Near Death Experiences On the Albanian Riviera

This morning I woke up and my right arm and shoulder were really sore. My legs get sore all the time still, from climbing up one castle or another, but my arms are rarely getting a work out these days. It took me a few groggy minutes to put it together.

Oh yeah, that's right. My arm is sore from HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE on the bus yesterday.

It was hands down the scariest bus ride of my life. In fact, it was the scariest thing that has happened to me in a long time. As a New Year's resolution this year, I gave up fear. I've been doing a pretty good job, if I do say so myself, but yesterday had me literally shaking in my Chacos.

I woke up, got myself all packed in my fancy splurge hotel in Vlore and made my way towards the "bus station," or rather the busy street where buses stop at specific and random places. After wandering around in the heat and asking a few people I found the place where my bus was supposed to pass by. I sat on a bench munching on some snacks and drinking gatorade (in an effort to not almost pass out from dehydration like on the last bus ride!) and then my bus zoomed by twenty minutes early. I threw up my hand to stop them, grabbed my bag and hopped on.

The "helper" guy on the bus threw my bag in the back and I crammed my way into the packed bus. It was not one of the 12 seater buses, nor a charter bus style one, but something in the middle. Either way, it was standing room only, which seemed a bit extreme because I knew the ride was going to be at least 2 hours. Then out of nowhere, the guy who took my bag produced a plastic stool. Speaking in gestures we went back and forth, you sit. No, you sit. No, you!

Eventually I sat.

But then I looked to my right. We were driving with the door open. After suffocating my way from Berat to Vlore by bus, I will admit that the air felt great. I didn't really mind until we took a turn and the little plastic stool turned over. JODER.

I'm pretty sure the people around me--the guy sitting backwards between the driver and the passenger seat directly in front of me, and the "helper" guy who was standing next to me--saw the fear in my eyes. The guy in front of me motioned like, look, don't worry, I'll put my leg like this so you don't fall out.

Kthanks. I'll just pretend that might actually do something to save me.

Then, in what was more helpful but also slightly more invasive, the "helper" guy braced himself on the arm of the seat next to me, and essentially braced me in as well. At first I was thankful, but then I started to suspect it was just his clever way of putting his arm around me for the duration of the trip. I gripped the arm rest of the seat to my left, tried to give myself space between the "helper guy" (futile) and held on for dear life.

The drive was beautiful. Breathtaking (in more than one way). I had great views of the mountains and the turquoise Ionian water, because yeah, the door was open. Coming down the other south side of the mountain pass we took hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Somehow they weren't even switchbacks though. They were more like knot turns that almost spiraled down the mountain. There were almost no guardrails, and no seat belts on board. I took some kind of odd comfort in knowing that even if I was sitting in a seat and not on a plastic stool next to an open door I would still die if we went over the cliff.

Anyway, things got more awkward at the break at the top of the mountain. I decided to get a macchiato to fortify myself for the rest of the trip (some rakija probably would have been a better choice!). The waiter brought it over and said that the "helper" guy had paid for it.

Um, no, no, no, no.

I tried to pay anyway but the driver was honking for us to get back on the bus and the helper guy was putting the money back in my hand. I begrudgingly said faleminderit and found my way back to my stool.

As much as I was not loving that guy, you know what? He wasn't the "helper" (the guy who fetches the bags, takes money, etc. for the driver) after all. He said goodbye and got off a good 30 minutes before my stop. And when he was gone...my gosh did the hole of the open door look huge.

I was gripping the handrail of the seat next to me like my life depended on it...because it did.

And when I finally got myself to Himare, I got off that bus shaking. Whew. I felt a bit like I did after involuntarily jumping off a cliff in Costa Rica--I needed to lie down for a bit.

5 steps later, and still shaking, out of nowhere a bee stung me. WHAT?! I thought those things only stung you if they were provoked. Nope. I walked by a trash can that had some bees and then BAM. One dive bombed my foot. The only way I can make sense of it is that bees must be able to smell fear.

