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52km
The rains subsided and it was time to pack up our home on the river bank and push our bikes through the sticky red mud back to SH3 towards Macedonia. As with most of our other border crossings, the checkpoints sat on top of a high ridge making for a long cold climb up the bunker speckled mountain side. These small stoic fortifications sunk into the earth reveling only the timid opening where at some point some timid man probably stood guard waiting for Milosevich himself to march down the road.
Take notice of the bunkers behind us
Przekraczamy granice Macedoni
We crossed the border and headed towards Lake Ohrid to look for a campsite. The sun was set when we found the abandoned apple orchard we would call home for the night.
Fresh with the excitement of the previous nights affirmed commitment to adventure into the unknown together, we could not be intimidated by the sounds of the strong downpour pummeling our tent fly. We quickly, and excitedly accepted that we would not be moving anywhere far today. No, it was a rainy day, and what better to do than spend a rainy day in bed.
Chad prepared the camp for a day of rain. The tarp, that many people thought was an excessive addition to our packing list, made its value as strong as gold as the vestibule to our tent grew from its normal state of eight square feet to nearly eighty, complete with a campfire and a view of the rising river.
Home
Just minutes before we became engaged (zareczyny)
SH3 to Macedonia was a relatively busy main rode but had a large shoulder and followed a good size river. We were certain we would find a fine campsite along this road, but figured it would be close to the noise of the traffic. What we ended up finding at the bottom of a little red dirt road was the perfect, soft and sandy river-side campsite, complete with a stack of precut fire wood and a trash free river bank that we had dreamed of.
So sitting next to the fire, along this river bank, as the sun was slipping behind the hillside, Chad dropped to one knee, pulled from his pocket a paper box, embossed with two enter-twinned hearts, opened it and asked Jowita to marry him. Jowita said yes and so begins another adventure together.
87km
We woke. We had warm Muesli and watched the funky clouds. We turned back in the direction we had come the day before.
Luckily there was a flatter alternative to the route we had taken the day prior and beautiful, so beautiful.
Albanian maps have proved very unreliable at this point, because this road was not even shown on our map and it was clearly the main route to Gramsh from Elbasan. So we made a loop and became a shadow of Tobias on SH3 headed towards Macedonia.
This always makes laugh (Albanska autostrada)
46km
We woke to a heavy frost covering all of our gear and ice lining the inside of our tent fly.
It was cold and it was the parting day for us and Tobias. He would ride SH3 from Elbasan to the Macedonian border to and continue from there to Greece and we would ride the road from Elbasan through Gramsh to Korce, Albania. There were many nerves this morning, the cold, the parting, and the uncertainty of the road conditions of the 80km between Gramsh and Korce. We sparked a lot of curiosity in the, mostly, elderly, guests at the hotel and one of them greeted us and urged us to accept his offer of a whiskey to warm us up inside the resturant. This proved to be a great idea. We showed our routes to this man and “El Doctor” over our whiskeys and tried our best to communicate in Italian/Spanish because it was the closest we could come to a common language. The man and El Doctor dramatically argued over the condition of the road beyond Gramsh and all signs pointed towards bad news. None-the-less our morning whiskey with coffee was brilliant. It was a great way to close our nearly, three week journey with Tobias. It was hard to say goodbye but the whiskeys and the giant plate of cookies from El Doctor as a parting gift helped to soften the blow.
El Doctor and the Lucky Fox?
At the fork in the road, Tobias’s route was fool proof, and with the questionable quality of our road ahead (it was for sure going to be very beautiful we knew though) it would have been a certain decision to tag along with Tobias. But it was parting day, and at the fork in the road we choose the uncertain route for sake of differentiation and for a changing of the guards.
Now the story could be told two or three ways, depending on whether you were climbing over yet another ridge-line, or whether you were riding down the backside, or perhaps if we want to read into the fortuities.
