As I find myself sitting at the front of the bus, watching an Albanian music video clip (quite possibly choreographed by a 5 year old) playing on the small tv screen, I start to realise I may be welcoming in my birthday in a distressingly uncomfortable manner. Its 8pm and I have a 10hr bus journey, that will crest the mountains between Greece and Albania. I abandon all pretense of sleep, instead just watch out of the window as the bus starts to climb, the far reaching views hidden under the cloak of darkness. As the bus the nears the top of the range, the temperatures plummeted, a fact I am awoken to as I step wearily down and am startled to see my breath readily forming clouds in front of my face. As I avoid the group of men offering "great rates" on the Albanian currency, the lek, I check the time and notice that I may be able to perform a nifty trick. As the border formalities take quite some time, the clock ticks 12.01am and I suddenly become 25! However, we then proceed about 30 min later through the Albanian checkpoint and since it is an hour behind (if only that was all) I suddenly become 24! I have managed to legitimately have my birthday separately in two countries!
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| Tirane at 5am |
As the bus wound back down the mountains, sleep becomes impossible, as the approach of the bus drivers closely resembles that of the World Rally Championship drivers. We arrive in Tirane at 5am. It looks exceedingly dull in the grey light of dawn, an effect amplified by the communist architecture. For some reason there was an English family having an argument. I could identify from their poor command of English that they were as we say in Australia, 'bogans'. Can't escape them anywhere it seems. After being told to get in a minibus which did nothing for 30min, I was then bundled into another one, which took me part of the way, stopping in Laç. I then managed to secure another to Lezhë, my final destination. We bump over, for want of a better name, the 'road'. This consists of asphalt, cunning pockmarked with a rather large number of potholes. Then a section of dirt, of varying lengths, seems to appear. And so on. I arrive in Lezhë, manage to call my CSing host, Beth and met her. She works for the PC (Peace Corp), and they are having a once year get together of all the children they have involved in their volunteer work. I do manage to score a T-Shirt. After their presentations, we all head down in a rickety bus to the beach for the afternoon. The kids love dancing. As you can see in the clip, it’s not especially complicated. But they did it for hours. Pretty cool.
So, Beth and I went for a swim in the late afternoon, realised that there was no more buses. So, we were forced to climb fences, teetering on the edge between falling into a shitty hole on the road on one side and a hole full of shit in a pig pen on the other. Ah, you shall long remain in my memories, sweet Albania. We hitched the short distance back into town on the fading light. Picked up ingredients for dinner on the way home, dropping into a bar for a shot or two of Rakia, you can see the effect upon humans in the first picture of this entry. Firewater made from grapes. Powerful...
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| Shoe repair man |
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