A Hakobus to Puke

Albania

Benjami and Thomasji came exploding from Lauren’s apartment building like processed cheese from an over-microwaved pizza pop. They were late for their bus to Albania, and it was the only one that day. Half figure skating, half snowshoeing, they traversed the Macedonian parking lot that had called home for the past twelve hours. With Lauren negotiating the fare, they hopped acrobatically with their backpacks and guitar into a passing taxi and were ferried off to the station. Queen Lauren virtuously purchased a bus ticket for her unscrupulous freeloader of a guest (Thomas), as neither he nor Ben had any money. “What losers”, she most certainly must have thought, as they rode off in the empty bus, already lulled to sleep by the mechanical songs of the disgruntled engine.

The frigid pass between Macedonia and Albania in February.

Meet Mr. Coffee and Ms. Cigarette, my two most
commonly photographed subjects.

Before entering Albania, we had a 3-hour stopover in a border town called Stugart. I tried for each one of those hours to find a decent toilet into which I could conduct business. As they might say in India: “not possible”. The toilets in India, if you’d call them that, were pretty bad. Still, I don’t remember a single time over the course of five months when I gazed down at one in horror and chickened out. This is exactly what happened to me in this small Macedonian border town. The only one in town I could find was disgusting, below zero centigrade, waterless, soapless, and toilet-paperless. Eventually, in our desperation, Ben and I bought some Kleenex and used the seatless women’s toilet at the bus station. It’s true that nearly all the staff and customers laughed at us, but it was a small price to pay for the prevention of a chocolate avalanche that was about to unfold in our pants. We spent our last few cents on a bag of pretzels for breakfast before being lectured for not visiting the oldest lake in Europe (which we had apparently just passed in the bus) by a man with about a 100001 business cards (I should start a collection).

I'd tell you where this bus is going, but
I'd rather show you instead.

The first thing I noticed about Albania was that there was much less snow. The second thing I noticed was that nearly everyone I saw from the bus window was standing around with garden hoses watering the pavement. Then I noticed the abundance of short, bald, Albanian men smoking cigarettes and chewing with their mouths open. They were either completely covered in denim, or wearing jeans and leather jackets. Finally, I noticed that both the language and the currency had yet again changed. It was our third country in three days.

Rumour has it (in other words: "I can’t be bothered to validate the following claim") that Albania is the poorest country in Europe. The Reds (Stalinist) kept the country quite isolated until they lost power in the early 1990s. Driving through the countryside, I felt as if we were in India again. Houses are crowned with water tanks, ditches are filled with garbage, the roads are in terrible condition, and the people look poor. I learned later that 98% of households don’t have any kind of wastewater treatment facility. For every old, ramshackle building there is a skeleton of something either unfinished or abandoned. We drove by a legitimate garbage dump located in the meridian of the national highway. There is rubble everywhere.

I smoked a cigarette, and so did Ben. We were trying to stop, but we’d somehow been given three free packs, from three different people, in the last four days.

Ben and I, sitting on our bags in a crowded Tirana bus.

 We arrived in the capital, Tirana, in the dark, around 4 hours later than intended. Tirana is a whole different story from the rest of Albania: it is a modern, hip, well-lit metropolis, complete with crosswalks and BMWs. We heard from someone that all the money poured into the country thanks to philanthropic EU policies stays in Tirana. Then again, we hear a lot of things.

We met our Couchsurfing hostess, Sabine, in front of a grocery store. I had never actually spoken to her before, but had instead been arranged to stay with her by the guy who had initially agreed to host us, who had recently moved to Nicaragua on a whim. Sabine, a very friendly, very busy, down to earth graduate student, is his ex-roommate. She was our first encounter with a true, dedicated Couchsurfer. Even as we were walking in the door, two other guests were putting on their bags and getting ready to leave. The apartment was hospitable, clean, comfortable, and warm (and everything else that the rest of Albania didn’t seem to be).

Ingrid from Tirana.

That night, we went to a Couchsurfer get-together at a backpacker hostel. We sat around, talking, drinking, and meeting people from all over the world. We met Ingrid, who brought us to the bus (there isn’t a single bus station in the nation’s capital; buses are simply scattered around the city in an arbitrary manner and you’re meant to “just know” when/if they leave) the next morning, and to the market for poor people like Ben. He bought a $10 pair of used leather shoes. She then called her friend who drove to find us so that he could give Ben a used coat (which was great in retrospect, because his Nepalese raincoat has since dismantled itself spontaneously).

And that was it- we entered, crossed, and left Albania in less than 24 hours.

Rundown

Language: Albanian

People met: Sabine, Ingrid, Couchsurfers

New beers tried: Korca and Tirana

How they say cheers: Guhzewar

$ spent: 36

# of rides: Zero - We were told hitchhiking in Albania was dangerous?

Distance traveled: 214 km + bus detours

What you might find in my pocket: a Hakobus ticket, a passport with American money, Greek matches, obsidian,
a spork, an inspirational dog tag,  a broken watch, tylenol, an Indian jeans button, a guitar plectrum from Turkey,
a broken LPIRG badge, miscellaneous unspendable coins, and an Indian passport photo.