Arrival and First Days in Albania

Overlooking the Highway from Shkodra

When I was planning my trip to Vermosh, I made the mistake that many travelers make in assuming that things were going to follow my initial plans. Outside of guided tour groups, this rarely happens, and it's best to assume the worst, and hope for the best when traveling in this part of the world (or in general). Fortunately, I made it out the other side no worse for wear, and with some fantastic stories to boot.

Arrival at Podgorica International Airport

I decided to fly into Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, both because it's closer physically to what was to be our meeting point in northern Albania, Shkodra, and because I'd never been anywhere in the Balkans, and I wanted to get another country under my belt. I didn't know what to expect from Podgorica or from Montenegro, but I happened to be sitting next to an Aussie semi-exile from the country who filled me in on all the grandeur that is Montenegrin culture and history, most of which washed over me, leaving just the faint impression that I was about to experience something spectacular. 

Vladimir Vysovsky Monument in Podgorica

Well, that didn't happen. Podgorica lived up to its reputation as a standard Soviet-style concrete monstrosity. I can't fault the city for this; it was bombed to rubble during the war, and during its time as Titograd, it was rebuilt in much the same fashion as other cities of its time, with an abundance of substance and an unfortunate lack of style. I enjoyed some good food and company, though, so it wasn't a complete loss, and I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of travel mates who were making their way throughout the country. 

Lake Skadar

In Podgorica, I found out that I wasn't going to be able to go directly to Shkodra as I'd planned, as the cross border highway was still under construction. Under the communist regimes of Yugoslavia and Albania, there was no cross border traffic, all road and rail lines were severed, and nobody had a car anyway (in Albania, anyway), so the connections between Albania and its neighbors have been in the process of reconstruction over the past few years. I decided to see the coast en route, having read about a lovely little majority Albania city called Ulqin, which lies almost directly on the border, one hour away from Shkodra.

Ulqin is a great example of the consequences of unplanned development. The city itself sprawls out around its popular beach, filled with tourist traps and dilapidated storefronts. We'd heard from the owner of our hostel in Podgorica that it was best to stay outside of town, so we grabbed a severely overpriced taxi and drove 20 km to the outskirts. Our goal was to make it to Bojana Island, and to find one of the mythical bungalows that were supposed to dot the island and the river the surrounded it. Instead, on what was probably a 95 degree day, we were dropped off in the middle of a field, with no guesthouses in sight, outside of a few questionable homesteads, all of which looked to have been built using Scarface as a template. 

Ulqin Old Town Center

We weren't quite sure how far the beach was, where the island was, or where we were, so we went up to one of the houses to see if we could find answers to one or all of these questions. It turned out that this, like all of the houses in the area, doubled as a guesthouse, and would give us a room for the budget-breaking price of 20 euros a night. That wasn't really an option, so we hoisted our backpacks and made our way back down the road, hoping that the heat wouldn't finish up off before we made it to water. About 30 minutes later, a bus pulled up, driver by a toothless but friendly Kosovar. He threw what I can only assume was Serbian (Montenegrin) at us, and when we responded with blank stares, asked in broken English where we were going. He offered us a ride, which is when I saw his Berlin license plates. Hoping for the best, I asked him in German where he was from, to which he lit up, seeing that we actually shared a language in common. What followed was a truly surreal experience, speaking German with a Kosovar in Montenegro, and relaying our conversation back to my two travel companions in English, even though both of were German. Who knows why, but that just seemed right at the time.

View from our Guesthouse in Ulqin

The Kosovar, it turns out, had been some kind of dissident during Yugoslav times, and had lived in the Ulqin area. It wasn't clear, but we were fairly certain that he said he had been a partisan in some kind of armed insurrection that was put down by the Yugoslav authorities, and he had to flee the country as a result. Fortunately for us, he knew both the area and the local people very well, and found us a great place to stay for 6 euros a night. Sitting in the room later, I thought about how different this story would have ended a few years ago. The Kosovar was a sight to behold, grizzled and worn, and there's no way I would have accepted his generosity and help. But for whatever reason, he seemed trustworthy at the side of the road this time, and it's fortunate that we were in a trusting mood (the sun probably helped us to that decision, though).

Our neighbor in Ulqin

After a comfortable day at the beach and a enlightening evening of conversation with a group of Serbian girls from Belgrade, one of whom it turned out lived in Chicago, I turned in, and woke up the next day for the final leg of my pre-journey, the bus from Ulqin to Shkodra. This was supposed to be the last part of the trip that I would undertake on my own, but ended up being the start of a series of headaches and stressful evening.

