff them out, and it wasn’t hard when they smelled as pungent as this one.
Along with the sulphurous fumes a noxious gas was spurting from the pipeline that fed the pool; enough to make you light-headed. The water erupted with a deep gurgling sound as the earth spewed hot water at just the perfect temperature for bathing.
We’d camped on the river nearby, watching boys herd their cows across the water and a local man who came to dig up soil and load it into his vintage tractor as the sun went down. We were somewhere in the rural lands of North Macedonia, a landscape interspersed with hills and agricultural land untouched by the mountains that imposed over the rest of the country. We’d taken a series of confusing dirt tracks and arrived at this hidden spot just before sunset, and as the dawn broke through the clouds we were ready and eager for an early morning soak.
Our relaxation was short-lived however; as we left the warmth of the hot springs, not an hour down the road our van came to a sudden stop in a cloud of smoke.
It took us three days, five mechanics and many headaches to figure out what was wrong. It wasn’t a question of our van’s reliability, despite being 18 years old and having done over 150,000 miles; no, what it came down to was 10 litres of dodgy fuel, laced with water from a dodgy garage.
Thankfully we had the help of some extremely kind Macedonian men, who felt so bad that this had happened in their country they didn’t even want paying for the work, not even after one of them siphoned the contaminated fuel out of our tank with his mouth.
Unlike our previous breakdowns, of which there are many, this time we felt in control. This time it wasn’t a case of leaving in the hands of a garage; we understood the problem and we knew what we had to do. But sometimes when you’re stuck out on the road, in a country where you don’t speak the language and every problem can feel overwhelming, all you need is a helping hand and a push to get you going in the right direction again.