I've never been stung by a bee so I was surprised at how much it hurt. My foot started to swell and I started to panic. I know a lot of people are allergic to bee stings and I'm fairly allergic to mosquito bites so, not in the soundest of mind, I started imagining my throat closing.

Then I told myself to calm down. I whipped out the Benadryl stick I carry in my purse, smeared that stuff all over my foot, looked around to see if anyone was giving me sympathizing looks (nope) and set off to find myself a hotel.

The town wasn't what I was expecting (thanks for nothing Frugal Traveler) and the places I thought I might stay at didn't appear. I pretty much took the first offer I got--which ended up being a hotel hanging right over the edge of the water. I talked her down to €20 a night, had her bring me a fan and moved right in.

That's where my sob story ends. The water here is as beautiful as anything in Greece. The Albanians are consistently some of the nicest people I've ever met. I had fresh seafood for lunch at an outdoor restaurant right over the beach. It's way cooler here than in Vlore, Berat or Tirana. Everything is cheap. I have my own balcony 20 feet from the crystal clear water.

Maybe it's one of those "new appreciation of life" kind of things after the near death experiences, but I'm frankly amazed at it all.

Sunset in Vlore--the magic ingredient to sunsets this beautiful? Humidity. 

One of the few pictures I dared to take while on the bus. This chair leaned back over the open door. I was sitting on my stool in the aisle beside/under it where the stairs led to more than a "me sized" hole 

My balcony

My lunch

Albania: In Pictures!

Walking across the border

Tirana

"The Pyramid" in Tirana

Street food

Forgotten commie statues behind a building

Kruja

Looking down from the fortress in Kruja

Berati

View from the hostel

Ceiling in the teqe in Berat

Such a hike to get up to the fortress in Berat!

This was the only place to catch a breeze

Lots of people still live up there

Giant head of Constantine 

My "guide" took this picture after he climbed up a tower with my camera (you can also notice my gifted feather and flowers)

For those of you asking what I have been eating--I had to stop them from bringing more plates for this "traditional style" meal. Who knows how many more were coming, but all I really wanted was a salad to begin with. (More or less Greek salad in front, then stuffed green peppers (REALLY good), two kinds of burek (I couldn't stomach the burek--I reached my limit way back in Serbia), and a kind of stuffed eggplant in the back. 

They did bring me one more plate--but I didn't but up too much of a fight on this one (a sweet cheese pastry with stewed grapes and cinnamon). 

Chapel and museum

Household bits from the ethnographic museum

Berat

Vlore--this struck me as odd

Get a tatto on the side of the road? Why not!

OK, Vlore, sorry for calling you tacky. You are actually quite beautiful in places. 

This also made me laugh a bit. Gangsta Street Boy!

(See the Week In Review for a few more pictures)

Week In Review Sabbatical Style: Albania!

I know. I have been a really bad blogger lately. I haven't exactly been busy but my days have been full. A lot of this stems from the fact that I have been in hostel dorms all week, which means there are always lots of people around, which means that I have been doing a lot of what I do best--talking to random strangers.

Today is Sunday though, so I will set myself down and deprive you no longer--here is your Week In Review:

• Where was I this week? I've been in Albania since last Sunday. I spent the first part of the week in Tirana, the capital, took a day trip to Kruja, moved on to the city of Berat and am now in Vlore on the coast. 
• The bus ride from Berat to Vlora this morning seemed like it would be straightforward. There were no connections, but there was also no air-conditioning and no window for me to open. With the heat index over 100 degrees it was already pretty miserable, but when the bus refused to start back up after stoping to drop off a passenger it definitely got worse. We sweated it out by the side of the road waiting when finally someone came along and towed the bus for a bit until it started up again. 
• I've decided that Albania is the Nicaragua of the Balkans. 
• After sweating my way from the hostel to the bus station in Berat, sweating 2.5 hours on the bus and then sweating through the streets of Vlore with my pack, I was doing my best to hold it together and not pass out. When the hotel I planned to stay at didn't appear I just decided to splurge and stay at a nice one--which has...air-conditioning!
• Walking around the castle ruins of Berat I somehow ended up under the care of a local who became my tour guide and photographer. He commandeered my camera and made me pose for pictures everywhere. He seemed to be enjoying himself so much (he was picking flowers for props and climbing towers and what not) that I figured, why not?
• Ice cream cone with 2 flavors of homemade ice cream--20 cents!
• The town of Kruja has put up a statue of George W. Bush. The lady next to me on the bus told the driver we were Americans and made sure he went by it. 
• Albanians love Americans. 
• I love Albanians. 
• The neighbors of my castle "tour guide" gifted me with a big feather. OK. 
• I went to make some calls this week, but only ended up getting to make one to my dad. He suggested I change my flight and keep traveling. My mom agreed. Do mom and dad really know best? Tempting...
• An American owned restaurant in Tirana (Stephan's Center) had a 4th of July BBQ. They had the best burgers I have had since probably before I left for Brussels last September. Impossibly, they also had Dr. Peppers! I came back the next day and pressed my luck to try the Mexican food. The quesadillas? A total win. 
• The best thing about my hostel in Tirana? They had a big, fluffy puppy. After seeing all the strays on the street and being tempted by their cuteness (but not tempted enough to touch--a fellow traveler had to get a rabies shot in Bulgaria!) it was nice to play and snuggle with a pet.
• I have been on a mission to learn to like olives on this trip. I've had somewhat mixed results, but I am happy to report that I actually enjoyed the olives on my vegetarian pizza last night.  
• I gave recommendations for Texas country to a British traveler in my hostel in Berat. I'm pretty sure just thinking about it made my accent a little bit stronger. There might be hope for me sounding like Texan (American? Native English speaker?) again. 
• Its surprising how many conversations I have had in Albanian/Italian/hand gestures/pictures this last week. 
• When chatting with some grandpas in the fruit market we discovered that what we thought were cantaloupes tasted nothing like cantaloupe. He cut open another melon that was green on the inside. The green one ended up tasting identical to cantaloupe. I bought them both. 
• OH! I also found fresh okra at the market! I impulse bought a quarter kilo of them. I channelled my inner southern woman, dredged them in flour and fried them up. The hostel hotplate was pretty pathetic, but they were tasty. 
• The air-conditioning in my hotel room right now is making me such a happy camper.  
• It's too hot to do much right now, so if you are lucky I'll get up a couple more blogs--check back later. 

OK, friends. That's the week in review. I'll see you in just a few weeks...well, that is unless I decide to take my parents' advice! Some photos below: 

Hello Tirana!

She-ra (yes, named after the He-man character)

"Chuck Norris is coming!" 

(Best graffiti ever?)

Which is which? The green one is the cantaloupe 

Market in Kruja

Kastle in Kruja

Berat: the Town of a Thousand Windows

I might or might not have actually started singing the "purple mountain majesty" bit of America the Beautiful at this sight

My fearless local/tour guide/photographer

Week In Review Sabbatical Style: T-4 Weeks

I just sat down on my bed in the hostel and realized just how tired I was. I don't think I'll be getting up anytime soon. Since I'm just going to be sitting here, how about a week in review?