I'd been emailing back and forth with the woman who had originally responded to my inquiry about B3P, but right before I left for Ulqin, she stopped replying. Since she had received my earlier missives from the road, I figured everything was alright, and that I should just continue on as planned. I wrote with my arrival time, and assumed that she, or someone else, would be in Shkodra to meet me at the bus station, as we'd discussed in earlier emails. The first sign that I had made a serious mistake was when we stopped after an hour in an alleyway, and people started to get off the bus. Most of my erstwhile fellow travelers were herded onto another bus headed for Tirana, the capital, and I soon found myself alone in a strange alleyway with a few other stragglers, none of whom were from B3P. 

Mother Theresa framed by Shkodra Mosque

When you have no idea where you are, sometimes its best to just start walking, and that's what I did. I quickly realized that my slavic fallbacks like Marshrutka and Stanica were of no use here, since Albanian has no common linguistic heritage with its neighbors. Autobus, though, is universal, and all of the shopkeepers seemed to point me in the same direction, which led me to an intersection where a few large passenger buses and smaller sprinter vans were parked, surrounded by a crowd of men in capri pants, barking in Albanian and occasional English about Tirana and some other cities I wasn't familiar with. It quickly became apparent that this was, in fact, the bus station for Shkodra, or at least one of them. Because there was no internal travel during the communist era, unlike in the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, there are no bus stations in Albania. That means that buses tend to leave from seemingly randomly chosen locations throughout the city, and the only way to find out where these are is generally to consult a knowledgeable local. 

Main Street in Shkodra

It was also clear that no one had come to meet me at this ersatz station, so I considered my options. I had fortunately looked up a hostel before leaving, so I knew that, worst case, I could always go there. I decided that the best option was to find an internet cafe, try to get in touch with my contacts, and if need be, go over to the hostel to wait it out. Shkodra is a relatively small city of less than 100,000 people, and as I found out, I was actually standing right smack dab in the center. After finding nothing new in my inbox, I made my way over to the hostel, where I stewed for a couple of hours before heading to bed. Lying there, in the 90 something degree heat, feeding the local mosquitoes and enjoying the hypnotic buzzing of the myriad horseflies, I decided that I was going to give it another shot, and I asked the girl at the front desk if I could use her phone. 

Catholic Belltower framed by Minarets in Shkodra

My only real option at this point was to just send out a mass email to everyone on the mailing lists I'd received, which is what I did, and fortunately, within a few minutes I started getting responses. One of them directed me to a nearby restaurant, San Francisco, which turned out to be run by the head of B3P Albania, a local wing of the NGO (the larger organization is run out of the UK). I made my way over there, nervously hopeful, and met Nic. 

Nic moved to the States around 20 years ago and opened up a bodega/restaurant. He recently returned to Albania, and set up shop in the center of Shkodra. If you meet him, he'll tell you about his genuine American-style burgers, and I can vouch that they are legitimately delicious. I'm incredibly thankful that I ended up at San Francisco that night, not because I wouldn't have made it to Vermosh otherwise (although I'm not sure how I would have), but because after a day of stress and worry, I was finally able to put my mind at ease. Nic was going to take care of me. 

Horses grazing in center of Shkodra

The next day, I got up early, and headed up to the north of town with Nic. Although it was a Sunday, there was quite a bit of traffic, and it was clear that the city was of the seven day sort. The "bus station" to go north was the parking lot of a cafe facing a large grassy boulevard. Nic sat me down, bought me a coffee, and told me to wait until I saw a minibus with "Vermosh" written on the side. It could come at anytime, apparently, so I had to be mindful. Hours passed. My eyes watered from the stress, and my brow was drenched with sweat, as the morning was succeeded by the blistering sun of the early afternoon. Horsecart and Mercedes drove side by side, and every half hour a wedding procession would drive by, honking their horns and waving at bored pedestrians. After 7 or 8 hours, I gave up, and made my way back to the center, whereupon Nic gave me the keys to his guesthouse, and I bedded down for a well earned nap. 

View from the Guesthouse in Shkodra

The next day, we headed out a bit later to the stop. This time was going to be different, as it turned out that Nic had made a small, but understandable mistake. Not knowing the schedule, as there was none, he hadn't been informed that the minibus to Vermosh never runs on Sundays. This time, though, he was sure it would come, and when he left me with my coffee, he said a more convincing goodbye. Unfortunately for me, when he left, I felt the first rumbling in my stomach, and within an hour I was in the bathroom, suffering through the initial consequences of the food sickness that I'd picked up the night before. When the bus arrived, I knew I had a fun five hours ahead of me on the pockmarked one-lane dirt road that connects Shkodra and the Vermosh valley. 

View from the road to Vermosh

The five hours passed slowly, but I eventually made it to Vermosh, pulling up to the guesthouse where I was to stay for the following 3 weeks as the sun set lazily over the valley. I can't say that given another chance I'd hope to repeat the experience the same way, especially considering that I spent my first days in Vermosh in bed with only a bucket as company. But I've come to enjoy the trials and tribulations of the road, since they tend to do no lasting harm and make life a lot more interesting.