Okay! I’m going to start by saying this is a long one so settle in for the ride!

Ždiar & the Ginger Monkey

I spent my time in Slovakia mainly in the small town of Ždiar. It’s a skiing town in the winter and a hiking town in the summer. On the cusp of the off-season, it was fairly empty, but I’m sure that it is bustling in the busy times.

When I arrived in town, it was midday and I immediately met another hostel goer, Dael, who had taken the same bus into town and we headed to the Ginger Monkey together. I will admit, I got a bit of a laugh from the name of the hostel and sent it to the group of people from the Redhead Days festival since “ginger” seems to be a common theme in the early part of my travels.

The town itself is a really cute small town with a lot of local flare. It doesn’t take too long to walk the entire town – maybe a hour or two to walk the entire length of the town. There are a lot of local hiking trails in the area and the first night there I inadvertently did one by accident. Dael and I went out to eat once we got to the hostel and after decided to take a short hike by the river as suggested by a couple people at the hostel. We did end up taking a slightly wrong turn and hiking up some backroads and onto someone’s property for the first part of the hike – but eventually we found our way back to the trail. What we didn’t know is that a “short hike” for the people at the hostel is 2 hours.

It was a lot of fun though, we got to walk by the river for the majority of it, and then it took us out past some old ski lifts and through some fields. At the end of the hike, before heading into town to walk back to the hostel, was a bit of an uphill climb, but pretty easy looking back. We just weren’t prepared for it so it caught us off guard.

By far the best part of the trip though was the hostel vibe. Hands down, this is one of the best hostels I’ve ever been to. Not only were the beds comfortable, but the overall vibe was amazing. Even though, as is the nature of hostels, there was a revolving door of people – everyone acted much more like a family than strangers. Every night everyone would hang out together, talk about plans for the next day, and just relax together. Often people would play one of the two guitars at the hostel and everyone would end up singing along or would just sit back and listen. There were family style (and cheap!) dinners daily that you could opt in, or you could head to one of the restaurants nearby. Each day started with a free breakfast and a bunch of people finalizing their plans for the day. Even when you decide to just have a chill day, no one batted an eye and no one stopped trying to include you even if you initially said no. I took a day just for me, and so many people asked me if I wanted to go out and do something but didn’t mind when I declined. It was great and I will definitely be returning.

Hiking the Saddle

On my first morning in Slovakia, I was having a bit of a slow morning. I had planned on doing a 4-6 hour hike that day but since it was only 9am I knew there wasn’t any rush. There were two I was debating between, either a waterfall one or a forest one. The forest one was one of the local hikes but the waterfall one seemed like it would be really pretty.

Those plans got derailed quickly. I got invited by a group, including Dael, to join them for the Saddle hike. They said total it would be about 8 hours. I figured why not, and decided to give it a go. I was planning on doing a hike anyway and I’m way past the need to try to keep up with people 10 years younger than me (many of this group were early 20s, though there was a late 20s and another early 30s), so I figured if anything I’d be at the back of the pack and would enjoy the hike myself. I liked to joke that I blamed them, but honestly I jumped to it pretty quickly since what could possibly go wrong?

Hahaha – so nothing went wrong but it was not a simple hike. I should’ve probably looked into it a bit more. While it wasn’t as difficult as some hikes in the area (ones you need actual equipment for), it wasn’t easy either. It was longer but along the same lines as the waterfall hike I did in the Dominican Republic. While in the Dominican Republic Kelsey and I walked up the equivalent of 72 flights of stairs, this one was 176 flights. Needless to say – I was tired and feeling it for days. To give you an idea of the elevation the Saddle goes up to around 2k meters (7k feet) high.

It was worth it though. The views were amazing every step of the way – though there were a lot of false peaks that we thought would be the end and were not. I ended up not walking it completely solo. While the majority of the group was about 30 minutes ahead – though we would occasionally catch up when they’d settle in for a bit of a break – Dael ended up staying back with me. Both to keep me company and to not kill himself trying to keep up.

