Oh, Ohrid...

My Macedonian hometown, Bitola, is beautiful but it is one-upped by the city of Ohrid because Ohrid has a lake--a big, deep, lovely, freezing cold lake. It would be reasonable to assume that I wouldn't take a dip in said lake until the summer but instead I swam on Tuesday, part of a holiday (yes, another one!) called Vodici or Epiphany. The holiday commemorates when John the Baptist baptized Jesus and at lakes and rivers across Macedonia, an Orthodox priest blesses the water and then throws in a cross. Men (more on this later) then dive in and swim to grab the cross. Whoever retrieves the cross is said to be blessed for the next year and is celebrated for his swimming prowess. The cross is brought through town and people put money on it. As with other Macedonian holidays, rakija was provided (before and after the ceremony). Good thing too, since the temperature was hovering around freezing.

Following in the footsteps of prior Peace Corps volunteers, I decided to take my first and last polar plunge and swim for the cross. Really I didn't try to get anywhere near the cross, but I did swim out to the boat they tossed it off of and back, farthest of the volunteer swimmers. The wisdom of this is dubious since it took about 15 minutes to feel my toes again afterwards but if I was only going to swim once, I wanted to go all out. Apparently some women volunteers got an earful from a woman in the crowd for swimming with the men but I know I saw at least one other Macedonian woman in the lake. Also, I asked some Macedonian friends afterwards about the comment and they did not see any problem with us swimming.

I arrived in Ohrid two days prior to Vodici to attend a tourism conference. My counterpart and I staffed the National Park Pelister booth together the first day and the second day I flew solo. I think it went well, given my limited Macedonian and the fact that I've still only been to the park itself once. There is a photo of us at our booth under the Picasa link, at the end of the Vodici swim album. I think I'll put off my next swim in Lake Ohrid for a few months, but I would like to do some hiking in National Park Pelister earlier than that.