Mount Vodno girds the southwest side of Skopje and towers over the city. It’s not a giant mountain by any means, thought it is nearly 3500 feet at the highest peak. Incidentally, that’s where this hike really starts. The first task is to get from the city up to the mountain. It may be possible to drive all the way to the starting point at the cross, but we found the road to be blocked. Instead our taxi dropped us off at a picnic area by the start of the gondola which takes people up to the cross. Since we were way, way early, we chose to walk up the switchbacks to the peak.
We hiked up the road, taking shortcuts as we found them. For most of the larger switchbacks, there is a small dirt path that leads up the middle, cutting out most of the switchback in exchange for a slightly steeper climb. It’s well worth it.
By the time we reached the peak and the famous cross, the gondola was nearly ready to start ferrying people up. We helped a group of runners take some photos, and off we went.
Past the cross, things get easier. It’s really mostly downhill from here, though the trail is hard to keep track of at times.
We thought we could see a path in the rocks, and went with it.
The view of the city is the best from here, though we were still early enough that the morning fog had not burned off. For great city shots, later in the day would be better. Later in the day unfortunately comes with more sun and baking heat. The Mt. Vodno hike is hot. Not blistering desert hot, but definitely sunscreen, wide hat, and water hot. I forgot my hat on this of all days, and suffered for it.
At this point we continued up what we thought was the trail – in the early parts of the hike there really is only one path, and it’s pretty easy to keep straight. It follows the curvy mountain topography pretty well though, so there are plenty of ups and downs.
We found this amazingly unhelpful map. Maybe in Macedonia all maps are like this and locals can read it just fine. It took us forever to figure out what was going on though – you can see the start of our hike at the end of the yellow line, and then a strange sort of perspective leading forwards towards the famed Matka lake.
We found this campsite, so we were probably on the right path. GPS at this point showed we were on the main trail, so all was well.
Shortly after, we stumbled on this thing. The camo paintjob says military, but the vibe was entirely X-files.
A huge garage, for anti-aircraft guns probably. 
While we were exploring, we’d hear melodic bells from time to time. Initially this was alarming, but it turned out to be just cows grazing on the mountainside. Each one has a bell tuned to a different note, either for a feeling of peace and tranquility, or to tell the cows apart. Either way, much nicer than a standard cowbell.
This was one of the stranger parts of the complex. It looked like a former office or apartment of some sort. There was once definitely a heavy door here when it was operational.
This is inside the door. It looked vaguely recently inhabited so we decided not to probe much further. Whether it’s the cow herder who lives here or someone else, the structure is definitely occupied at least periodically. The graffiti was not super interesting – pretty typical name and slur scrawl.
After the base we kept walking, and got pretty well lost. Not lost in terms of location or direction, but lost in terms of the path. It branched, unbeknownst to us, and we had taken the upwards route. Unfortunately, we didn’t think this would connect with the trail we knew we wanted to take down to Lake Matka. What to do? We went off-trail, into the dusty, spiny-tree filled hillside. There were no clear paths and the sun was baking at this point. It took us a good half hour to come to this sign surrounded by trees in an otherwise dusty red expanse. We actually went the wrong way here as well, and it took a bit to realize before we turned back. The correct path to get to Matka is behind the sign, not past it with the sign on your right. This really is the only indicator in the area and it’s pretty tough to see from the trail we came in on.
The trail from here until the next peak was this reddish dirt, scrubland. It’s somewhat easy to follow after the sign, though we did come on some further difficulty up ahead.
We came upon this sign telling us we were still going the right way. These are invaluable on the trail as the trail markers are fairly well worn and sometimes mislead. Be warned, the hours and minutes on these things are totally off. The top one says 3.5 hours to Vodno, and the bottom says 25 minutes to Matka. Both of these were off by at least a factor of 1.5 or 2.
We crested our current trail and found a sign pointing to our destination!
From this little grassy outcrop we found what we thought was the trail, leading pretty steeply down the mountainside. It was doable – Natalie went down a ways to check, but ultimately not the right direction. That was a little off to the side.
While we were there, we got this amazing view of the river Treska way down below. We didn’t have very far left to go and we would have to descend all the way down.
Here started out descent. We first came basically right up to this rocky peak, and then the downhill started in earnest.
The footing here is pretty bad – mostly loose gravel so it’s entirely possible to pick up a little speed and slide right off the sharply angled switchbacks. Caution is highly recommended.
This part of the mountain had burned in a recent fire. Much like Bulgaria, Macedonia was suffering its own drought. The mountain was dry and dusty the whole way here, and now we saw what looked like pretty extensive burns on the river facing side.
