Day 63/64 - Back in Sarandë

It was Nele's last day in Sarandë before catching a ferry back to Corfu the next day. Again we wanted to get to the Blue Eye, either hitchhiking or by bus. Attempt Nr. 3..😅 It was a little too late for either option already, we slept in and got stuck chatting with hostel people until at least 2pm. So we finally gave up going there after all and went into Sarandë for some second hand clothes shopping (not that I have room for that in luggage 😅🙈). However, business hours in Albania are strange and many shops are closed during the day but you would find them open at 10pm. We both found some nice clothes though. I so many days of rain I finally got myself a proper rain coat (funny one with sea animals on it including their names, such as Mr. Crabs) and a warm sweater. We eventually got surprised by rain again and rescued ourselves into a coffee shop, again. 😀
In the afternoon, the sun actually came out and we went to a beach outside Sarandë where we met up with the hostel people. Even though it wasn't that warm anymore I went for a swim. In the evening we were playing shithead again in the hostel, cooking and sharing food, and having a good time sitting together. :))

The next morning, Nele and me had porridge breakfast together and said goodbye around noon. Not sure what to do with my day, I joined Victor, another Victor from Switzerland (who I randomly met again in Vreece a few days later), Fabio, Dimitri, and Mike for a very delicious fish soup in a local restaurant nearby. After, we decirer to go up the castle for sunset (according to Victor that's a must do 😅). It took us around 1.5h to get up there, some of us where taking it really slow and we have to wait for them all the time, which was fine though. 😅 On the way we also found one of the thousand little one-man bunkers that are everywhere in Albania. I had a look inside, certainly wouldn't want to spend much time in there even though I'm not claustrophobic. 😅 On top of the hill (we missed sunset by a few minutes but the most beautiful colours appear after sunset anyways..), we found a poor little monkey in a cage probably belonging to the restaurant. We fed him some nuts and a banana and refilled his water. It was sad to see and certainly not the kind of attraction tourists would want to see.. we left a bad google reference for the restaurant but only referring to the monkey, cannot say anything about the food..
The view from up there was amazing though, one could see all over Sarandë, Corfu, and also in the direction of Ksamil. After a while it was raining slightly so we decided to head back to the hostel. We were planning on having a nig movie night in the downstairs hangout area and got some snacks for it along the way. We were watching a movie called 'The art of travelling' on YouTube, which was entertaining to watch as a group as we would comment on it all the time ironically. ;) It got pretty late when I went to bed and I planned on cycling to Greece the next day.. I'm already used to lack of sleep from hostels by now though. 😴 😅Read more