Sunday 21st April
According to the 2019 Albanian tourism magazine editorial (among various other Albanian tourism reading material dumped on my table by the keen waiter in Permet, wanting to keep me occupied for the minutes it took him to cut up my rotisserie chicken) in Albania ‘Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations’ and after the last two days riding I completely agree (in the literal sense).
There are an abundance of tracks and graded roads connecting little hillside farming villages across this mountainous country, easily traced from google and satellite images. What google can't tell me, but I quickly learnt, is grazing pack donkeys by the roadside mean it is time to get ready to push! Fortunately the sunny weather meant tracks were mostly mud free so I was able to granny gear up all but the steepest and roughest. Almost harder were the descents, I was occasionally forced to pull over to rest my fingers from braking so hard!
For the effort I was treated to views over undulating hills backed by snow capped mountains, beautiful little villages of vine covered stone houses. While riding I was often accompanied by the sound of birds and running mountain streams, interspersed with the donging of bells announcing a herd of hillside grazing sheep and goats, or some solitary cows.
The people I have met along the way have been lovely, often giving friendly waves and shouts... several cars have stopped to offer me rides and even food. I’d forgotten how cycle touring is viewed in countries which are not used to this approach to travel - many people assumed I was lost, directing me towards the biggest and most direct roads!
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Albanian dogs, which I have now learnt fall into two categories. The extremely passive and extremely aggressive. Sometimes pretending to be the former until you’re just a few meters away, going uphill, before blowing cover with teeth bared. I’ve never had so many dog attacks, and they don’t event back off using the standard trick of pretending to throw a stone (from experience this is as effective as actually trying to throw anything, and saves the hassle of picking up the projectile).
I had my closest shave yet this morning, saved by a well timed intervention by a passing car who, using Albanian driving agility, managed to nimbly thread his Audi at high speed into the small space between myself and three attacking dogs, sending them scattering long enough for me to remount and pedal off at top speed over the crest of the hill.
The Albanian tourism magazine failed to mention dog attacks, although it did point to restaurant service as one improvement area to help develop tourism. My doting waiter appeared to have taken this on board when he, with a little bow, used his hand to scoop the chicken bones off my plate while I was still eating the rest of the chicken!
The food has been generally good - fresh salad of delicious tomatoes, dill, fresh (not salted) olives, very sour lemons - mostly grown from the back gardens attached to every countryside house. Fried meat and chips, sourdough like bread and various honey and nut based desserts. For about 30p it’s possible to pick up a coffee or pastry - with the Albanian coffee styles harking back its conquested history; Italian or Turkish.
Some other brief observations from the road;
Albanian men appear to regularly buzz trim their hair and meticulously wash their cars at one of the many roadside car washes 'Lavazhos'. I often see kids playing outside, and older women hunched over tending to vegetable patches. I've never been anywhere with so many petrol stations along main roads.
Many grave stones have a picture of the deceased, as do the frequent roadside markers to, presumably, car accident victims. I found these interesting to look at - it is often possible to guess the decade they died from the picture.
Many houses have a teddy bear strung up from the eves or garden gate. This looks a little creepy when the bear is torn, weather beaten, and hanging by a string around the neck. It is, however, apparently a superstition for good luck.
Toilets are squat and splash, a head shake means yes, driving on the right tends to be preferred if the middle isn’t available.
Track Day 3 - Corovoda to Sarande
- When leaving Corovoda I was cautioned by a local man, via google translate on his phone, I had "chosen the hard road" to Permet. The track started off bumpy and got very steep after veering away from this stream, luckily the mud was dried hard -
- Running low on food and having just filled up my bottle from a trickling stream, I was surprised and relieved to be flagged down by this lady who had set up a roadside tea stop on stilts above her apple orchard -
- I enjoyed some delicious fried dough with her orchard honey, walnuts, wild apples and bread, hardly believing my luck. The setup was extremely well organised by Albanian tourism standards, even having a logbook for visitors, showing that during the summer mainly Germans and Austrians passed by every few days on motorbikes or 4x4s -
- View back down the valley showing sections of the track -
- Smooth tarmac was welcome, not so much the gusting headwind every direction I turned -
- Enjoying a dinner of lunch leftovers. Before sleeping I strung up the rubbish in a tree just in case of bear or dog visitors -
- Campsite for the night, beside the old road above Sarande -
