As planned, I had only about 38 hours to see as much of Albania as possible. Of course, that is insufficient time to see any country, so all of my time would be spent in the capital city of Tirana. Once again, man plans and God laughs.
The problems started all the way back in Podgorica. Road travel on a Friday or a Sunday is a bad idea. My bus was supposed to leave Podgorica at 1 in the afternoon, which would put me in Tirana around 6 in the evening. Well, my bus turned up at around 3 pm. Not a great start to the travel day. The harried bus driver threw our bags into the hold under the bus, muttered a few things in Albanian, I think it was Albanian, grabbed our tickets, and herded us onto the bus.
As I walked the aisles of the bus there appeared to be a lot more people than seats. Sure enough, I was left with nowhere to sit. I wasn’t alone as a Spanish girl and a French girl were out of luck as well. The Spanish girl grabbed the jump seat at the front of the bus while the Mademoiselle and I were left to sit on the floor. I found a place in the stairwell of the rear entrance, while she plopped down in the aisle.
This is going to be a great trip. Traffic was bumper to bumper much of the way. There was no relief when we hit the border. I estimated that we were looking at a two-hour wait to get into Albania. Il y a beaucoup des Américains dans cet bus, I commented to the French girl. One of the great things about traveling in Europe is that there are always lots of single French girls traveling. It gives me an opportunity to practice my very rusty and rough French. She laughed and asked me if that was a bad thing. Hmm, not bad, just unusual. I haven’t been amongst that many Americans in quite some time.
While sitting in the stairwell, the guy sitting in the seat next to me asked me how I was doing. That accent was definitely American. So we found out where we were from and he’s from Ohio but has been living and teaching English in Poland for the last 15 years. Ah, a kindred spirit. So Mike and I spent the rest of the trip talking about our various experiences in foreign countries. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the annoying. Mike and his girlfriend (wife? sorry, I never did ask) got off the bus at Shkodër, which looked like a pleasant spot on Shkodra Lake. I really need about a year to explore the Balkans. For a relatively small area geographically, it is absolutely crammed with history and beauty.
We would say our goodbyes, and thankfully, I would finally get a seat for the last hour or so of the journey. As I settled into my seat, I noticed a phone in the netting in the seat in front of me. Mike had forgotten his phone. I tried to open up the phone and give Mike a call, but his security code proved to be superior to my guessing skills. Finally, his phone rang and we were able to exchange contact details. Now, how to get him his phone back.
I tried to send it through an express mail company, but the first place didn’t want anything to do with a lost foreigner. The second location did their best to help but told me that they could not ship a phone. Crap, am I going to have to haul Mike’s phone around Europe and mail it from Japan? Finally, Mike said he would come to Tirana early, but I would already be gone, unfortunately. I asked my Airbnb host if he would be willing to return the phone. Luckily, he was. What a relief. Losing one’s phone can be quite a problem. We store so much personal and financial information on those little things. They are mightily convenient to carry around, but a huge pain in the ass, and possibly dangerous when lost or stolen.
Anyway, I finally got into Tirana at around 10 in the evening. Now I was down to about 34 hours to see Tirana. The city is quite small, it seemed every time I took off in one direction, I would eventually end up back in the center of the city. It is that small. Tirana is also still very much a developing city. It was the most underdeveloped city in the region that I visited. But that is changing. There is construction going on everywhere.
One interesting aspect of all of the development in Tirana is that most of the historical buildings are being forsaken in favor of building “luxury” condos. Tirana is going full-on modern city mode. Even the Tirana Castle has been turned into a shopping mall and dining area. The only thing that still exists from the original castle is the outer wall. Maybe there was nothing much left to restore, so I can’t pass judgment here. Tirana is a small, but nice little city to spend a day exploring. Albania though has much more to see outside of the capital.
On a personal note, I was quite disappointed with my pictures of the city. I just couldn’t get into a good frame of mind. My day pictures were crap, but I think I got some interesting photos at night but just not a good couple of days with the camera for me. I suppose that happens from time to time. So I guess that just means I need to go back to Albania to capture the beauty of the region properly.
Rolling Tsuchinoko 