Sunday, December 13, 2009

Today’s stats:
Distance traveled today: 105.5 km
Total trip distance: 2822 km
Max speed: 46.95 km/ hour
Average speed: 19.05 km / hour
Total time biking: 5:32
Total days biking: 48
Spending: 1290 leke ($13)

So these bunkers.

Hoxha ordered 750,000 built across the country (for a population of 3 million) for defense purposes. They are shaped just like igloos – concrete igloos, as Richard calls them – that you enter from an underground tunnel and peer through from a hole.

But why?

Was this really pure paranoia? Did Hoxha really believe that his “worker’s paradise” was so envied that it was under constant threat of attack? Or did he simply want to keep his people busy building concrete igloos so they wouldn’t have the time to remember the misery in which they lived.

After all, the worker’s paradise wasn’t really paradise. People queued for bread, and had rations for milk and meat. You had to smuggle in “trinkets” like pencils or umbrellas from Greece. Owning a Beatles tape could land you 20 years in jail. You could be shot on the spot if you tried to leave the country. Children were forced to inform on their parents. All this, and then you had to call the dictator “Uncle Enver.”

So the bunkers are everywhere: in the mountains, in people’s yards, on the main highway. People don’t know what to do with them anymore. Some are being removed, but the rest are toppled over, decorated or simply abandoned. They’re like infinite sets of eyes watching over people. To me they look like alien ships descended from outer space.

We took a smaller road from Tirana to Kavaje. By smaller, I mean bumpier of course. At the transit hub with the turn off for Durres, we stopped at a byrek stand for a snack. Then a few hundred metres further, we stopped at another – just to compare quality of course.

The highway from Durres south was great, once again, perfectly smooth, and with a shoulder much of the time for us to cycle in. It was lined with tons of brand new hotels and tons more under construction. Seems people just didn’t know what to do with the land they were re-given after the land reform of the post-communist regime. So they build hotels and gas stations because they don’t know what else to build. (The other theory is that many of these hotels are fronts for the purposes of laundering money.)

My rear right brake pad hugged by wheel most of the morning, which was a perfect excuse for my less than stellar performance speed-wise. It was a boring ride today on a straight, straight road, which we followed and followed and followed. Just after the town of Lezhe, we stopped for a quick bite on the side of the road before carrying on to Berat. We had hoped to make it in one day, but it turned out to be further than we expected and by nightfall, we were still some 18km out in a village called Poshnje. We weren’t sure we would find any hotels, as the road from Lezhe to Berat is much smaller and more rural than the highway. We stopped at a castle-shaped restaurant, called Keshtjella after its appearance, to ask if there was a hotel nearby. In typical Albanian fashion, it turned out to be one. One man led me to another man, who took me up to see rooms, on the second floor, in the backside of the restaurant, in a section still under construction. It was among the nicest we’ve slept in, with interior brick and stone walls, a heater, hot water and satellite TV. I figured it would be above our price range. But when the guy pulled out the equivalent of $10 to show me the price, I was shocked.

“You rest first. And then we discuss.”  

After 106km, we fell into bed and had a hard time getting up again. When we finally emerged downstairs, the hotel manager was waiting for us. He had lived in England for 15 years and spoke very good English.

“Ah, I thought you must be tired since you did not come down!” he said as he shook our hands. “If you’re not hungry, I can show you around first.” 

His name was Partizan Ismailaj. His father was pressured into calling him that when he registered his new baby. “What, you don’t like the name Partizan?” the people at the registration office asked. “No” for an answer could have landed him jail time, so Partizan it was. Now he goes by Zani.

Zani took us into the kitchen, where a big pan of tava sat on the counter. The specialty of the restaurant, it consists of rice cooked in delicious chicken juices, served with chunks of chicken. It smelled so good we decided then and there that we would order it for dinner. 

From there we passed through the first floor bar (where a woman hasn’t been in years judging by the stares I got), the second floor restaurant and the third floor reception hall for weddings and parties.

When we sat down to eat, he sat with us. At first, I thought it was out of a sense of responsibility, due to the Albanian tradition of hospitality. But later I realized he truly enjoyed it. Perhaps he could relate to us in ways he couldn’t relate to some of his countrymen after having been abroad.

He ordered two raki for Richard and himself, and a glass of wine for me. Traditionally, Albanian women don’t drink raki, at least not in small villages like this. It was the first time I noticed some kind of different, more conservative, treatment towards women.

We settled on some salad and a plate of fried cheese before our tava. We spent the night talking about Albania culture and society and at the end of it all, we didn’t pay a thing.

“When you come next time, you can pay. This time, you are my guest.”

Zani offered to drive us to Berat the next morning in his truck and gave me the number of a journalist friend of his who might be of some help to me. (I had told him I was interested in writing an article about Albania).

We couldn’t believe the generosity, but for Zani, it was the most normal thing on earth.