From the Uphill perspective, we rode 46km on some of the hardest terrain yet to find that the next 70 or so were going to be on a road that resembled a dried up, rocky, river bottom.
From the Downhill perspective, We have never ridden through such a wild, natural, and beautiful place. We have never seen a culture still so linked to its traditions and simplicity of life, We met a darling 16 year old girl who we will surely keep in contact with, and we had a wonderful campsite along a muti-branched river.
Optomistically heading towards Gramsh
Chad crossing
Exchanging facebook contacts with our new friend
From an examination of the fortuities, we would probably not have found, a day later, the perfect place to propose another adventure
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
0km
It is easy to believe that we would sleep in after riding our bicycles into the Tirana Chaos, but we didn’t, or at least we didn’t to lazy rest day standards, maybe. The morning was very peaceful, waking behind a secure wall of paid hospitality; a kitchen already prepared, no need to set up the stove, no rationing of water, internet access at the drop of a coin, real chairs, sunshine, like-minded, sleepy eyed, early rising travel bums, talkative, gesturful, non-english speaking cleaning woman, coffee and no need to pack the bicycles. These comforts made us feel right at home in Tirana. The Tirana Backpacker Hostel is a great, unexpected, slice of comfort, 7 weeks into our journey.
Once we finally walked out of the gate of the Hostel with Tobias, we headed for the gypsy market near the train station to gather up our supplies for the evenings fish dinner we had been looking forward to. Call it blasphemous, perhaps, but for two weeks along the Adriatic coast we had not eaten a single fish or seafood dinner.
[Digression #1 “Food”] This is not say we have not been eating well or eating local for that matter, no, we have been eating like champions most nights and mornings; eating produce from local markets and fruits straight from the trees. Our lunch can often run a little on the boring, yet much appreciated, side; bread and butter with some cheese and hopefully, some tomato followed by bread and butter with honey. Our most common starting point for our dinner creations is potatoes, lots of garlic, onions, and mediteranean Vegeta, spice mix. From there we add tomoatoes, lentils, cheese, carrots, maybe some sausage. We have made Barszcz with fresh beets on several occasions, We have made some pretty amazing soups, including one soup that used butter and garlic as base, chopped onions, cheese, and chunkcs of an Albanian style corn bread. It reminded us the Czech style Garlic soup crossed with a French onion soup. (We will surely be making this once we return home.) We make some pretty great pasta dishes, and desserts are always a welcome treat.
[Digression #2: “Sweet Food”] Yes we have divulged into sweet eaten freaks. For some reason, actually one very specific reason, and a couple less specific, we have made cookies a very consistent and necessary food group in our diet. We eat cookies like the C-Monster himself. Our favorite are from the Italian company, Barilla. Most people know them for there pasta noodles but their cookies, rock! They have one type GranCereale and another Pan Di Stelle. GranCereale are more nutriscious granola like cookies with a few different varieties, and the Pan Di Stelle are hard brownie like goodness! We started in, probably, Austria or Slovenia, by just buying only one package of cookies at the store per visit and at somepoint in Albania, where the roadside markets outside of Tirana, literally, only stock cookies, chips, booze, and soda, we would buy two packages of a brand we weren’t familiar with, then bike up the road to the next market to see if they had our favorite brand and then buy two packages of those. Without a good stock of cookies, we feel poor and on the verge of starvation. We have always been very fond of honey and jam. Now it finds its way into almost every meal. It took Chad a very long time, back in Chicago, to grow comfortable with the idea of eating warm pudding, as Jowita has always been obsessed with. This trip has made Chad a firm fan of the warm Pudding. Add some dates, Add some rice, Add nothing, It is our special treat that finds its way into our bellies once every two weeks or so. In Tirana, in the outdoor kitchen at the Hostel, we made everyone’s eyebrows perk when we sat at the table with our steaming cups of pudding. When we made too much rice for our fish dinner, we dumped it into warm chocolate pudding with chunks of apples for breakfast. Oh we make ourselves crave it just writing about it…..Back to subject.
