In the north of Greece there are no motorway signs to Macedonia. Instead there are signs to the last tiny Greek village on the border called Evzoni and this is how you know you are going in the right direction.
We broke camp and were on the road at 11.30 - nearly 12 hours later we arrived at a campsite come sports hall come dance hall just over the Serbian border near Vranje with the name Enigma. I tried not to remember the film, 'Hostel'.The owner Marko was not completely sober when he met us. About 5km to the west is the Kosovo border.
On the way we had stopped for a last Greek meal by the mountain river at the same place we stopped at on the way to Vasiliki. Then we travelled on the nearly empty motorway to Thessaloniki.
After that we travelled on a single lane road to Macedonia. Macedonia looked wild and beautiful but we had no time to stop. We bounced along the rough 'Motorway of Alexander the Macedonian' with all our pots and pans rattling in their cupboards. From time to time a lorry tried to crush us or run us off the road but without success. The brave camper van with Captain Maros at her helm battled on.
I cannot recommend night-time Balkan driving as an enjoyable experience. The Serb road from the border was narrow, unlit except for blinding lights from cars going the opposite way and badly marked. For at least three years they have been working on this section of road. The hard shoulder is for overtaking and yesterday a Czech bus crashed into an unlit parked lorry on the hard shoulder in Serbia.
Later we sat at the side of the Enigma swimming pool sipping a cool drink. The more we sipped the better we felt. A jazzy Latin American style music was playing. No one was trying to remove our kidneys. There were Italian, French and Austrian vehicles in the carpark. They could take their kidneys. Things were looking up.
