The Albanian Alps

Today, I met up with Erin in the morning to organise everything for our hike the following day. The Wanderers Hostel is usually the go-to place for backpackers doing the Valbona-to-Theth hike, but unfortunately, it was fully booked for the dates we wanted. Instead, we found a pretty shitty hostel down the road and simply paid a little extra to join the hike through Wanderers. It was worth it. A bunch of the mates we'd met along the way were doing the hike through them, and we wanted to join the group. It also worked out cheaper than some of the other options we'd looked at because Wanderers specifically caters towards backpackers.

Once the hike was organised, there wasn't too much else on the agenda. We spent most of the day wandering around Shkodër, exploring beyond the main strip that I'd already seen the day before. We discovered that Mother Teresa was Albanian, so we checked out a few monuments dedicated to her before heading out for some drinks. While we were making our way towards the bars, we randomly ran into Lewis.

This was particularly surprising because Lewis had been without a phone for quite some time, so there was no way we'd been able to organise meeting up. Pure coincidence. Luckily, it worked out perfectly, and we spent some time together before eventually heading back for the night. With a huge couple of days ahead of us, getting some proper sleep was probably a good idea.

Shkodër is a beautiful little town, although we didn't end up doing its biggest attraction: Lake Shkodër. The reason was pretty simple - money. We'd looked into hiring bikes to explore the lake, but they were more expensive than we'd expected. At this point in the trip, I had to start taking my budget a little more seriously. I'd expected to have sold my car before leaving Australia, and I hadn't properly accounted for the fact that I hadn't. That meant it was time to start being a bit more frugal. So, no bikes and no lake. To be fair, walking around Shkodër was enough. It was a cool little town and gave me a good first impression of Albania.

More importantly, though, it was time to get some rest. Tomorrow, the Albanian Alps.Read more