Albania with da Lada
Hello there!
It has been a week since our last blog post, so let the story get started! After we unbended ourselves at our dwelling in Teth, the next day we headed for the mountains reenergised, in order to find the ”Blue Eye” waterfall, and take a nice swim in it. Pjeter (our host) had told us at the very beginning, that it takes 4 hours to get there, and the same to get back, that’s why we took along some muesli bars with us – just in case. It was not easy at all to get there, there was a bit of mountaineering, and then a bit of wading through a mountain river, but fortunately, even when we got lost, there was always a local, who directed us in the right direction by waving around heavily. Along the way we saw a water power plant and a hundreds of years old water mill while operating. After we got there, it really seemed like a real Paradise, crystal clear water, and such a blue colour, which would be quite difficult to describe. Needless to say, that we barely could wait to splash into the water – we even brought along a ball just for fun. The only thing we did not take into consideration, was that the water was 4 degrees, so we didn’t play the ball, there was only a wee bit of bathing… :(
All in all, the days we spent in the Albanian Alpes were the most tranquile, tho the most active ones as well, and all of us agreed, that we must return once. The day has come (on the 5th of July), when Lada had to climb up on the stony, dreary pass, where 4 days before it took it 3 hours to descend from above.
No need to say, i was a bit nervous, kept fingers crossed, so that we wouldn’t get stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
During that 1,5 hour, we encountered two IFA-s, and 3 jeeps, with whom we were virtually ”dancing” for a few minutes on the wide single-lane road. Fortunately, both the car and us survived, so we headed for Tirana.
The trip was quite okay, till we got to the capital. For me, ”chaos” itself got a whole new meaning, sometimes we spent about 5 minutes in some of the roundabouts, because there is no such thing like ”give way”. Sometimes the police overtook us, sometimes a truck cut in on us, so it was a total relief, when we arrived to Edvina and Paola’s (our cool hosts) place. Edvina is a collegaue of a high school friend of mine, and she engages in the Hungaraian-Albanian trading relations, and Paola is her sister. The first night we went to the main square, because that day Gumball3000 just arrived to the city (Gumball300 is a luxury car race from Riga to Mykonos), and we wanted to take some nice pictures of the cars. It turned out, that one of the racers was Hunagraian, so we had a word with him at the parade.
When all the ”car craze” was gone, we immersed ourselves in the nightlife of Tirana. We went to dance latin dances, then to a night look-out tower, we befriended a stray dog, and finally we retired to our comfortable double bed.
The next day it turned out, that the departure got to be delayed, because the electric starter had broken down. After quite a long discussion, we found a repairman – just on the neighbouring street. He promised us to have a look at it and fix it at 10 in the morning, but unfortunately it did not happen. At around 7 pm we pushed the car over to his’, and roughly in 10 minutes, he fixed the problem. As it turned out, a washer got stuck, and it had to be replaced, thank God, ever since it has been working properly. When we asked him how much would it be, he told us - with a waggish smile -, that for this kind of car, he didnt wan’t any money, so we got away with this without expenses.
The third day we got up at 8 am to get to Macedonia, and to visit the Orchid lake. After the touchy farewell, we got out of the capital, and didn’t stop on the Albanian motorway till we reached the boarder. The road was kinda smooth again till the end, but as we were approaching the boarder, the water started boiling, so I was just trying to keep the car in motion, which actually caught the eye of a boarder warden that much, that he ordered a whole car check up. We were not happy about it, but no need to say, it was quite a new experience. We were asked if we had hasis, weed, even a detection dog barked at us. After they found everything okay, we crossed the boarder on a different route, like bosses, and we finnaly arrived to the land of Alexander the Great, the dreary Macedonia.
If we seem like cool guys, support ”Yuppi Tábor”, because they are inded cool!
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