A little side note about my re-entry back into Albania coming back from Turkey. After my stint out of the country, it was only appropriate that I should have a typical Albanian welcome back into the country. As I was headed back to the capital of Macedonia [Skopje], I assumed there would be pretty frequent buses between it and Tirana…seeing as they’re both capital cities and all. However, when I arrived at 7 am to Skopje, the bus to Tirana wasn’t until 7:30 pm that night. So I ended up on a bus headed for another border crossing closer to Lake Ohrid. I ended up getting dropped off close to the border with 2 polish backpackers also trying to cross into Albania. The 3 of us got a taxi to get across the border.
The drive was only 5 km and should have only taken about 5 minutes. About 2 minutes into the trip, our driver hits dead-on a stray dog running towards our car [not even an attempt to swerve as to try and miss it]. Sadly, I’m used to this occurrence…but the 2 Polish guys in the back yelled “ohhhh fuck man!! …what are you doing!?” They were certainly shocked! About 30 seconds after this, our engine starts smoking. The driver pulls over and realizes that his car is overheating. So he proceeds to grab a plastic bottle from his car and fill it with ditch water and dump it inside the steaming engine. We start going again, but about 50 yards down the road he stops again to dump water on the engine. We do this about 4 more times [by now we’ve been in the car 20 minutes], until finally all of us get out on the side of the road and try to stop any car that’s going past us headed to the border. Finally, another taxi returns from the border and our driver gets him to take us there.
After getting there and crossing over to the Albanian side of the border, I used the most disgusting Turkish toilet I have yet to use in this country! Think unmaintained Turkish toilet…upwards of at least 6 months! It was disgusting!!...and smelled like dead babies! Ugh!
After this, we’re pretty much stranded on the Albanian side of the border waiting for anyone to drive by us headed in our direction. The 2 Polish guys were ridiculous (and very funny) and proceeded to try and hitchhike for us with the most ridiculous poses…think cheerleaders…or yogis…but instead 2 Polish guys with beards hoisting out their thumbs. Most Albanians drove past us laughing…and a few gave us thumbs-up for looking like fools! Finally, a mini-bus came by and got us on the right track. I parted with the 2 Polish guys as they were headed a different way and I continued my 7 hour journey down towards Gjirokaster in the south of the country to experience part of the folk festival!
However, I couldn’t help but laugh about my cliché arrival back into the country…broken down cars, awful toilets, wild animals, and a considerable amount of waiting on the side of a road [story of my life in Albania]. Mire se vini ne Shqiperia!!
1 comment:
Rachel, this is Uncle Sam's daughter Virginia Purvis. Your mom sent me your blog and I've enjoyed reading about your adventures. We were recently in Istanbul--unfortunately on a Sunday so no Grand Bazaar but it is a lovely city.
Good luck to you.
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