Today I found probably the highest peak in all of Albania. I think the country is having a nice laugh at my expense because I kind of trashed it in my last blog. (Well, technically the Albanians trashed it). But in any case, with poor worn out Bessie needing urgent repairs, and a stinking hot 38 degree sunny day, I found myself not wanting to further wear out my bike, yet faced with an unavoidable, monstrous mountain. It stood on the coast directly in my way blocking the path between Vlore and Sarande on the Greek border, and from sea-level, it rose to 1025m at the pass. And so I walked over the top of it. What a f*cked day.
Last night when I got off the train in Vlore, I found myself in the midst of one of Albania’s busier coastal resort towns. There were people everywhere, mile after mile of beach was lined with deck chairs and umbrellas and there were bars and nightclubs stretching as far as the eye could see. I had no accommodation booked and it was 10pm at night. It was exactly where I didn’t want to be.
I chose to do some night cycling, which I actually find quite relaxing despite the constant level of alertness required above normal, since it’s often pitch black on the roads I take and you need to be extra careful to avoid potholes, cliffs and rogue drivers. Especially in Albania! I needed to clear Vlore, because there was no way I could wild camp in the middle of such a densely populated area. It didn’t take me long to cycle the flat coastal road to the edge of town, and I was about to kick on when I saw something quite amusing – an AFC restaurant. Albanian Fried Chicken.
Now normally a fast food restaurant doesn’t necessarily rate in my travel commentary, and especially in Albania cheap fast food shops are not uncommon at all. But I noticed a familiar theme popping up around the Balkan states. Especially Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania. These were poor countries where the likes of McDonalds and Burger King had yet to establish themselves. Hard to justify the expense in such poor places where tourism is only just becoming the norm. But that hasn’t stopped the creative local entrepreneurs from starting up their own varieties.
It would appear that copyright laws, patents and trademarks are not exactly enforced concepts in the Balkans, because the first thing you notice about AFC, is that it looks exactly like KFC. The typeface and colour of the logo, the naming of menu items such as the ‘Zinger Burger’ and the layout of the restaurants are all exact rip-offs of the true western originals. About the only difference at first glance between AFC and KFC, was that AFC also sold beer. Heineken to be precise. The locals had also ripped of McDonalds (you couldn’t mistake the similarities with the play on the yellow arch on numerous fast food chains. One of my favourites was McDoner Kebabs!) and also Pizza Hut. One shop in Sarajevo sold excellent pizza (also the cheapest in Sarajevo according to the guys at the bike shop) under the guise of Pizza Are. They had simply ripped off the old Pizza Hut logo and embroidered it all over their polo shirts, printed it on their menus, etc. A trademark lawyer would have a field day in the International court with these people, but I get the feeling that perhaps the courts of the Balkan nations aren’t as easy to deal with as one would like. In any case, I was missing my western culture after about 3 weeks in remote areas of Eastern Europe, and I thought there was no harm in sampling a cheap AFC zinger burger menu (meal). I wish I hadn’t. The Colonel’s original recipe is so much better, and the Albanian chicken patty that came out looked almost raw on the inside and was in no way deep fried. I don’t know actually how it was cooked to be honest.
Which brings me to a little subject close to my heart – my stomach. It’s no secret that I love to sample the local delicacies, and one of the best things about a cycle tour is that you can justify eating pretty much anything and everything you want. But Albania has a lot to be desired in terms of quality food. The best meal I’ve had in this country was easily the vegetarian pasta that I cooked up myself at the Tirana Backpacker’s Hostel a couple of days ago. In general, I’ve found that all the food I’ve purchased on the go – a range of hamburgers, souvlaki kebabs, pizzas and now my AFC zinger meal – has all been incredibly crap. Absolute garbage to be precise.
