Tirana to Berat: Not sunny or bike tourism ready

I named this blog “Sunshine and Albania” shortly after arriving. It was early July, summer was popping, and everything was bright and new to me. Day after day of clear blue skies. Both the climate charts and the residents agree that Albania enjoys a remarkably high average of sunlight.

Large doses of sunshine are good for tourism promoters. In July and August, I saw everything through rosy-lensed sunglasses. Colors looked photoshopped. I couldn’t figure out why everyone in Europe hadn’t booked their flight or ferry to Albania already.

Clouds

Now it’s September, and things are changing. As clouds roll in, the sunny outlook is getting harder to maintain. We’ve already seen about eight wet days this month, including last Friday when I decided to bike from Tirana to Berat.

I met a traveler named Brody (also a Denver native) who is touring Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East by bicycle. Somehow I convinced him that I could keep up with him on his next stretch of road from Tirana to Berat in a day. “It’s around 70 miles,” he warned me. “Around 70 kilometers” is what I decided to hear. That was only like 40 something miles, right? “No problem,” I told him. “Let’s do this.” Forecast: cloudy.

Potholes

The next morning, the sky was solid gray as we made our way onto the patchy highway that was still dark and puddled from rain the day before. Traffic was loudly misbehaving as usual, and the pollution was forming its own haze.

Without a need for sunglasses, I began to see my surroundings for what they really were: a lunar landscape of concrete and potholes. Bad ones. Brody, who has been living on a bicycle for awhile now, said that these were some of the worst road conditions he’d seen yet on his trip. I slid and tumbled down twice.


Lavazh - the car wash

By the time we reached a restaurant for lunch, I was so mud-splattered that the waiter didn’t even let me come in. He pointed me to the lavazh -- the car wash.
In Albania, the solution to bad, dirty roads and a suspicious abundance of Mercedes Benzes is a car wash every 100 meters.

I wandered in and found the hose gun. It was actually really fun to get my legs and bike hosed down with high pressure.


Berat

After about 6 hours of pedaling, I was slowing down. Brody coached me along with a countdown announcement of my first “metric century” when we reached the 100 km mark. Sometimes he’d start literally pushing me along from his own bike. Finally, we reached the small city of Berat. 120 km total.

The historical center of Berat has earned it designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hillside residences are uniformly whitewashed with big frame windows that peer outward. I didn’t count them, but supposedly Berat is the “city of a thousand windows.”

We climbed to the Berat castle ruins above the city just in time for golden hour lighting. The sun finally made a brief appearance just to illuminate the clouds for great sunset. I just watched and wondered why everybody in Europe hasn’t booked their flight or ferry to Albania already.

The forecast

For the avid bike tourist, the Albanian stretch of their trip is a rough but doable challenge. For the less experienced, it is still too much of an “adventure tour.” The roads have a ways to go before companies like Outdoor Albania can package this route. But, given the rate of change in Albania, five years from now might be an entirely different story. Long-term forecast: sunny.

The Tattooed Bunker: Colorful "repurposing" in Shkoder, Northern Albania

In Albania, around 750,000 bunkers form a gray mushroom network across the country. This drab legacy of recent communism presents a creative challenge today. Albanians are transforming the bunkers into more purposeful structures, often with tourism in mind.

Remnants of a Paranoid Past

Built of thick cement and iron, the bunkers are phone booth-sized subterranean fortresses with rifle windows and cement dome roofs above ground. A delusional communist dictator built them in the 1970s in paranoia of nuclear warfare and xenophobia toward the rest of the world. The bunkers were never used. When the dictator Enver Hoxha died in 1985, the communist regime lasted about five more years and collapsed with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Only two decades later, this history still haunts the present. Most of the 750,000 bunkers are still standing and crumbling slowly where they were built. Moving or destroying them is not a simple task, as they were built to withstand nuclear warfare. Myth has it that Hoxha hired the bunkers’ engineer by instructing him to shelter himself in the prototype while it was attacked by military explosives. The engineer survived, so Hoxha ordered almost a million of his bunkers to be built.


Creative Repurposing



Today, Albanians face the question of how to address these scars from the past. Most are simply worked around, while some have been destructed by explosives in order to build in their place. While the majority of the 2-person pillboxes continue to blight the landscape with concrete and iron, a rare few have been “repurposed” into worthwhile structures such as planters, cafes, playground equipment, and pieces of graffiti art.

