Now it seems that I don’t find the time or energy to write. But sat here in southern Greece, sat by the sea, I am in good spirits.
So from our campsite in dubrovnik we met a couple of guys from Dorset hicthing around Europe. Sonja and Gabriel, a couple of friends who live simple, slightly eccentric lives in the south of England were nice to hang with for a day. It’s good to have new blood and different ideas, for different conversations. So being that they were headed to Montenegro, like us, alex offered them a ride. We all stopped off in budva to have lunch. It was strange to be sat by large expensive yachts, eating Chinese, in a strange little country in south east Europe. The food was great, and after we said goodbyes to our new friends. I hope to see the again at some point.
So next up we had a shitty drive to Podogorica. First up, our ‘go europe’ book doesn’t cover a great chunk of this part of Europe, so we are left with no idea of language, culture, currency, accomodation or sights. So we let our visions from the film casino royale guide us to podogorica, Montenegro’s capital. We expected lush streets lined with expensive cars, and casinos, well at least one. It couldn’t have been further from that. It was run down, with nothing worth staying for. No sign of an old town, just crumbling industry and rusting vehicles. So we decided, although already late in the day, to head south towards Albania, also unknown in our guide book.
Having reached the outskirts of podogorica we saw a hitched, who sounded like he asked us in French if we head to Albania, so we did a quick u-turn. It turned out he was American, and we had a new companion for a while, Justin. I think he was in his early thirties and has been travelling, mainly hitching, around Europe for 10 and a half years. He spend around three years in each country working, and manages to master the language if staying longer. I think he must be returning to the US every now and then. He seemed very timid for one who is so well travelled, buy very amiable and knowledgable.
So we got to the Albanian boarder, and did I mention that alex’s father hadn’t left the van to us with insurance papers? So we have to pay for local insurance, as well as road tax in each country that we go to now. The road in Albania started off so poorly that we could barely make 40kmh. We made it to the first city, and lost, de to the lack of road signs, justin and I hopped out to ask for directions. We bumbled into what we thought was an info centre, which turned out to the the office of a political party, the Serbian minority party of Albania. The president was a very genial guy, and sent us off with another guy to show us which way to go, and meet a random man on a street corner to exchange some money. So now armed with some leke, and the direction to travel in we headed back to the bus. Justin asked us if we’d mind him joining us for the night, so we all stuck together for the night. I think he wanted some companionship, being a little homesick.
So we managed to grab some food, super low cost, great! And we continued south. The idea was to rough it for the night, to camp out in the open, being that there is no tourist industry, there are no campsites. This proved rather troublesome for re group, as we all had different ideals. Justin was easy and comfortable, alex worried about leaving the van, ian anxious about sleeping on private land, courtney worried about all, not havining a good gut feeling about it all, and I was happy with anywhere, as long as we diet have to sleep in the van. So with much trepidation, we finally set up camp on a grass track, glow flys all around us, 100m from a farm, but shielded by some trees. We had an early sleep, and an early rise due to concerns about being woken up by an angry farmer with a shot gun.
Soon after, we said our goodbyes to justin who wanted to make his was to the coast and do some writing. His plan is to spend some months in Iran, but he doubts he will get there before headin to the US first. I look forward to Reading of his travels.
Albania, a place I beleive to be one of the poorest countries in Europe, is by far the bizarrest. The people are amazingly friendly. Everywhere they are building, and everybody has a mercedes Benz. Some are old, but many are not. I would guess at 75% of all vehicles being benz’s. Where do they come from? Which then brings me onto the question of why there are so many cars, mainly Benz’s, with British of german registration plates? We never worked this out, but they were definately not driven by Brits. Maybe stolen?
So we went to Tirana for breakfast, a crazy little city, all colorful. Like Africa on the outskirts and America by the centre.
I drove us on through the Albanian country side. There are two highways through the country, one from Montenegro to tirana, crazy drivers in abundance, and the other from Tirana to macadonia. So we covered all of these. The whole way is single carriageway, sometimes running along cliffs, even making it’s way along a ridge, absolutly beautiful.
Next up into Macedonia, a country not in the eu, but trying. Strangely enough I still prefered Albania to Montenegro and Macedonia. We stopped by a great lake in a place called ohrid. Super touristy, but cheap enough for lunch and make facebook contact. We’ve been trying to get the contact details of a girl. That courtney kind of knows near Athens. I finished the 10hour drive at a campsite by the beach at the foot of mt. Olympus.
Yesterday alex driving and I think we were lost in re outskirts of Athens, the target destination for our trip, but we were trying to find a campsite out of town, so here we are near marathon. Oddly enough our campsite also has a restaurant open to locals. A beautiful view over looking the sea, atop a cliff, so last night we treated ourselves and had a drink and bite to eat. Yum!!
As a group we ate having some seriously deep and heated discussions. We are all intelligent, stubborn, opinionated people, so it makes for interesting evenings, inbetween the games of asshole.
So our target of Athens reached, we plan on staying around for maybe four days. We need some rest time, plus to see Athens.
So iPod battery is dying so I better head back to the camp.