Day in Prilep May 31

We spent the whole day in Prilep. We stayed at Vladimirs' house and his family was very nice. We took a hike to an old hill called Markovi kuli where are ruins of the king Marko castle. Vladimir was telling us stories and we took many pictures. The weather was great windy and worm 25. On the way back we stopped in a small monastery. We also made a lot of frame pictures with local kids and I hope we can uploed them soon. We are leaving Prilep tonight going to Ohrid. After the beautiful sunset we have left Prilep and our next stop was Bitola. It was less than 1 hour drive. Vladimir told us about a good place to stay over night behind the theatre right in the center. It was easy to find. It was after 11 PM when we arrived and we went for a short walk to see the night life of Bitola. We were surprised how alive the center was. There were many young people walking on the main street and sitting in the cafes. It reminded me what Vladimir told me “there is not much to do here and people are is more relaxed”.

going to Prilep May 30

In the morning we continue our journey to Ohrid. Georgi send us a message that he is patrolling on the road to Stip 10 kilometers from Kocani. After few minutes on the road a policemen stopped us, it was Georgi. We had our last drink and we split.Soon Ceca contacted Vladimir, he is living in Prilep. Prilep was on our way to Ohrid. We passed the beautiful countryside with lots of green fields and vineyards. Region Tikvesia with the biggest town Kavadarci is well know of wine industry. We arrived in Prilep. Vladimir was there. We had a nice journey of old town and stayed at his house making the journey website until 4 AM.

Policeman Georgi Kocani May 29

We decided to leave Kocani and continue our tip to Ohrid. We stopped to the gas station to ask a policemen which direction we should take. He was very pleasant and he invited us in for a drink (water) in a small restaurant and started to draw a map for us. When he realized that Ceca is from Serbia and Belgrade the story began….a lot of Tito – objects, souvenirs from the period of Yugoslavia, pictures of Tito-ex-president of Yugoslavia. He invited us to come in the evening to his house. So our plan was changed. We have returned to Kocani, found the lake Gratce…it was very nice at the lake, relaxed. And there was going to be a performance from the amatures performance festival. At 8 clock we met Georgi, our policemen from gas station, in front of his police station in Kocani. We have spent interesting time with him, his wife and children in his home. For him that was an opportunity to show us his personal museum, his personal memories… We returned to lake Gratce to spend a night there-a sleep with beautiful view. Ceca was hopping that maybe there can be Vladimir, her colleague from postgraduate studies of scene design who is an actor. In Kocani this day was an opening of amateur theatre festival. He was not there, we went to sleep in our eco-auto.

Danica in Kocani May 29

After the first encounter with the locals we continued to Kocani, the "famous" music willage expecting some small gypsy town. It was quite big city ( 35000 people) we change money and went to buy some food to a small market. We where getting hungry and we searched for “burek”. After some time we found small bakery. There we met Danica she shared with us very personal story and showed us her point of view of situation in Kocani and east Macedonia. We asked her if there is something interesting in Kocani and she told us that we should go to dam Gratce.

Meeting Stojanco Macedonia May 29

The morning was very nice and I went to swim to the dam and Ceca followed. The car did not want to start on diesel, the diesel tank was almost empty, but since I had a spare 10 liters of bio diesel it was not problem. The car has been running great on the oil we got in Sofia. After about 10 km stopped and went to take some pictures at the dam. As we were photographing some man came from the other side and informed us that it is not allowed to take pictures here. But he was very nice and probably quite bored and so we started to talk with him and we had a first story from Stojanco was alive. Hi did not want to take picture in the frame but he took one with Ceca.

Leaving Sofia May 28

Sunday morning I have started to filter the oil. I have connected the van to the electricity so I did not use my batteries. It was quite slow and messy. Filtering from one 30 l tank to another and pouring it to the main oil tank took more than 1 hour. When I come back I will connect the filter directly to the main tank. This will make it much easier and less messy. It took almost all day to filter 130 liters and clean all the mess and pack the van for the journey. Traveling myself would not be very interesting so I have invited Ceca – Serbian designer to join me going to Macedonia, Albania and Monte Negro. We have finally left around 6 PM. The plan was to go to Ohrid through Kocani (it was suggested by Tomas because there is nice gypsy orchestra from Kocani). The first part of the road from Sofia was closed but having a very good navigator we have arrived to the Macedonian borders at midnight. The custom officers were very nice and we did not need any visa. We planed to sleep somewhere closed to the boarders, but we could not find any interesting place. So we went to Kalimanci dam. And stayed close to the water.