Once we had arrived into the Balkans, we had arrived into the land of the Bazzar and this should continue all the way to Istanbul. The Gypsy market was really fun, but eventually some fruit sellers tried to rip us off on some lemons, and we didn’t go for it, not making them any too happy. We did eventually find an honest man for our lemons.
Tirana Chaos
The gypsy Market Tirana
Getting ready to barter at the Gypsy Market
Our lemon man at the Gypsy Market in Tirana
Dogs everywhere! Even on the Roof!!
One full day of rest in a city is not enough, especially when you are trying to maintain a blog. We had been planning to part ways with Tobias either at Tirana or shortly thereafter. Tobias wanted to leave after only two nights in Tirana but we had convinced him to spend one more night so that we could ride out of the city the next day together and part ways at a fork in the road rather than at a Hostel. He agreed and we celebrated by going out to a concert with a group of travel bums from the Hostel.
105km
It is hard to sum up this day. It was really exhilaterating, annoying, and inspiring. We are not sure that we have experienced anything like riding our bicycles into the capital of Albania. Tirana is breathing a new life to our journey to say the least. This is a place of orderly chaos and makes us look forward to visiting the rest of this country.
Our campsite near the lake this time, not the sea
Ridng across a bustling wood plank bridge in the outskirts of Sckoder (Photo by Tobias)
The wood plank bridge of the outskirts of Sckoder (Photo by Tobias)
Tobias in front of the Mosque in Sckoder
Horse drawn cart driving down the same crappy, under construction highway we had to ride
Holy S**t!! Going through the round-a-bout on a ten lane highway! Suprisingly the most organized chaos we have ever been in the middle of
73km
At some point in the past, we had planned to go Bosnia to visit Sarajevo. This began to seem less and less likely considering the mountains and the weather. We completely nixed it at some point in Croatia. Then when we took the bus, we realized we have a bit more time on our hands to go elsewhere. We had originally planned to take a ferry from Bar, Montenegro to Bari, Italy and then a ferry from Bari, to Patras, Greece where we would resume riding. But Albania was calling our name and to Albania we went to much satisfaction to date. Crossing the border was unreal. We felt as the feeling of being somewhere totally different. It is not so much the landscape or the architecture, which is certainly different than say the historical cities, like Ljubljana, rather the people and the culture seems so different here. Feels like we have left the west, so to speak. We have rode our bicycles down expressways along side horse drawn carts and a thousand large semi-trucks with mountains all around. People wave from three fields over and children race along side us just to say hello or ciao. We feel we have finally entered a different place. We once again found ourselves in a tight spot in terms of a camp site. Trash lined the lake and people were everywhere. We finally found a quarry with a few potential campsites. We saw a man walk into the adjacent home and called out to him. The whole family came out to se what we wanted and the young boy acted as our translator. He spoke very good English and was frank. “where do you want to sleep?”, “We would like to sleep on Grass” “Okay, you can sleep over there. Good night” . We cooked dinner while listening to the the last calls to prayer of the day coming from the distance Mosques.
The sea below our coastal cliff campsite
Our Camp site in the morning (photo by Tobias)
Our morning swimming spot
Refreshed after our morning swim in the sea
Town center - Bar, Montenegro
This woman and her husband gave us like 10 kilos of the best pomogranates and Persimmon (japanese apples they call them)(photo by Tobias)
Grizzley man eaten a Japanese apple. It tastes something between a mango and a papaya(photo by Tobias)
Jowita smashing her face into the ripe Japanese apple(photo by Tobias)
We couldn't figure out what the heck this donkey was doing here, just chillin, we suppose
Ugh, another dirty tunnel, guess through a mountain beats climbing a mountain
Jowita splits riding through a short canyon in Montenegro
Cute old woman who would lift her bottom off the bag she sits on to say tahnk you and hello (photo by Tobias)
