One piece of advice I give for travel but rarely follow myself is not to box yourself into a schedule corner. Even with domestic travel, airlines have maintenance, weather happens, things go wrong. My itineraries almost always include back up schedules, particularly when trains and buses are involved as Plans B are easier to come by.
Naturally, I took not one second of my own advice when planning how to get from Ohrid to Reykjavík, where I was meeting a friend for New Year’s Eve. And somehow, I miscalculated times and booked myself on a 15.50 flight leaving Tiranë for London. (Unsurprisingly, there are no TIA-KEF directs.)
The night before, I was packing and mentally preparing for the travel day when it dawned on me that I wouldn’t have too much time in Albania. Google Maps said that the journey between Struga and Tiranë was usually around 2.5 hours, which would put me into town at noon. I realized quickly I had neglected to factor in border time (assumed an hour based on how those things go) which meant 13.00 arrival... and then my paranoid brain hopped on actual Google to find stories of 5+ hour trips on the bus route.
I PANICKED. Full on looking up new flights, trying to figure out if the 4am bus still runs or if that was seasonal, and otherwise stressing myself out.
Eventually I settled on the world’s most privileged solution to any problem: throw money at it, this time in the form of a taxi. From a few posts, I gleaned I could get a ride for about 120€. I proceeded to sleep fitfully with a plan to take a taxi to Albania or – if no one would take me – at least to Struga where I’d roll my dice with the international bus.
My fears were confirmed the next morning when the hotel owner shot me a look like I was insane when I asked her to call the cab company and see if a ride to Tiranë was possible. She laughed and shrugged and said, “we’ll ask...” Anxiety went to relief not two minutes later when her skeptical look turned to a smirk on the phone call (all I could discern from the rapid-fire Macedonian was that she’d repeated Албанија when asked – I assume – to clarify) and she announced that the driver wanted 100€ and could pick me up in 10 minutes. The driver arrived, I asked for a quick bancomat run (through the hotel owner), and we were off.
The drive itself was pretty straightforward: back up around the lake, passing Struga, into the hills, over the border, through the snow, back down, through a few towns, and into city center. My driver’s English was a bit better than my Macedonian, but communication was still difficult… which of course meant I had to occupy myself by taking photos.
Albania was always a bit of a question mark in my mind. Many Italian friends and family have opinions on the country which I always took with a grain of salt; after visiting, I understood some degree of their views. My Macedonian taxi driver was even more firm in his opinions, cracking jokes like, “look, Albania car wash!” when we encountered a wildly flailing garden hose, left on and walked away from by the side of the road. (I could have sworn I had a photo of this, but no such luck! I saw no fewer than five such “car washes.”)
They say that every country has a country that they shit on, and all signs pointed to Albania being the much abused, younger sibling type.
I’ve certainly never been one to eschew a location on the basis of loosely controlled chaos – quite to the contrary, I love the boisterous, frenetic energy of the Napolis of the world. On that level alone, it was the right destination for me, and I’m sure it deserves a longer visit at some point in the future.
