Sarande Sunsets

Today was equally as uneventful as yesterday – although perhaps a little more emotionally significant. We checked out of our hotel and said goodbye to Lewis, who was heading towards Turkey. Given that I'd been travelling with him since Žabljak in Montenegro, it was pretty sad to say goodbye. These things happen when you're travelling, though, and I'm sure we'll stay in contact. Although he's Australian, he's from Perth, so realistically, it's unlikely we'll cross paths again anytime soon.

It would only be a couple more days before Erin and I also went our separate ways. Until then, we'd managed to find accommodation for a couple of nights in Sarandë. Erin and I had become quite close during our travels, but she was also heading towards Turkey in a couple of days. Meanwhile, I needed to get back on track with my itinerary if I was going to make it through Slovenia, northern Italy, southern France, Spain and Portugal in the roughly six weeks I had left. She tried to convince me to join her in Turkey, but it just didn't make sense. I'll be there myself in a couple of months for a tour anyway, so I'd rather stick to my original plan. Still, it's one of the harder parts of travelling. You meet people, become close, spend weeks together, and then eventually have to say goodbye knowing you may never see each other again. But I suppose that's just how travelling works.

Before we could check into our new accommodation, we had to get a taxi there because we no longer had the car. This ended up being the biggest fuck-around and probably the closest we'd come to being properly scammed so far. We were quoted €30 to get up into the hills, and although I was keen to walk for a little while first, we decided to just pay for the taxi and save ourselves the effort. The driver arrived and we jumped in, but the traffic was horrendous. We barely moved for the first half hour, and the driver seemed increasingly stressed. I eventually told him we could just pay part of the fare and get out so he could go and do other trips, but he insisted it was fine. About half an hour later, he increased the price because of the amount of time the journey was taking. We figured that was probably fair given the circumstances, and by that point we didn't have much choice anyway.

Then, just as we finally escaped the city and the traffic cleared, he told us he couldn't drive any further because his workday was finished. We had about another 10 minutes of driving left. Instead, he dropped us off and told us we'd have to walk the remaining 30 minutes. He then asked for €40. I argued that we hadn't even been taken to our destination, so it seemed pretty unreasonable to expect the full amount. He wasn't budging, though, and eventually we had little choice but to pay it. It was incredibly annoying, but I suppose these things happen when you're travelling. After a 30-minute walk through the midday heat carrying our massive bags, we finally arrived at the hotel. Thankfully, the family running the place were incredibly lovely. They even told us that if they'd known we didn't have a car, they would have come and picked us up themselves.

We planned to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day, but then the family offered to drive us down to the beach. Given that we no longer had a car, it seemed like the easiest opportunity we'd get to make the most of the afternoon, so we accepted. It actually ended up being really nice. The weather hadn't been great, so there weren't many people around, but luckily it cleared up almost as soon as we arrived. We spent the afternoon doing very little – having some drinks by the beach and relaxing until the sun started to set. We then moved over to the rockface overlooking the water so we could properly enjoy the sunset. It was pretty special. Afterwards, we stuck around for some drinks and food. We'd become incredibly sick of shitty Albanian pasta, pizza and burgers, so when we saw sushi on the menu, we had to jump at something a bit fresher. It was about €17 each, which was more expensive than we'd been paying for most meals, but at that point we desperately needed something different. And it was actually fantastic. It was some of the best sushi I've ever eaten. I'd always heard that Europe had terrible Asian food, but this was my first real experience trying it, and I was seriously impressed. Maybe it was simply because it wasn't another plate of Albanian pasta, but either way, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After dinner and a couple more cocktails, it was time to head home. The only problem was that we had a massive walk back up the steep hills, and after our taxi experience earlier in the day, we were absolutely not getting another one. So, we grabbed a couple of roadies and started walking. We stopped for a drink whenever necessary, eventually making our way back to the hotel completely exhausted.Read more