Now, yesterday especially as I was mulling around Tirana trying to get my bike serviced, killing time at the hostel and then stocking up for food for the 6 hour train trip, I ate an incredible amount of crap. Breakfast was a local version of a kebab which was nothing like the great Turkish kebabs we have in Oz, but a shit bit of soggy chicken meat thrown onto a bread roll with some chips and a token amount of salad. You don’t even get sauce unless you ask. Then I had a slice of very ordinary pizza for lunch as I was sending some postcards. It was barely warm when I got it and not much better than your stock standard frozen pizza. Then before boarding the train, I found the closest fast food joint and grabbed a hamburger and a souvlaki kebab (hoping to avoid the bread roll variety/mistake from breakfast time). As I watched the lady prepare my food, alarm bells were ringing in my head and I fought the urge to walk away, risking having no food for the next 180km. The chicken that was carved off the spit (which I couldn’t help but notice had obviously been turned off for a while) was dried out, and as it was cut loose, fell into a tray of goo that looked purpose-built for the breeding of salmonella bacteria. The ‘hamburger patty’ if you could call it that, was thrown onto the bun and then toasted, and it looked raw before it went in and when it came out. And the butter and yoghurt sauce that was wiped onto the souvlaki bread and hamburger bun, had been sitting in the sun for so long that the shop assistant literally had to break the skin on the surface, before slopping the slime all over my food. To top it off, cold, soggy chips were wrapped up on both the hamburger and kebab. This is not an uncommon practice in Albania I’ve noticed, but the chips must have been at least an hour old and added nothing to the final product except a mushy texture between the reprocessed meat products and the very, very token amount of warm salad. Add on top of that my very ordinary ‘AFC’ at around midnight, and as I drifted off to sleep that night, the thought crossed my mind that if I didn’t get some kind of food poisoning, then it would be the miracle to end all miracles.
Well, I deserved what was coming to me. I should know better, and even though I have what can be described as a ‘cast iron stomach’ and a bloody fantastic constitution (I rarely get sick), the next morning I woke up with an urgent need to find a dunny. There was none, because I had chosen to wild-camp on a public beach and had made one of the hundreds of deckchairs my bed for the night. It was time for the return of the famous Bruce aquaturd, and what came out can only be described as what the Indians might call ‘loose motions’. This time of course, there was no sand to wipe my arse – damn these pebble beaches… So it was an interesting morning you could say, and I was very, very relieved to find a proper toilet with the rare luxury of dunny paper (a real find in Albania) about 2km down the road at a service station.
Thankfully I had no major repercussions, and was still able to tackle that shit of a mountain. The height of that pass still amazes me. Looking back, I think that even if Bessie had not been suffering a wobbly bracket, I still would have had to walk most of the way up. Coming down the other side wasn’t much faster either. The switchbacks on the mountain over the pass (on the coast side) were like noting I’ve ever seen before. And at one point I had to stop my descent for fear of brake failure, despite desperate measures of cutting back and forth across the road to slow down. I looked back at the bottom of that particular stretch of road to see a sign indicating a 20% gradient slope. That’s extraordinarily steep and you would struggle to get most Albanian cars up that kind of slope. (Just quietly, most Albanian cars are in desperate need of a tune. On many occasions I’ve had to pull over to the side of the road to wait for exhaust fumes to clear so that I can breath again). Anyway, being one kilometre up in the air on that mountain, with the steep road disappearing below, certainly made for some awesome photos and I had a view that stretched all the way to Greece. I could clearly see the island of Corfu where I’m heading over the next couple of days.