It was a good hike though. After we got to the top of the Saddle, there was an option to then summit one of the peaks. I unfortunately decided that I was too tired to do so, but the rest of the group did decide to go up the nearly straight up peak. I was told it was steeper than it looked and it looked pretty steep. We headed down after that and to some nearby lakes, including the Green Lake. The Green Lake has a lodge and restaurant/bar on it, so we all got drinks and some people got food. The majority of the group headed out before Dael and I though, since they had gotten to the restaurant before us. (I swear they ran the majority of the hike).

Eventually Dael and I headed out, thinking we had enough time to get to the bus station before darkness had completely set in. Spoiler alert – we didn’t. We spent the last hour and a half walking through the woods in complete darkness. It was a bit eerie since there was just enough moonlight to see the road, but not enough to see any details. There was also a biker who kept coming up behind us but never actually getting close to us. Looking back, I’m sure they were keeping their distance on purpose, but it threw us off a bit as we could see their light and then it would disappear. 

Check out some pictures from my hike! There are way more in my phone, but I picked some of my favorites. 

Hitch-hiking

I’m sure I’m going to royally freak out my parents by writing this section. But I’m alive and well and have a fun story going forward!

We made it without problems to the bus stop, no injuries and we didn’t run into anything in the dark! However, the next step was to figure out the bus system when there weren’t any signs to tell us the bus schedule and none of the buses appear on google maps in Slovakia. Unforuantely, I had no service and even if I did – neither Dael or I had downloaded the bus app that could’ve helped us. We did know the direction we needed to go in though, so we were waiting on that side of the road for the bus. We saw the bus coming and tried to flag it down with the flashlight on our phones – but it blew right past us without stopping. Dael got on the phone with the hostel, trying to figure out when the next one was. There was one more bus that did stop for us, but they weren’t going to Ždiar so that one wasn’t helpful. I should probably mention that at this point it would’ve been almost 2 hours to walk it back and there weren’t any sidewalks and it was already 8pm. After talking to the hostel, we found out the busses come every hour, and since the one we needed went flying past us – we’d need to wait an hour to catch the next one.

Needless to say, neither of us really wanted to do that. The other way that was mentioned to get back was actually to hitch-hike. Hitchhiking is a pretty big part of the culture in this area of Slovakia because the busses can be unreliable and there are no other means of public transport. With getting back before 10pm in mind, we decided to try our hands at hitchhiking. I stood with my arm out and thumb up pointing my phone flashlight at my arm so the drivers could see it. After maybe 5 minutes, a Volvo pulled off the side of the road. We went over and the guy gestured for us to get in. After confirming he was going past Ždiar, and a quick gut check, we got in.

His name was Vladimir (“Like Putin” as he put it) and he was super nice! His understanding of English wasn’t the best, but he spoke what he knew really well! He was born and raised in Slovakia and lived about 1 or 2 towns over from Ždiar. After showing him where we needed to go on the phone map, he almost immediately knew that we were staying next to the Church in Ždiar and he said he’d take us right there! He was on his way back from the Ukraine where he went to get cheap liqueur (1.5 euros a bottle) and cigarettes. He offered Dael a smoke so he could try a Ukrainian cig. He had about 10 bottles alcohol in the back seat and was super proud of the deals he got. Who knows how much was sitting in the trunk.

After a 15/20 minute drive, he delivered us right to the door of the hostel – only taking him maybe 5 minutes out of his way. We thanked him profusely and even made it back in time for dinner. Total time away from the hostel? 11 hours.

Levoča

The second full day was a bit rainy. Not the best option for a hike. Originally some of us were planning on doing both a cave tour and visiting a nearby castle – but we got too late of a start for that unforuantely. Instead a group of us decided to go to a nearby old town that was supposed to be pretty. It was about 1.5 hours away by bus so we did spend the majority of the day traveling to and from.

We explored around and even got a chance to visit a UNSECO Heritage site. It was fun to see the town that was in many ways bigger than Ždiar but also laid out a lot differently. The style of it was much more like a downtown than Ždiar which is long and thin and there’s no true downtown area – Ždiar is a true town. The buildings in Levoča were pretty, and even with the overcast day – so were the surrounding areas. It gave it a cool look with the fog that pictures didn’t do justice.

Thoughts

I really liked Slovakia – especially this area. I heard some great things about some other parts of the country too and hope to visit more of it one day. I’ll definitely be back to Ždiar though and the Ginger Monkey – it was well wroth the trip!