I think I’m going to like Albania

We’ve only been here a few days, and at first it was a bit of a culture shock after 2 months in former Yugoslavia to encounter the unique Albanian culture. It’s like stepping back in time in some ways and like being transported to Asia in others.

We had a great time staying at the Green Garden Hostel in Shkodër for two nights, getting our bearings, picking up a SIM card, local currency, etc. They offer one night of free camping to cycle tourists, but it looked like rain so we opted to pay for a bed in a dorm room instead. Met a lot of really interesting other travellers, and the host had some great recommendations for our trip.

One of the cool random things about Albania is all the bomb shelters scattered throughout the country. They were built in the communist era when there was fear of nuclear war. Now they sit mostly abandoned in random places on the side of roads.

It’s nice to again hear the Muslim call to prayer that we also heard in Bosnia. We find it peaceful and beautiful. The Albanians don’t seem to be super religious, though; I read in a guide that the religion of Albania is Albaniaism more than anything else.

We also hear other sounds like music with horns and other instruments, lots of livestock (roosters, hosts, cows, horses), cicadas, dogs barking, etc.

The traffic is pretty wild, and it reminds me of riding my bicycle in Thailand. There’s a wide variety of traffic on all the streets, including cars, trucks, bikes carrying people and everything from scythes to weed whackers, people walking 5 deep in the middle of the road, mopeds, dilapidated trucks, pedal powered carts hauling produce, horses, goats, mule-drawn carts, horse-drawn carts, and large carts full of fruits and vegetables and other farm stuff. And they all weave together seamlessly. The only horns I hear are toots to let people know there’s someone coming. None of the locals wear helmets when on bikes, and their ages range from 5 to 90.

It’s refreshing after the confused stares we got in most of Europe to be greeted with waves, kids yelling out greetings (“hello!”, “Where are you from?”, “What’s your name?”, “No go! Police!” – this one was concerning, but aside from the barbed wire we walked around, we never saw any reason to be worried), people stopping us in small towns to ask about our trip or our bikes, vendors calling out “please stop”, etc.

For lunch we stopped at a small burek stand, and the woman working there immediately brought out two chairs and a small table from the back and then called up her friend on her cell phone and handed it to me so that the friend could translate what we wanted into Albanian! We ordered two amazing pastries with cheese and onions, and she offered us some grilled meat (looked like ćevapčići but tasted like lamb), turned on the hose so we could wash up, and the total bill with drinks, lunch, and ice cream for dessert came to 400 Lek (about $3.50US). The rumors of Albanian hospitality are certainly turning out to be true!

Speaking of the food, that’s been an amazing surprise! It’s been excellent and very affordable. We have fallen in love with the rice pilaf and fried cheese for breakfast at a place in Shkodër, we hope we can find it elsewhere. For dinner, we ordered something poorly-translated as “dust bin with meat” and it was a delicious mix of ground meat, ricotta cheese, and sweet peppers. The caramel cake and baklava are also to die for. There’s also lots of street food (at least in Shkodër), but so far we’ve only tried some cookies that a woman was selling.

Another thing that reminds me of Asia is the plethora of shops all over the place selling pretty much everything you can think of. Sunglasses, clothes, tools, tobacco, and where the shops are the most dense, there are a dozen street vendors set up on the sidewalks outside selling more stuff. Being on bikes, we can’t really buy much, but it’s fun to window shop and poke around the racks at these places.

There are a few things I’ll need to get used to, though…

The roads are in absurdly bad condition in some places. We’ve ridden on worse gravel trails in the past (I’m talking about you, Parenzana Rail Trail!), but these roads are marked as secondary roads on the map and either the asphalt hasn’t seen the light of day in decades, or it’s been patched over so many times you can’t tell a pothole apart from the road surface. But on the plus side, there is a lot of construction going on, and we had some very pleasant freshly paved roads in parts, and the primary roads are in decent shape, if not with a bit more car traffic. And anyway, we’re riding on gravel bikes, so we’ve got to push them to their limits, right? Yeah… Actually they are holding up really well.

Also, animal welfare is very poor in Albania. Of course it makes sense in one of the poorest countries in Europe that animals take a back seat to human welfare, what with some people living in very bad conditions. But it is difficult to see the wild packs of mangey dogs and cats scrounging through dumpsters. And we witnessed a horrible sight of a horse missing part of it’s foot, hobbling on three legs across the street. I hope for his sake that if he can’t be cared for, that someone has the foresight to put him out of his misery.

Those things aside, we are looking forward to our 2 weeks (approximately) in Albania. Hope to have more pictures to show, soon!