5 October 2023, Bitola, 28.15km
Petrograd Apartments 985 den [R319]

There are 5,089 named mountains in North Macedonia of which 34 are over 2,000 metres. The highest and most prominent mountain is Mount Korab at 2,764 metres.
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"In order to determine which are the world's most mountainous countries, one must first decide what makes one country more mountainous than others. Is it having the tallest mountains? Is it having the highest percentage of land covered by mountains? ... Each of these measures is a viable option, and each will result in a different list, as evidenced by the tables below.

Top 10 Most Mountainous Countries in the World (by average height above sea level)
Bhutan — 10,760 feet
Nepal — 10,715 feet
Tajikistan — 10,455 feet
Kyrgyzstan — 9,805 feet
Lesotho — 7,090 feet
Andorra — 6,550 feet
Afghanistan — 6,180 feet
Chile — 6,140 feet
China — 6,035 feet
Armenia — 5,879 feet

Top 10 Most Mountainous Countries in the World (by % area covered in mountains)
Bhutan — 98.8
Tajikistan — 91.9
Kyrgyzstan — 90.7
Lesotho — 90.5
Montenegro — 89.3
Armenia — 85.9
North Macedonia — 85.5
Switzerland — 83.6
Lebanon — 81.1
Nepal — 80.7"
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It is hard to believe that two relatively intelligent people can lose each other on the only direct road between Resen and Bitola, but that is what we did. 
Our day began with a steep-ish 7km climb. Charl crested the pass ahead of me and decided to pop off the road to investigate an information board advertising a walking trail in the mountains. I did not see him there and assumed he had decided (unusually) to make a start on the delicious drop that lay ahead. After several fast kms down a 6% decline, the downward trend continued more gently, but still at speed. Shortly after beginning this section, I began to wonder if Charl was not in front of me as I thought, but somewhere behind me. 
Our rule if we lose each other is to return to the last place we saw each other, but there was no way I was going to climb back up the pass. I stopped on three occasions to await him; when he did not appear, I decided he must have gone on though this would be completely out of character. 
It was on the fourth occasion, at the turnoff to Bitola (and Athens, Greece), that he finally came into sight. Such a relief! 
On his part, he had not seen me pass him at the information board, but when I made no appearance over the pass, he decided I had gone on. He experienced the same uncertainty-driven anxiety about whether I might be in trouble behind him, or was somewhere ahead. 
As Charl does not have a local SIM, we could not communicate with each other. I did whatsapp him our address thinking that worst case scenario he would find a place with wifi and make a plan to meet me there. 
What would have been a lovely 20km ride from the top of the pass to the turnoff was thus marred by anxiety and anger and frustration and fear. 
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It was a short run to Bitola, just 29km with 400m elevation gain. Again we were bothered by midgies. I am convinced we were accompanied by many more than yesterday; clearly the news had spread about a moving saltwater feast!