Driving to Shkoder
After breakfast and paying for our stay, we headed out of our old neighborhood behind the cathedral, bumping along the cobbled street, past quiet houses, old majestic ruins, quaint cafes, and nice restaurants, places we should have considered for a meal. We found the tree-lined boulevard, then out of town, past modern stores, through roundabouts, dodging motorbikes, pedestrians, and cars that suddenly stopped to run in for a quick purchase.
We drove back up the wide agricultural valley we had traveled the day before, another wild mix of modern and traditional, men turning hay with pitchforks, horse-drawn carts, tractors baling hay, and the next field, a hay stack built by hand, then a Mercedes dealer and an ultramodern service station that would make Buc-ee’s look pedestrian. All along the way were various levels of farm stalls and vendors, potatoes, brooms, jars of things, bottles of things, and men in old chairs drinking coffee.
We turned west, into the mountains. These are not the Accursed Mountains; they are further north by 100-200 miles. The mountains are tall, maybe 5,000 feet, green with outcroppings of dark grey stone, wrinkled and convoluted, steep, as if herded together into too little space. A few years ago, this route required a 4X4, Jeep, or better. The old road was visible, a one-lane gravel road. This new highway tried to ignore the ravines, ridges, and drop-offs. Our Panda groaned as we climbed the wide two-lane highway that cut around ridges, leaving brown scars.
There were guardrails, concrete culverts, massive concrete walls holding up crumbling rock cut open by bulldozers a few years earlier. A sign warned of bears. Another sign warned of rock falls. At places, there was an effort to hold up the mountain. Trucks, bulldozers, and drills gathered to repair and support. Where the ravine was too steep, the road jumped to the next on a massive new concrete bridge, maybe 300 feet high, then the road shot into a modern tunnel cut through the mountain. At the top, we began a 20-mile descent, always with the sense that around the next curve, the road would vanish, and we would tumble to the river that we glimpsed from time to time. Further down the mountain, villages clung to the side. We stopped at a narrow place at a cafe for coffee. Most of the toilets were modern, but here were squat toilets.
There was flat land ahead, then towns, then an intersection with the road from Tirana, headed to the more popular parts of Lake Skoder. Suddenly, there were tour buses and traffic on the road. A new, wide, modern highway was being built in still unforgiving ravines, but not quite as high.
In one town, there was a massive traffic jam, but there had been construction. We slowly crept up a hill. A few cars gave up and turned around. We came upon cars parked haphazardly along the road: Mercedes, Volkswagens, Fiats, and Skodas. Finally, it was not construction, but a massive funeral.
We passed the big industrial city of Elbasan, dealt with a traffic circle where all the cars crowded in like sheep in a pen, and then on to Tirana on a modern dual-lane highway. We went through a toll booth. Mountains were in the distance, but we were on a flat plane, busy with farms, factories, towns, and traffic. Tirana was a long, hot wait in traffic, then north. It was beautiful and uneven like all of Albania. We skirted the sea and then arrived in Shkoder. We spotted the castle first, high on the hill, flag flapping and people walking the ramparts. We navigated to our lodging, dodging motobikes, pedestrians, and traffic. Suddenly, we were in an old cobblestone neighborhood, with tourists, cafes, and a one-lane street where we competed with people wandering around.
Mon Ami is through an old wooden door into a courtyard with tables and chairs and a kitchen at one end. The family lives in one part, and a set of rooms on the side is rented out. Our room was beautiful, and Cindy asked me to verify the price: $45 per night. After bringing in our luggage and finding a place to park on another street, we sat down with a beer. The family brought food. Their teenage daughter has very good English, and the mother almost as good. Our discussion headed to politics and what is happening in the United States. Like many conversations, there was curiosity about our coming to Albania. Some Italians guests showed up, and there was a lively discussion in Italian. There are many German and Italian tourists, but few Americans.
We ate supper down the street at a restaurant set up by a women’s rights organization. We had a good meal and were able to do a little good. Our table was across the alley, in the ruin of an old building, guarded by a cat. This reminded us of the ruin bars in Budapest, which are a big tourist attraction. We made it back to our room just as rain began to fall.
This featured blog entry was written by Deuxenvacances from the blog Albania.
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