Qarku i Elbasanit

After a nice french toast breakfast with the hostel crew, Jan and me left around noon to Elbasan. On the way out of Tirana we cycled through an area of newly build fancy houses. After about 15km we reached the bottom of a pretty big mountain that we had to pass. There were three ways to Elbasan, but only one of them is suitable by bicycle. Ian sent me a message the day before to tell me which one not to take - super helpful. 😅 The main road involves a pretty long tunnel, so that doesn't work out. Another one has a pretty steep uncycable mountain. So we were left with option 3, a 900m elevation but doable mountain with stunning views. We slowly cycled up, each of us with an own pace, and took some snack breaks on the way together. At one point, a huge dog ran besides me along a pretty small fence. Got a huge fright and thought he would jump the fence, but luckily he didn't. 😅 We were almost on top of the mountain when we again stopped at an amazing view point, where we were joined by another German bikepacker shortly after. We had a chat, took some pictures and moved on after some while. The ride on top of the mountain as well as the way down was simply amazing. 😍

We arrived in Elbasan around 5:30pm and set up our tents in the backyard of a restaurant, which happens to be a campground as well. Also, there was a Lavash (car wash) station infront of the restaurant which also seemed to belong to the same place. 😄 Jan and me decided to cyclethe 4km into Elbasan for a stroll around the city. About half way there, Jan suddenly had a puncture in his front tyre. Obviously, we didn't bring anything to fix it with us since we left all our luggage at the camp. In the end, I cycled to Elbasan by myself, Jan went back to fix the tyre. After a stroll around town (not that much to see honestly, but maybe I was in the wrong place), I got some groceries for dinner and cycled back. This time I took the main road though, there were too many dogs on the other road I took into town and it was already dark.

Back in the camp, we cooked pasta and had a nice chat with a German couple who arrive in a van. They also offered us watermelon, which was nice. :) Since it got pretty cold at night already, I went into my tent early, phone called with a friend and eventually went to sleep. :) Tomorrow I'm heading to Berat, where I'll meet up again with Lucas, Chris, and Jon. 😊Read more