Meet Ermira and Visar – Newlyweds, Chance Encounter, and Fantastic Guides!

As I walked towards the bus while leaving Matka Canyon a small red car pulled up with two pairs of eyes looking questioningly out the window at us. The car stopped and the window on the driver’s side rolled down. “Are you taking the bus to Skopje,” the kind-looking woman passenger inside asked. The driver wore a welcoming smile, but the question caught me slightly off-guard. “Yeah,” I said a little slowly, trying to work out the reason they would ask about the bus while they sat in a car. “So are we! If you want, we can drive you back with us. That way you don’t need to pay for the bus,” the woman responded. Well we’d all already bought a ticket back even before we left for Matka but, never one to shirk off the opportunity to meet new and friendly people, we agreed and got in. Meet Ermira and Visa.

Macedonia, it turns out, is a country with quite a few cultures bubbling around inside its borders; I mean without looking it up could you tell me what language they speak in Macedonia? Here in the north near Skopje, Albanian is a rather sizable amount of the population. Ermira and Visar just happen to be a pair of Albanians who have lived their whole lives in Skopje.

On our drive back to Skopje we all struck up some conversation. I had made some friends in Matka who spoke Turkish, which is a language Ermira happened to teach herself. Who those friends are you’ll need to wait to find out, but the fact they spoke Turkish should already give you some information about them. Ermira overheard them talking about whether they had time to make it to the Millennium Cross before it shut down for the day and she, continuing her streak of kindness, offered to drive us there. It was their day off together and they were thinking of going there anyway. Gobsmacked at our luck, we agreed we’d enjoy driving up the mountain with them to continue our time together.

We all drove up there but were dismayed to discover that the cable car was at that time shut down due to high winds on the mountain. It’s possible to walk up there but the peak on which it sits is about 1km up and takes roughly 2 hours – we just didn’t have the time. Waiting to see if it would open in the last hour (it did not) we all chatted for a bit to share our experiences. Ermira and Visar shared their jobs, their vacations, their language, and they discussed the fact they married roughly 6 months before. Congrats were given and we decided to leave the mountain. Being about 4:30, though, me and my Turkish friends discussed how we were a bit hungry, and asked for suggestions from the two locals. Ermira and Visar shared a look before Ermira said they had one, but they wanted to bring us somewhere special and it was around 45 minutes away. We all made sure they were fine continuing to bus us around, but they never changed their stance of being sure despite our asking three or four times. Such a nice couple. Happily, we agreed!

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And so they proceeded to drive all five of us first to the city of Tetovo, and then 2,700m (9,000 ft) up a mountain to reach the beautiful Parajsa e Sharrit restaurant. The name is Albanian and translates to Paradise of Sharr, the mountains being known as the Sharr Mountains. The only other time I’ve been this high was when I went to Lijiang and Shangri-La in China, and it’s enough to give you elevation sickness – which did not happen. According to Visar and Ermira the restaurant, and the ski location just behind it, are famous in the southern Balakans. We went in the middle of the week, but Ermira claimed on the weekend it was always busy enough to warrant a wait. And this place had at least three different full-sized dining rooms the likes of which you’d find at any popular restaurant in the states.

Part of the reason they wanted to bring us was because the restaurant has a sort of zoo in the back overlooking Tetovo that boasts giant rabbits (it was the size of a Corgi), real wolves, and some other animals. The wolf was missing and replaced by pigeons while much of the other cages were empty. It is the middle of a winter in which it has barely snowed – Ermira was shocked to discover so little snow up the mountain, saying the previous year everything was covered in it this time of year – so that may have something to do with the lack of animals present. We walked around and marveled even if not all the animals were there and were told the restaurant actually had its own farm for the food they served inside the restaurant. Excited, we stepped inside and prepared for a delicious meal.

The first thing we all ordered was a Coke. There is a widespread rumor that Macedonia has the best coke in the world; google it. Hearing it from our gracious hosts, we decided we had to give the stuff a try. Final verdict: It tastes far, far less sweet than any other coke I’ve tasted but retains all of the flavors from every other ingredient you expect in a coke. This does indeed make one fantastic coke; the rumors have weight.

Then onto the food. These are just the appetizers. Freshly baked bread sits at the end, a “salad” covered in goats cheese sits in the middle, and closest to me sits one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Ermira claimed Paradise of Sharr is famous for its dairy products, as they hand make it all on-site. That dish that’s closest is made out of long peppers slathered in something I can only describe as a butter-cheese as it has a clear buttery flavor hidden beneath a sour cheesy one, and it melts in much the same way you’d expect cream-cheese to if its melting point were more similar to butter. This is one of those rare instances where I had to repeatedly tell myself not to fill up on bread, generally with every failing bite I took. My main course hadn’t even arrived and if it hadn’t come when it did I probably would have said to hell with it and continued to dunk that fluffy bread in that runny cheese until I exploded. Never before have you had a cheese sauce like this (unless you’ve been to Albania or this particular restaurant).

Luckily, the main course did arrive mere moments before I lunged at the remaining half loaf of bread. It is, I think, known as Tave Kosi. Here at Paradise of Sharr, it’s made of Beef chunks, cheese, mushrooms, onions, paprika, and some other stuff. Ermira was nice enough to coach me through the entire menu before I decided on this dish as the thing had no English; bless her. I’m particularly thankful because, you know, it was downright scrumptious. I was already full from the bread and cheese before this came to further fill my stomach, but I couldn’t stop. Succulent beef chunks with mushrooms, the paprika and onions connecting the two flavors that came from each. Not to mention the cheese. Chewier than the butter-cheese but not so much a spoon had difficulty scooping through it. 2/3 of the way through the dish I realized the state of my stomach was making me uncomfortable. And then I simply carried on and finished the rest of the dish. Painful, but entirely worth it.

What really struck me about Ermira and Visar was how willing they were to accommodate three total strangers. They randomly picked us all up on the side of a road to drive us back to town after choosing to stop. Then they offered to drive us halfway up a mountain simply after overhearing it on the drive back. They then changed their plans to include an hour and a half (total) road trip to a totally different city and a totally different mountain, just because we mentioned we were hungry. They worked hard to share their culture and its cuisine by translating and explaining at the restaurant, even teaching us a bit of the language. Faleminderit! They were just a ridiculously friendly couple who helped give me the best of the days I spent in Macedonia. When it was all said and done they commented on how when they woke up that morning neither of them imagined this was how they’d spend the day, but that they were happy for having done it. I’m glad we met on that road at Matka Canyon, and I hope I get the chance to visit them again one day.

Who are the other two nice people in the photo? Just wait a few articles to find out.