After some scrabbling and sliding down the mountain, we came to a shady, forested path along the river. We continued down it for a bit until we got to a makeshift bridge that got us to the river itself. Sweet frigid relief!
After about six hours of hiking this was the best feeling – our feet went numb pretty quickly and the pain relief followed. The drop in body temperature was a welcome thing – up until now we had been sweating profusely.
The section of river we were in was mostly shallows, fairly slow moving. The rocks underfoot were pretty painful, round and knobbly. Despite this, we walked around, explored, and skipped some stones for a bit before we continued on. Though we had reached the river, this was not our final destination.
We continued our path along the river, looking for a chance to cross.
That came some way down, where there were a series of steel bridges going from one side to the other. They also went to a man-made concrete divider in the middle of the river, which we chose to explore. Not much there, except for another chance to finish crossing, so thankfully we weren’t forced to turn around.
The river looked ok – not super healthy but also not entirely choked out by algae and seaweed.
A fair walk from where we descended was the first true sign of tourist activity – this dam. There’s a little parking lot just before it, and this is where most visitors to Matka come.
Past the dam is a dock and a restaurant, and past that is a cliff-side walkway that continues on for a very, very long way. We’re not sure where it ends but we walked for about 20 minutes before turning around to try and catch a boat to the famous caves.
To get to the caves, you can go by canoe. This takes about an hour one way and we were exhausted and running short on time.
We chose instead option number B – the motor boat. This came with a guide and a somewhat hefty fee – one or two thousand denar for two people. It wasn’t unaffordable, but it first blush it was quite a bit for an hourlong tour.
We had to wait a bit for the boat to fill up, so I sat and petted the local semi-stray dog. He was super friendly, but extremely dirty. Well fed, but not often washed it seems.
Our guide took us down the river with expert skill and speed. We couldn’t really hear much over the motor but he was pretty funny.
Some people apparently live right on the river and get to and from home by boat.
About 20 minutes in we started rounding the bend of the river. Shortly after, we came to our first caves.
This was the first set, and the only one that we could walk in since the water was lower than the cave entrance. Our guide spun up a diesel motor which ran the lights in the cave, and in we went!
Down a few flights of stairs we got to see where the water level was. This is part of a huge underwater cave system, and the locals speculate it’s probably the largest underwater cave in the world. That’s currently held by the Sac Actun in the Yucatan, but with further exploration, who knows?
I got a chance to talk with our guide quite a bit. His English was ok but his Bulgarian was better. We chatted about the difference between our countries. He turns out to be from Albania – he and his parents moved to Macedonia for the stronger economy, or perhaps fleeing as refugees. He said that he wants to go visit Bulgaria one day. His friends go fairly regularly he said, and they really love everywhere they’ve seen. In their eyes Bulgaria is a model for what Macedonia might become one day if things continue to improve. This was a new perspective for me. Comparing Bulgaria to the rest of the western world would never yield such a high opinion, but here we were in Macedonia where they thought my home country was fantastic. He said he hoped that Macedonia would receive EU funding just like we had, and that the next election would determine the course of the future – if the old guard (and corruption) won, the EU would abandon them. If the new guard (and probably less corruption) won, then the EU would gladly provide funding for infrastructure and other improvements.
Our tour of the first cave being over, we got back on the boat and went to look at the second. This was only visible from the river, for obvious reasons we couldn’t go inside. Our guide told us that spelunkers came every year to map out further and further depths in the cave, and that they hadn’t yet reached an end.
Sunset hit right around this time and we headed back to the dock. I talked more with our guide about his hopes for the country and himself, and which parts of Bulgaria he would like to visit. Apparently Varna is pretty popular. From the dock we had to walk back to where we thought the bus would be. We were wrong about that. The bus was actually near the Be-Ka Market at Glumovo, a 40 minute walk away. The next #12 was coming in in only 40 minutes, so we walked at a pretty fast clip to catch it. The walk is along a fairly quiet but large road, so cars were always an issue. Once nearby, we got some snacks at a local grocery store and hopped on the bus. My Macedonian failed me and instead of taking us to the city center where we should have hopped off, we stayed on the bus until it went straight into the boonies. We had to wait until it turned around and brought us near-ish to the hostel area before getting off again – many thanks to the young lady who helped us figure out where we needed to be!
Since this hike was fairly poorly laid out in the middle section, we made a photo map of it. We didn’t take any pictures in the section where we were lost – the middle from the end of the mapped trail to the next sign, but this gives a sense of direction for that portion. The starting parking lot (where the gondola is) is the blue marker to the right.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1Qx1r8rxOFp4otqTKSaMyeyIHOAxqNeOW
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