Travel Blog: Ohrid to Tirana

Having done up Ohrid to the point where some might have thought it wise to leave town, we all decided it was time to leave town. That meant that the others continued their counter-clockwise journey while I continued my clockwise one to…Tirana, Albania.

After an excruciatingly long and slow bus ride which went about an hour out of the way we arrived. But before that the Four Musketeers had to say their goodbyes. It was with mixed feelings that I parted finally with the others as they were all headed Skopje way and I to the west.

Since I haven’t given you a map of late…here are the travels to date including the way to Skopje, it bombs out after that.

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Now I had been advised to skip off the bus at Elbasani, but I had met a Hungarian woman, Linda, and a Canadian girl, who has no name and wasn’t all the friendly or gracious, that might need some assistance. So I stayed on the bus all the way through.

(For those travelers in the audience. When going from Struga, Macedonia to Tirana, Albania it is good to get off the bus in Elbasani, Albania and ask ‘ne Tirane’ until you find a mini-bus going that way as it will shave about an hour off the travel time. The other direction doesn’t work that way unfortunately as the detour is before Elbasani and you would have to do something like time your arrival there to be before the bus…it could be done but is far more logistically challenging.)

Right so, we get to Tirana without incident, without having to pay 10 euro and without them collecting up my registration card from Macedonia which I think is just an artifact of a time long gone.

Even without speaking the language I managed to get a group of taxi drivers into some sort of philosophical discussion and I was amazed by the number of people that didn’t speak English considering I was told they love America and all sorts of crap. Actually, the Canadian girl used a phone proffered by a taxi driver who thought he would get a fare out of it (i.e. he was used), and the Hungarian woman couldn’t make up her mind where to stay. So all my time and exertions were for naught, such is the life of the traveling Samaritan at times.

Finally I said screw it and climbed into a taxi to meet Martina and her friend Brisilda, a local. With only minor communication breakdown where the driver thought I needed a hostel (which is literally 50 meters from where I’m staying) I arrived and was greeted. We dropped our bags, chatted for a bit and then made our way down to eat and then see the town. As it was already dark at this point I knew there was little to be done in regards to photography as I don’t have a tripod or a steady enough hand but it was fun nonetheless. It gave me a feel for the flavor of the city and the people. While I haven’t chatted with a great deal of them they all seem to be somewhat friendly.

Initial impressions of Tirana, Albania:

• It’s the place where things end up when they do not sell in America after 10 years.
• The Tirana Symphony consists of car horns, squeaking brakes and revving engines.
• None of the places in the tourist book actually exist or have moved or changed names.

There was nothing really exciting to report from the first night so I’ll just give you a respite from my ramblings and leave you with some photos (when I can upload them finally). At this point, while I generally say I can get a feel for a place within the first 12 hours I have to leave it for another day as I didn’t really see the city as I wanted to.