Against All Oddities: The Final Balkan Road Trip Story

My beloved 1990s Fiat camper—the goofy, space-vannish Hobby 600—has blessed me with many Euro-trash adventures over the past few years. I’ve written about these trips. A lot. This is the last one, I promise.

That’s not to say every story has been told. I have to save some, in case I ever meet any of you for a beer. Maybe a foundry open house is in order one day? (Tetanus shots are recommended. -EW.) But for now, on to the final chapter, cataloging four days that could I should, eventually, turn into a really weird book.

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It was dawn in Skopje, North Macedonia. I headed to a local flea market and bought a set of Hellas 550s for the camper. The damage: about $5. Resisting the urge to buy a truly nice-looking duck from one of the stalls, my wife, Dana, and I piled into the Hobby 600 and continued on north.

In the Balkans, making good time anywhere is difficult. Especially when one is easily distracted, in this case, by a couple of teens on the side of the road, busy messing with an unregistered Zastava Fica they just got running. I convinced my bride to let this prologue run its course.

Soon, we looking for a place nearby to park the van overnight. A bit of rest from the road seemed like a good idea; we were tired from a long day of climbing Yugo piles.

Dana elected to call a winery and flex her charm on the unsuspecting front-of-house. “If we drink lots of wine, could we, perhaps sleep in your parking lot?”

The answer was an understandable “Ehhhh, uh… I have to ask… hold on…,” that soon amounted to an amused “Ok, yes I suppose that is fine.”

We proceeded to drink merely half of a recommended tasting, which would’ve been nine full glasses. That was an impossible quantity for these two Western lightweights, but it was matched with wonderful local food pairings, each by the recommendation of our lovely server, Ivica. We stumbled to the camper with impossibly full bellies. At the last moment, before I quite made it into the van, the restaurant’s staff flagged me down, inviting me to further dine (and drink) with them.

It was 1:00 in the morning. I was exhausted, prepared to politely decline, when my wife (herself of Balkan heritage) informed me that refusal of such an invitation—according to local tradition—would be completely unacceptable.

The drinking and eating carried on for another four hours.

At a large, 300-year-old table, underneath a canopy of grape vines, the staff and I ate every scrap of food any customer had sent back throughout the night. We tasted Raki from various waiters’ grandfathers’ basements. It was glorious—a top-ten night on my list of finest life experiences. In the morning (read: early afternoon), I was gifted two bottles of moonshine from the collection of two waitstaff, for comparison with the grandfathers’ store.

I had a fuzzy recollection of a recommendation to visit an ancient observatory within eyeshot of Serbia, so that’s where we headed next in the Hobby 600. A slow day on the road, rendered even slower by an overtaxed liver.

We finally landed in the parking lot of an Orthodox grotto. As we rolled out the van’s awning and wicker mat, a Lada Niva contained three mobster-type dudes rolled up. Their faces seemed locked in permanent grimace. One casually brandished a knife. They walked toward the grotto, each chucking a bit of spare change into a well before making the sign of the cross on their chest.

This is it, I was sure. A final penance for the big man, before skinning a pair of hungover Americans.

One of the guys opened his trench coat to reveal a medium-sized watermelon. The knife-wielder solemnly motioned to us as if to say: “Come. Eating this fruit is non-negotiable.”

With no cell service and only limited pantomime effectiveness, we gesticulated over a paper map and slurped our melon in relative silence. Shockingly, that was it. We said our thanks, got up, and left.

From North Macedonia we made our way Kosovo, purchasing—yet again—fictional auto insurance as a means of entry. (When you buy it from a shipping container on the side of the road, you know it can be trusted.) We made our way past the bootleg convenience stores selling Ket-Kot and Marz bars to the outskirts of the city of Pristina.

At this point things started to get highly sketchy, so we found a way around the city and climbed the mountains to the west. This gave way to a more rural flavor of sketchiness, which is one I felt more comfortable tackling: passing on one-lane mountain roads with no guard rails. This ultimately led to the single biggest challenge (and achievement of the trip): climbing a mountainside entry road to an inn, with my foot buried in the throttle and the Iveco diesel at full boost, belching black smoke. With the front tires shooting rocks into the rockers, and the diesel pegged on high-idle governor, it was a feast for the senses. The van’s front end bobbed up and down, fighting for traction, and when the mighty Fiat finally crested the hill, I felt the thrill of success mixed with danger.

The entire family of proprietors and guests stood in applause. Perhaps my proudest moment. Usually front-wheel-drive campers get towed up the hill with an IMT tractor, I was later told.

Following three days of kicking back and hiking in Kosovo, we put another day in on the road and arrived at Auto Camp Drina in the village of Foča, Bosnia. On the way into town, I had noticed a junkyard, not more than a quarter-mile from the campsite. It didn’t look inviting from the road, so instead, at the earliest possible convenience, I inflated our paddle board and ventured into the very cold Drina river. Water-based recon would maybe yield more promise.

The moderately fast current, rain, and mid-’60s outside temperature kept Dana out of the water, which gave me a bit more flexibility with timing and route. As I paddled upstream, I noticed some painted metal in the distance. I paddled with yet more force and up the rapids. A Lada Niva, several old Golfs, and a few VW vans came into view. At the limit of my paddling power, and unable to reach the bank, I was at my limit. Further casing would require tips from locals.

Dinner that night was a feast of trout and vegetables, lovingly prepared by the inn owner’s wife. After a heartfelt compliment about the bread, I shot my shot and asked about the junkyard. The place, it turns out, belonged to the owner’s cousin. Sweet! The owner called and arranged for a very strange American with a camera to visit the following day. Further instructions were not given, anytime would do.

The following morning, Dana had a minor medical issue that took priority over the junkyard visit. It appeared to be a disturbingly painful bug bite. As a good husband does, I picked out the only best hospital in the area, which was only a 45-minute walk away.

The receptionist set her lit cigarette in the ashtray while we discussed via Google Translate. We weren’t getting very far, so she called her daughter on the phone to assist. They gradually worked out that this was not a bug bite but rather a potentially infected ingrown hair. (Ew.) As Dana was led back by a team of also-smoking nurses, I heard, in heavily accented English, “This will hurt,” just before she let out a very loud yelp. During all of this, the very friendly receptionist was showing me photos of her family, offering up espresso. We left with a bag of home-grown cucumbers and tomatoes. Payment was not accepted, even when we offered cash. I was only asked to sign the patient log—a college-ruled spiral notebook. First name only. I returned later with chocolate and cigarettes, dropping them in the break room.

On the way back from the medical mission, I peeled off at the junkyard. (Dana elected to skip this one.)Two gruff men in blue coveralls eyed me up and down. I wouldn’t even bother with English. I just pointed to my camera and said “Auto Camp Drina!” My words didn’t yield much of a reaction other than an arm wave in the general direction of the scrap cars. Good enough for me.

I spent the next half-hour climbing through one of my dream cars, a Lada 110 sedan, and taking all sorts of moody, artsy-fartsy shots of old junk. I wasn’t ready to leave this land of the Yugo, but this visit seemed like a good note to depart on. One last junkyard tour, one last paddle up the Drina, one unexpected ingrown hair—you never know what the day will bring on the road to nowhere.