67km

The ride out of Tirana was not nearly as chaotic as the ride in, however, the pollution was the same. It seems as though there are zero regulations regarding emissions and next to no trash collection services in rural Albania. Our throats and lungs were raw riding out of Tirana, we have never inhaled so much fumes in our lives and probably shortened them by a year just in that two hours spent along that road. It is really sad because the country could be so remarkably beautiful. You get to a scenic vista and there sits a giant pile of trash, and more specifically, plastic trash.

The sad reality of Albania! It is such a beautiful country, but the trash is piled everywhere!

It has been explained or theorized to us that it might have something to do with the fact that plastic was only recently introduced to the Albanians with the foreign imports. We would love to find out some more information about this. Tirana was very clean, surprisingly, but the second you left the city, the piles grew. In Tirana, we frequented the Euromax super market down the street from the hostel. The same girl was always working when we visited. A lot of European supermarkets have this system for the produce where you select your produce then you walk over to the scale, weigh your selection, and push the corresponding number to the produce to get a price tag from the machine. Sometimes the store clerk will do it for you and for each different type of produce, they reach for another plastic bag. We always say no plastic please, they look at us confused, then try to put it into the plastic again, forcing us to say it more firmly, “no plastic please”. After several visits to the Euromax, after going through this routine for the third, or so, time with the same clerk, she asked, “What is it with tourists coming to our city and not wanting any plastic bags?” we had a brief discussion about why we don’t like taking plastic bags and why we always carry a reusable grocery bag with us. We wished we had been more direct, and have had the opportunity on several occasions. We wished we had expressed, how horribly disgusting it is to see the entire countryside littered with mounds of trash, or to see an old woman walk to the stream running beside her home to throw three plastic bottles into its murky current.

The three of us climbed high up to a beautiful ridge, where the air was finally clean enough to help heal our hurting lungs and to get away from the village and hence the trash. The scenery from this high ridge was truly beautiful and the traffic light enough that we could take our eyes off the road to enjoy it.

Pretty Sheep

Our Last ride with Tobias

Riding the ridge to Elbasan

The road zig-zagged from the east side to the west in between the peaks and every time we went to the east the wind blew hard and cold. We were going much more inland and we knew the night would be a chilly one The three of us would camp one more night together. Jowita had read about a small village that had some hot springs and we set off in search of it hoping to camp next to a wild thermal pool. The sun was setting when we finally detected the smell of sulfur in the air indicating the thermal pools. The thermal stream, of course, was lined with litter, but we found a small hotel run by a man we refer to as “El Doctor” that drew from a spring in the earth. We bargained with him down from 23euro a person for a mineral bath and to pitch our tent in his garden down to 5 euro a person. He eventually charged us 10 euro total the next day. The three took our five minute mineral bath and quickly headed for our sleeping bags as the temperature was dropping fast.

Trying to regain our warmth after our Albanian thermal bath