Tonight I’m camping (proper camping) by a beach in a smallish beach resort town called Himare. Well, to call Himare a beach resort is a bit like calling Maroubra a beach resort. But to the locals it’s their little slice of heaven. The campsite won me over immediately, when I saw the sign pointing to the entrance proclaiming “camping, bar, barbeque”. The joint is literally 10m from the beach and the bar is a cool little beach bar typical of all the bars along the coast here. Plenty of chairs in the shade, cool chill-out beach vibes pumping from a much better sound system than you would expect from such a place, and absolutely no customers. I don’t know how any of them stay in business, and wonder if even the better ones are ever totally full. The campsite is directly off to the side, and tonight I’m treating myself to a proper dinner of barbeque steak, potatoes and salad. It’s being cooked up now over the hot coals, and I think that no matter what comes off the grill, chances are it’s got to be the best Albanian feed I’ve had to date. In any case it’s only set me back about 700 leke (about £5, quite expensive by Albanian standards!) Speaking of hot coals and barbies, there is a constant red glow up in the hills from the flames of the burning rubbish. If you didn’t know any better you’d think it was a bushfire or some kind of back-burning exercise. One part of the long, red burning line that snakes high along the mountains, seems to now be burning out of control and a slick of red flames is making its way uphill burning everything in its path. During the day the smoke was clearly noticeable but now that its dark you can’t help but notice it. I haven’t seen one fire truck in town keeping an eye on it, though when I cycled past the tip the other day, there did appear to be some bored employee sleeping under an old sun umbrella on a makeshift rubbish bed, keeping an eye on things. Once again, Albanian environmental policy at its best.
Tomorrow I’ll head to Sarande, only another 45km to go of this crap up and down coastal road, then I can bunk down by another beach for a night before catching the ferry to Corfu. I can’t contain my excitement at the prospect of hitting up the Pink Palace Hostel in Greece. Quite possibly, it could be that I get to go to a toga party that is the sole reason for this excitement. Well, I’ve heard good things about the Pink Palace (Barber went there last year) so it only seems right to hit it up on the way through Greece before pootling on to Athens.
Ahh, Toto’s Africa is playing on the sound system, I’m drinking the local Stela pivo (not that Stella from the UK, that watery, wife beater pigs swill) and now dinner is served! Looks grand… chat later… yum.
ADDITIONAL:
Since writing the above, I spent my last day in Albania in Sarande at the Hairy Lemon Hostel, before departing on the ferry towards Carfu in Greece. There, before I’d even dumped my bags I was invited by a pommie fellow by the name of Alex, to jump in his car and head out to a beach 17km out of town for a swim. Sounded good. I jumped in along with a Kiwi girl named Karen and a German, Rob. Turned out it was sensational luck, we ended up at a beach just outside of the historical region of Butrint, before heading into the UNESCO ruins of Butrint themselves. They were pretty spectacular. The road out there was something else as well, glad I didn’t cycle it. In some areas I’m sure it didn’t even really exist!
We had a great time, but Rob the German turned out especially knowledgable about some of the things I’d mentioned in my Albanian ramblings. And I’d like to address them.
Firstly, the unfinished houses. I found out that the reason for so much unfinished construction – even lived in houses that looked like they needed a second floor added – is because the Albanians don’t have to pay tax on buildings that are still under construction. No wonder nothing ever looks finished!
Secondly, the weddings that I saw – Rob had noticed this as well but he also noticed something else – the date. That particular Sunday was the 8th August… the 8th of the 8th. Many locals not just Albanians, but actually something you see in many cultures, is the belief that it’s lucky to get married on, for example the 1st Jan, the 2nd Feb, the 3rd March, etc. Superstition of course, but the fact that the 8th August also fell on a Sunday made it an extremely popular day for weddings in Albania a few days ago. (Did you know I was born on the 7th of the 7th? I am very lucky of course 😉
I also found out not from Rob, but the guy who ran the campsite at Himare, about the burning off on the hill. It was not just rubbish, but the local farmers were burning off land in order for grass to grow so they could move their sheep up there. In other words, they were land clearing. I also found out in the course of this discussion that I was only the 3rd Australian to come through the campsite that he knew of. I guess most Aussies tend to go straight to Saranda or on to Greece. Himare is not a big stop, unless you’re on a bicycle! The two Aussies before me had rocked up as a couple last year apparently.
So there’s a final insight into Albania. A fascinating country!
One thought on “Albanian Afterburn…”
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A little too much information about your bodily functions I think!!