The creative repurposing of cement bunkers is a telling metaphor for Albania’s recovery from its recent communist past. One project, Concrete Mushrooms, has secured resources for the research and documentation of Albania’s bunkers. The organization works toward “inverting the meaning” of these symbolic structures by “giving bunkers value instead of having them as a burden”. Concrete Mushrooms identifies ecotourism-related uses for the bunkers, such as tourism information points, cafes, and even accommodation, as an area with real potential.

The Tattooed Bunker in Tamare




On the highland road north from Shkoder to Tamare, where population is sparse, bunkers are also fewer and farther between. Here, a bright example of creative repurposing can be found. A large bunker has been converted into a tattoo parlor. This one is easy to spot -- the concrete is colorful, with “tattoo” painted on the outside dome in graffiti-style lettering. For fearless tattoo shoppers, ink enthusiasts, or those who are simply curious, it is worthwhile to pull over and see this place and the tattoo artist, Keq Marku Djetroshan, who works there mainly during the summer season.

Having lived in the United States for several years, Keq is fluent in American slang. His time in the States ended with a run-in with the law, so now he is back in northern Albania with his tattoo business. He serves mostly Albanians and Montenegrins who cross the nearby border. Inside the bunker-turned-parlor, the walls display more graffiti and an array of dog-eared tattoo art magazines sit on the table in front of the couch. Keq’s arms are covered with layers of tattoos, perhaps a repurposing of his own scars from the past.

To visit the tattooed bunker, go to www.shkoder-albanian-alps.com for accommodation and tour information about Albania’s northern region.

Altitude: 5-day trek and village houses in Valbona and Thethi

Despite their extreme isolation (or maybe because of it) the northernmost villages of Albania are growing in popularity. This region is well worth the hours of rocky commute required to get there. The landscape is a three dimensional postcard of jagged alpine peaks, thickly vegetated valleys, and the idyllic wood-shingled dwellings of the scant population.

Because of the travel time involved in reaching this remote area, there’s no fast way to do it. Outdoor Albania’s five-day trek is great span of time to see enough of the region and even absorb some its local culture and flavor. The first day was dedicated to reaching Valbona via a furgon (minibus) to the ferry that passes through the dramatic Drin canyon. Accommodations were welcoming village guesthouses, where a local family cooked simple, traditional dishes using the fresh ingredients from the land.

The next three days were all strenuous days of mountain trekking. The group of 9 followed shepards’ paths through alpine meadows carpeted with wildflowers. Day three was the on-foot passage from Valbona to Thethi, with mountain horses to carry our packs. Day four was spent in and around Thethi, where a well-marked riverside path leads to a gushing waterfall.

Day five was spent in transit from Thethi back to Tirana via Shkoder, a northern city with a lunch stop at Tradita restaurant. Trip highlight: the hammock at the Carku guesthouse in Thethi, where the family’s kids thought it was fun for some reason to rock me as I relaxed after three days of serious hiking.

Express: Up Mount Dajti by cable lift and down by bicycle

Tirana is a city that is working on its image. Its current mayor, Edi Rama, is an artist-turned-politician who is eager to introduce Tirana as a vivid European capital. For the city, this means beautification projects like a fresh coats of colorful paint for formerly gray buildings and a total re-landscaping of the central Skanderbeg Square.

Tirana is indeed looking better, but perhaps the most beautiful part of the city is the nature around it. Majestic green mountains hover around the city. One of the highest points on the horizon is Mount Dajti. Just 26 km outside the city, it measures 1,613 meters of altitude. The mountain is known as the ‘balcony of Tirana’ and has been declared a national park.

Just a few years ago, a gondola cable lift called the Dajti Express was built to carry site-seers from the city to the mountaintop. For adventure seekers, the best part of the gondola lift is that there is room for bicycles on board. Outdoor Albania offers a guided excursion that takes visitors up by cable and down by bike through surrounding villages.

The highlight of the trip is a stop at the restaurant built around a panoramic view of the capital below. It is world class. The restaurant has outdoor seating in lush garden terraces. Stunning infinity pools swarm with the trout that also appear on the menu, and lamb roasts slowly on its traditional-style spit. Inside the restaurant, the presidential table is reserved for political personages who bring guests to this little-known lookout above the city.

The bicycle ride down kept me wide-eyed and white-knuckled. Good brakes and a fearless streak required. There is no better way to enjoy the paradoxes and contrasts of Albania: rural versus urban, cattle versus traffic, and fresh mountain air versus the noise and pollution of the city. This day trip is also evidence that Tirana is underrated. Travelers pass through to other parts of the country without realizing the exciting possibilities in and around the city. This is definitely my favorite OA day trip so far.

