Third World Europe (Albania)

One scene to sum up Albania:

We’ve just waved down a minivan which shuttles people between different parts of town, like a poor man’s bus, and we are heading into the coastal city of Durress from our beach front suburb where the buildings crowd in an ad hoc fashion which suggests a complete rejection of town planning. The minibus is dark from the curtains everywhere but the windscreen, which has a spiderweb crack that spreads from one side almost to the other. At the first traffic lights we hit a baby is fed into the driver’s side window and takes hold of the steering wheel and steers for five minutes to the next lights. Arms come in and take the baby back out, and then are replaced by the open hands of beggars who walk between cars stopped at the lights. The light goes green and the car in front of us nearly crashes into another car that speeds around it on the left to make a sharp right. I just sat there wondering if I was still in Europe. Sure, Eastern Europe was edgy, but this was something else – I’ve seen more civility in poor Asian countries. This was Third World Europe.

One day to sum up Albania:

The buses don’t leave the capital city Tirana from a designated bus station, so we get up early and walk 40 mins with our heavy packs to a quiet street where the buses going south take off. We hadn’t been on a bus in Albania that hadn’t broken down at least once, so we weren’t expecting a smooth day, but we had no idea what we were in for.

We had 290kms to get to the southern town of Sarande. Firstly, we drove halfway there then the driver said there was a problem so we waited in a café for 2 and a half hours. It was hot, we didn’t know where the hell we were, and we weren’t sure if we were about to be abducted from those baddies from ‘Taken’ who come from Albania. Turns out the buses don’t run between towns unless there is enough people, and there’s no such thing as a sure timetable. It’s a nightmare if you’re on a tight itinerary.

We ended up back on a bus but were hardly relieved because at first it was just me and Erin and the two men driving/attending the minibus. Also, we were heading back the same way we had come. Soon two police got in, and I knew not to take any comfort from that. Not in Albania. Erin and I looked at each other and trip to figure out a plan to escape, and realising there was none I reassured her that they might not want to murder us. They might just want to rape us.

My shoulders relaxed when more people hailed down the bus from the side of country road and soon we had even swung around and were heading south again. We were at Sarande by 6. It took 11 hours to go 290 kms. And the cherry on top is that when we got there we couldn’t find our accommodation so we asked a local to call the number of the hotel, only to be informed that the hotel was now closed. We had a booking!

 One shake of the head to sum up Albania:

It neighbours Greece and is a short ferry ride across to Italy, but Albania might as well be on the other side of the planet, nestled in next to Cambodia and Laos. This is the first country to make Atheism the national religion. It's where the baddies come from in the movies, and where Voldemort went into hiding. This is where the bins on the beach aren’t actually bins but piles of trash on the waterline. It’s pathetic in so many ways, assumedly thanks to a soviet hangover. I feel sorry for the people; their neighbours are first world and they are so close but so far away. That sort of close range comparison must be painful.

We came in from the north, trailed down on dodgy buses to the coast, the inland to the capital and then down to the southern border town, which looks directly across at the Greek Island of Corfu. In the Capital, there is a pyramid shaped mausoleum that the former dictator built for himself, but has gone unused and has been trashed. It’s one of the key sights of the capital.

 In the north we visited castle ruins on top of a hill, and pretty much had the whole thing to ourselves.

If nothing else, their flag is interesting (up top). Also interesting is the KFC rip-off AFC, standing for Albanian Fried Chicken. I’m not sure you could get away with this in too many other European countries.

 

It would all be forgettable if it wasn’t so fucked up. But as I’ve said, it’s the ordinary that can have more of an affect rather than the extraordinary. And that’s the only case Albania can plead.

Get your fruit on the beach.