• The WIR should be pretty easy this week. Why, you ask? Because I was at Lake Ohrid ALL week. It started with me deciding on 3 nights instead of 2. Then I added 2 more days to my stay. Then...I moved to a tiny village on the other side of the lake for 2 nights. Then I extended my stay, yet again. I liked it that much. 
• You know what is strange about a lake? It's quiet. It's like the ocean...but quiet. 
• OK, but I'm not at Ohrid anymore! Today I mustered up the strength to get myself to Albania (po, po!). 
• Even though Lake Ohrid is shared by both Macedonia and Albania it took me a whopping 7 and a half hours to get here. That included a prearranged ride to the next village, a packed bus, a walk to the monastery, a walk from the monastery through the border, a furgon (shared minibus) to Pogradec, another furgon to Tirana, a city bus and a 45 minute walk. Whew. 
• I was worried about the walk from the monastery to the border as you had to catch a shortcut through a military camp site...which I read doesn't always allow you to cross. I also read that taxi or walking was the only way to get from the border to Pogradec...and that sometimes there are no taxis...meaning an hour walk with bags. Surprisingly everything went off without a hitch.
• Albanians have to be the most hospitable people to tourists. While waiting at the border an Albanian woman told me which window to go to and then took over. She took me to the furgon I needed for Pogradec, sat down and told me to sit next to her. When we got to Pogradec she literally took me by the hand, walked me to the bus stop and got me on the right bus to Tirana. There's absolutely no way I would have found the bus by myself, so she was definitely a Godsend. 
• I love Tirana! I've heard a lot of negative things about it from other backpackers, but so far, I'm a fan!
• (I think I a contributing factor to my like of Tirana might be because I like things that are slightly tacky...!)
• The food at my hotel in the village in Macedonia was AMAZING. All of it was homemade--from the wine and rakija to the bread and cheese!
• Macedonia was good for the budget. Albania looks like it's going to be the same way. I think I'm going to have sticker shock when (if?) I get out of the Balkans. 
• Wait! Did I say that I made the trip to Albania today without a hitch? That was a lie. After visiting the monastery (today was a huge feast day so everyone was there celebrating...I saw several lambs being carried around. I hope their fate wasn't what I think it was...), anyway, I wanted to have a cup of coffee to a) use up my last bits of Macedonian currency and b) give myself a caffeine jolt for the journey. I sat down at the cafe, ordered a coffee and when it came asked for a glass of water (coffee usually comes with a glass of tap water here). He asked if I wanted still or sparkling and I made the sign for turning on the faucet to indicate I just wanted tap water. Except apparently the sign I made for turning on the tap was closer to twisting off a bottle cap, because he brought me out a fancy bottle and poured it in the glass. Whatever, it didn't cost much, so I wouldn't care...except the bill came and I was 20 cents short! Oh man. So embarrassing. I was wondering how many dishes I would have to wash to work off 20 cents. In the end he let me pay in euros, and (maybe) thought it was as funny (pathetic) as I did. 
• Finding contact solution ended up being an ordeal this evening. Apparently its not sold at a pharmacy (which is normal in Europe) or in grocery stores (which is normal in America) but rather in "sunglass shops." OK...except when I asked in sunglass shops they looked at me like I was crazy. I finally found a regular glasses shop who had it though. 
• Most things are cheap here, but that tiny bottle of solution? 10 bucks. 
• I'll be home in officially less than a month!

OK...I'm out of interesting things to say. And I'm about to fall asleep so no pictures, and I'm not even gonna reread this to make sure it makes sense. So if it doesn't, you know why. Because I'm lazy. 

Camino De Santiago: Day 16 Calzadilla de los Hermanillos to Mansilla de las Mulas

It was cold and windy leaving Calzadilla and I can't say that I was all that sad to say good bye to the place. The best part about the morning though, was that the sun came out! It had stormed virtually every day during Semana Santa and even gotten a bit cold, so it was nice to finally see some sunshine. 

Leaving Calzadilla

Day 16 was a continuation of the previous split in the Camino. The route that I had chosen took you along the Calzada Romana, or the old Roman road. It was full of wide open fields and I only saw a grand total of 2 other pilgrims until the end of the day.

Sign telling you it's prohibited to bathe in the water because it's contaminated (as if you needed to be told not to swim in that...)

Oh yeah, and the Calzada Romana was also full of mud. 

Nonetheless, it was beautiful. It was always exciting when you could really see the landscape start to change--the mountains were starting to appear in the distance. 

Alongside the trail were all of these irrigation ditches. Because of all the heavy rainfall they were overflowing and all you could hear was the sound of rushing water. That might sound atmospheric, but it was exasperating a problem--I needed to pee. There were no towns at all along the trail for day 16 which meant no coffee and no bathrooms. This might not sound like a big problem to you, but I am not a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl. And did you see the picture above? There were no trees for miles. On top of that, the Madrid railway was running alongside the trail. I knew as soon as I broke down a train would come racing through. 