Sofia May 27

On Saturday morning we prepared a small 1 day installation of personal memories created in Bela Rechka. The exhibition was in a courtyard of a small gallery. There was a very nice jazz concert and a lot of people who saw the exhibition and projection from Bela Rechka. After the exhibition my friend Radmila arrange meeting with her friend Anna who is collecting old oil from restaurants in Sofia and makes bio diesel. She brought me 130l of unfiltered very good quality used oil. It cost me only 80 leva (40 Euro). The price of 1 liter diesel is about 1,80 Leva, less than 1 Euro. It was quite interesting to find out their story of making bio diesel. They have started about 1 year ago and they are collecting oil from several restaurants in Sofia and turning it into bio diesel. There is no law for recycling the oil and if they do not pay the restaurants they pour it to the sink. I have shown and explained them that my car can run on straight vegetable oil which I can filter. It was the first time I was going to use my onboard oil filter so I was very exited. The oil was very clean and smelled nicely of fish and chips. We managed to put it all in the van and I have started filtering the 1st 30 liters. It went quite well and I was very happy that my dream of using oil that I can collect on my journeys from restaurants and filter it is coming to true.

Going to Sofia May 26

On Friday morning we left to Sofia for a presentation. The presentation was as a part of the Mobile studio happening on a big square. The whole “mobile studio” was a bit weird and we were quite happy to do our “small” Goat Milk festival without the EU support. We were staying in Czech Center . The house reminded the “good” old communist days. First night I was sleeping in my van in the parking lot.

Sabor May 24

Sabor the annual village celebration took place on May 24. There was an installation of personal memories from participants of the workshop, exhibition of paintings of local artists, local music and dances. Tomas prepared nice activities for the local people. It was very hot – more than 30 degrees so we did not dance too much, but everybody looked happy. At night there was a very nice Jazz concert in the garden of our house.

In Bela Rechka May 19-23

This is already the 4th year when I’m going to Bela Rechka in Bulgaria. In 2002 I organized with Diana and Paul the 1st workshop in Bela Rechka. During 10 days we have colleted more then 100 stories, songs, videos and 500 photographs, reflecting the life of people in this small village 100 km from Sofia. Thanks to Diana it was possible to start organizing an annual Goat milk festival focused on memories. This year we organized 3 days workshop on personal memories. There were about 12 participants, mostly from Bulgaria. The idea of the workshop was to bring an object and tell a personal story and turn it into installation relate to the place. There were very interesting stories and ideas. The results of workshop Installation were presented on May 24th as a part of the annual village celebration called Sabor.
More about Bela Rechka can be found at: www.goatmilk-fest.com
On May 23rd there was a plan to clean the Bela Rechka river. We were surprised how much garbage was thrown to the river. We found a lot of cloths and strange objects. The problem is that the village does not have money to collect the garbage. It was nice to do something for the village.

Going to Bulgaria May 18-19

I left from Prague with Malcolm (my English friend who lives in Prague works with me on editing video and making DVDs) on Thursday May 18th at 1PM with 200 liters of filtered vegetable oil in the tanks. Our plan was to pick up Ceca (Serbian designer) in Beograd. The roads (mostly highways) and the traffic were good and the car was running great. The freeway was all the way to Serbian boarder and not too much police. The road from the boarder to Beograd is quite good but with speed limits 80 km and police with radars everywhere made it quite a long journey. Last years the police always got me. This time I was quite careful and we managed well. We stopped around 1 AM at gas station outside of Beograd and had our 1st night in the van. Malcolm slept in the front bed. In the morning at 9 we picked Ceca and continued our journey to Bela Rechka. The toll roads in Serbia are quite expensive. I had to pay 18, 10 and 41 Euro. I have refused to pay the last 41 Euro toll from Beograd to Nis. After some arguments and measuring the height of my van (it was 2 cm over the 130cm limit for small andcost 30 Euro more) I had to pay. The main road from Nis to Bulgaria was closed and we had to go through a very bad road in the mountains. The main 130 liter tank was empty and we had to pour the oil from the 2 30 liter tanks. It was quite messy – Malcolm got oil in the face and me over my shirt. We finally reached the Bulgarian borders and passed through without any problems. We played 5 Euro for the disinfection (as usually there was not any) and paid 7 Euro for 1 week toll roads sticker (I hope that this will help to improve the very bad quality of roads). We took the shorter, but very bad road thought the maintains and finally arrived to Bela Rechka at 8 PM right for the dinner. After the dinner there was a premiere of my mobile cinema showing Bela Rechka CD and performances from last year festival.

Eco Auto Journeys

Finally after more than 1 year the Eco Auto is ready for the first Eco Journey. Eco Auto is a mobile home and cinema which runs on used vegetable oil. The idea for the Eco Journeys is to travel only by using vegetable oil and collect and publish stories about life of people in different countries. The plan for the first Eco Journey was to go to Goat Milk festival in Bela Rechka Bulgaria than go through Macedonia, Albania, Monte Negro, Croatia Slovenia and Austra back.