Thursday, December 17, 2009

Today’s stats:
Distance traveled today: 31 km
Total trip distance: 2945 km
Max speed: 48.05 km/ hour
Average speed: 12.66 km / hour
Total days biking: 52
Spending: 5500 leke ($55)

I was so discouraged from constantly getting wet, drying our clothes, and getting wet again, that I didn’t take part in Richard’s nightly drying extravaganza, where he spends the entire evening rotating clothes around the heater. So I put wet clothes on this morning, tired and depressed.

There was no water this morning either. We’ve learned to take showers as soon as hot water is available, because you never know how long it will last. If you’re going to travel in Albania, be prepared to go without hot water, electricity, heat or functioning toilets at times.

We knew we had to make it to Saranda today, to catch a ferry tomorrow for Corfu Island, in Greece. But getting back on the mountainous road in rain deflated our spirits. We’ve been cycling in rain for days on end, and we’ve just had enough. It was miserable weather and we wanted more than anything for a truck to pick us up.

The red clay of the soil was inhabited by aloe plants and Albanian pines. The endless mountains of forest were interrupted very infrequently by small strips of beach. Even the beaches had bunkers.



Halfway to Saranda, we got to the town of Lukovë, and thought we’d hop onto a bus for the last 25km. It was 12:45pm and the friendly lady at the kiosk told me there was a bus to Saranda at 1:30pm.

“Come, come,” her husband said. “Wait here.” He ushered us into the shelter next to the kiosk, with a wooden roof and plastic sheeting around the sides. Plastic chairs and tables were set up inside. Before I could sit down, his wife pointed to the door into the tiny cubicle-like kiosk, where she had a small heater for her and her baby, Alexia. She insisted I sit down next to the heater to warm up, while she made us some coffee.

When 1:40pm rolled around, her husband Oresti explained that the bus might be late. We had some raki on the house and tried to communicate in the little Italian we all knew. When 2:20pm rolled around, we started wondering if the bus would ever come. “If the bus doesn’t come,” I joked to Oresti, “we sleep here, in this kiosk.”

“If no bus, you sleep in my home. No hotel. My home. No money.”

We chatted, we laughed, time passed. Oresti brought the heater out of the kiosk and rested it upon a stack of bags of chips to heat the inside of the tarp.

Some of Oresti’s friends passed by.

“The bus maybe have problem in Logara if snow,” one of them said.

“But it’s definitely coming?” Richard asked.

“Maybe it comes,” was the answer.

At 3pm, we started considering our options. It was too late to start cycling and make it before dark, and cycling these winding, mountainous roads given the consumption of raki by Albanian drivers was not an option. We tried flagging some cars driving by, but none were headed to Saranda.  Oresti said if worse came to worst, he would somehow fit the bikes into the truck of his Mercedes-Benz and take us himself. We waited a little longer.

At 3:30pm, Oresti found us a ride! The owners of the big suburban parked across the street would be going into town at 5pm and we could hitch a ride. We had waited so long already, we could wait another hour and a half.

I pulled out our sandwich material, and Oresti offered up his toaster for some grilling. We had just finished eating when the owner of the Suburban came in to say hello. Wearing high-heeled red boots, an umbrella and a thin gold certette over her highlighted brown hair, Katarina was a dainty, sophisticated woman who spoke perfect English. “Do you want to eat something?” she asked. “You can come into my house for some lunch before we go.” 

We thanked her but turned down the offer. “I’m here visiting my father,” she explained. “I live in Greece. It’s so nice to see tourists in our village these days,” she said, genuinely happy.

“In winter, you mean?” I asked.

“Winter and summer. It’s nice here, but it’s wild. We’ll talk more in the car,” she said excitedly, before turning to leave. 

Then things started getting interesting. A few old men came into the shelter for some coffee. When Oresti told them about our bicycle trip, the oldest one, whom everyone called “Mafioso”, started shaking his head, and indicating with his hand that we were crazy.

“It was his idea,” I said pointing to Richard. This was translated more or less into Albanian.

“E Chimundo,” he said. “He’s crazy!”

“A screw is loose in his head,” he insisted. “Others are going to the disco and you’re cycling. E Chimundo!”

It was like a game of charades, with most communication through hand signals. But it was enough to keep the place full of laughter.

“Leave him!” the 78-year-old repeated over and over. “Leave him in Africa!”



And so it was that we spent the entire afternoon in a plastic garage with cold feet, sharing jokes in a language we couldn’t understand, but laughing nonetheless. But as it turns out the old man was an opportunistic bastard who told us he’d have someone drive us in his truck for $15, ridiculously expensive for a half-hour drive—the bus would have been two dollars per person. But impatient to get to Saranda, and unsuccessful at negotiating a cheaper price, we accepted the offer.

We loaded the bikes into the back of the Nissan 4x4 and Oresti took the wheel. With no lights on the dashboard and condensation fogging the windshield, we took off into the dark, winding mountain roads, hitting the turns at a speed none of us were comfortable with. When Richard handed me my seatbelt, Oresti said emphatically, “no, no!” as if it would offend him to think that it was necessary. So the seatbelt stayed off.

We made it safely in half an hour. We’re both happy to be on ferries for the next couple days after all this cycling in the rain. The plan is to ferry from Saranda to Corfu, Greece, and from Corfu to Patras. Then we cycle to Athens!