Tides: kayaking the Ionian coast

I’ve always favored the shorter, shyer siblings of extreme sports. I opt for tree-climbing, for example, over rock climbing, sledding over snowboarding, and bike commuting over serious cycling. So when the possibility of a 3-day sea kayaking trip presented itself, I paused. The intensity sounded like my level, but three days was pushing it. Luckily, I like pushing it. I signed up.

The first day, I met the rest of the group in Tirana. The other tourists were two American girls from New York. Danni was visiting her sister Molly in the Peace Corps here. The guide Armandi is from here, as well as his girlfriend Marcella. Everyone in the group was super athletic. Danni reminded me of my own sister Gina. They both have a collection of photos of themselves in advanced yoga poses all over the world. My arms were suddenly looking very twiggy.

We arrived to Queparoi, the starting point, after dark and spent the first of three nights camping on the beach under the stars. The next morning, we packed everything we had into the kayaks and took off. We paddled the calm waters for about 6 hours, stopping at some great little white pebble cove beaches. Boat access only, nobody else in sight. The coast’s rocky cliffs and translucent turquoise waters have a Balearic feel, minus the traces of mass tourism.

By day three, we had spent three nights sleeping under the stars on the beaches and we’d covered over 25 kilometers. Surprisingly, I had kept up with the athleticism of the group, but I was losing steam. The last few kilometers caught us off-guard with rough sea conditions. Turquoise turned dark blue with white caps. Those last few hours were the longest of the trip, made possible by Armandi’s mad guide skills and the large dose of adrenaline that I wasn’t sure would be included or not. Bottom line: living out of a kayak is the good life for exactly three days.






Me, Molly, and Danni





kayak fuel











Armandi, Marcella, me, and beach bonfire

Freewheeling: Shkoder Lake, Albania

On our way back from Vermosh and Tamara, we spent a day and a night in Shkoder. This small city is the gateway to the northern Albanian Alps. Our job here was to find a good bicycle route for OA to offer as a daytrip.

We had arranged bike rental from a hotel and restaurant that has a collection of retro-style bikes to lend. Then, using a rough diagram that the restaurant owner had drawn us, we mapped a route from the city center onto a beautiful little road that runs along Lake Shkoder. The mountain lake saddles the border between Montenegro and northern Albania, and it is so big that you only see more water on the horizon. What you won’t see is crowded docks, high-rise buildings, or much development at all.

Cycling down the road, the lake is to the right, a mountain landscape is ahead, and olive trees are all around. We cruised along the shoreline, where families from nearby were enjoying the sunshine and fresh water on sporadic little pebbled beaches. About 11 kilometers later, the pavement ended and we arrived at Zojag where we took a dip in the lake.

Zojag highlight: the fresh fish meal on the pebbled beach of Zojag, where the restaurant served us the daily catch along with some homemade cornbread. Perfect.

"Maxing it to the max"













My OA companions, Laura and Lieke

Authenticity: Vermosh, Albania

Albania’s northern highlands are known as the Albanian Alps, and this is where some of the most traditional village life and untouched scenery can be found. Over the weekend, my two OA co-workers and I traveled to the northernmost village of Vermosh, just short of the Montenegran border, to help put this remote region on the map.

For centuries, traditional village homes have been in the hospitality business by custom, receiving travelers who were moving through the Balkan region by caravan. Now, this tradition of hospitality means a little economic opportunity for these families to host today’s travelers who appreciate the local culture and unspoiled nature of the area more and more.

I’ve developed a major crush on World Hotel Link, an online booking system whose mission is to provide the IT platform necessary for locally-owned and smaller-scale accommodations to market themselves on the web. It focuses on parts of the world such as Albania where technological resources are lacking and whose local economies have the most to gain. Outdoor Albania has partnered with WHL to help these northern Albanian village guesthouses get online. Our job was to gather all the information necessary to make these truly authentic accommodations their own WHL-powered websites.

The first highlight of the trip was the village homestay in Vermosh where Flamur and his family received us in their guesthouse. We shared a home-cooked dinner with them and they told us how the guest home was vacant because six of Flamur’s siblings had immigrated to the United States. They poured us shots of Raki, the local brew, which serves as an extra blanket on cold alpine nights.

The second highlight was the Nature Hostel, where an Albanian carpenter has his guesthouse ready and has even built a tree-house bar where mountain spring water was pumped up into a bucket to keep the drinks cold. Brilliant! Now he’s just waiting for tourists to come and enjoy it. I’ll do everything I can to bring these people some business.

serious hay











mountains, even by my Colorado standards