But you know what? I broke down. I couldn't take the sound of all that water. I peed in "the woods" (on the plain is more like it...) for the very first time. And, thankfully, there was no train!

A little bit further along the mud just started getting ridiculous. I was wading through it, hopping along in a futile attempt to choose the less muddy patches of mud, when almost falling over I just started laughing--in the middle of the Meseta, covered in mud, all by myself. The whole thing was ridiculous--peeing out in the middle of a wide open field hoping a train doesn't race by, wincing with pain every other step (it was suggested in Calzadilla that I see a doctor), and now falling over as I tried to avoid the avoidable mud. 

After having a good laugh about it all I was in much better spirits. It was actually a turning point for me. And, now that I was ready to appreciate it, the rest of the trail held some truly spectacular vistas. 

Helped perhaps by the solitude you could really feel the history of the place as you walked over it. Thousands of people have continually walked this very path since Roman times or before. 

OK...and there was still a lot more mud. I found this arrow to be amusing...I had to be very creative to get around this pond. 

At some points things even started to look a bit like Asian rice paddies. I found the reflections of the clouds to be particularly spectacular.  

Finally a few trees!

Not only can you watch the landscapes change as you walk across the regions of Spain, you can also tell  where you are by watching the change in graffiti indicating which region of Spain is upset or wants to succeed. Up until then I didn't even know that Leon had a beef with the system. 

Ah, and finally Mansilla! I walked in the last bit with my friends from Valencia after spotting the husbands (next picture) rolling cigarettes and waiting by the side of the road. 

They left me there because my plans were to catch a bus the rest of the way into Leon. My guidebook had said that the entrance to Leon from Mansilla was the worst of the entire Camino including a dangerous bridge. After the unpleasant experience walking in through the industrial waste and suburbs of Burgos, I was seriously contemplating the "frequent buses" that left from Mansilla straight to Leon. 

Also, as stubborn as I am, I was willing to concede that my swollen ankle was not looking good. I actually went to the doctor's office in Mansilla where I was told they treated pilgrims for free (even though I knew they would just tell me to ice it and stop walking 20 miles a day on it...) but it was closed. When I made it to the bus station it turned out that "frequent" was a bit of a stretch--there were no more buses for the day.

I walked to the hostel, still unsure of what to do. I could take a taxi into Leon straight away that afternoon--so I would already be in Leon to see the Easter morning processions the next morning, or I could take a taxi the next day, Easter morning, into Leon...or, my stubbornness kicking in, I could just suck it up (or...drug it up) and walk in the brief hike the next day.

Decision making is not my strenght when I am at my best, but by the end of the long day I really couldn't make up my mind. I was polling my friends at the albergue, and decided I would go ask the volunteer running the hostel what she thought. By that point I was leaning towards staying for the night but unsure whether to walk or taxi the next day. As I went to the reception area the door of the hostel opened and almost hit me. I couldn't believe who it was! It was my retired Sevillan friend Juanma. I hadn't seen them since Burgos when I left for Cantabria. I thought they would be days ahead of me, but walking so fast, I had caught them. I saw him and his wife Maica, and it sealed the deal for me--I would stay the night.

Right after that I saw my friend Sylvia from Germany (whom I also hadn't seen for days) from the window and knew that with so many friends here it was the right choice to stay. On top of that Sylvia offered me a place in their shared taxi for the next morning to Leon--we would split the cost and be there in time to see all of the Easter morning activities.

Almost sold, but still feeling like maybe I should walk (which looking back seems ridiculous!), my friend Maica told me--I think your year long sabbatical deserves a day of sabbatical. I was sold!

Next stop--Leon!

(Ha, and it was also at this albergue where I met a Spanish guy who, when I introduced myself, said, Ooooh, you're the Texan! I'm still confused as to what and how he heard about me!)