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elokuuta 2024
  • Chala's Journeys
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  • Chala's JourneysMatkaajaAlbania

    The craziest plan of my life

    21. elokuuta 2024, Itävalta ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    After the flights my mum and me had booked for our vacation to Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro were cancelled and she did no longer want to go and cancelled all the pre-bookings we made, I decided I would make my way there by myself. After all, my Albanian friend John from Boston spent the month of August there to visit family and friends, including me, and we were both excited to finally meet. The trip hadn't even started yet and already it was an adventure. Since I was tight on money until the end of the month, I had to shorten my planned stay from Thursday to Monday and I asked friends if they could borrow me some money for a few days, which they did - I am forever grateful for the friends I made throughout my life. John told me that we would stay with his family and that they'd cover the expenses for food, an act of hospitality I never thought I'd get to experience. Two days before the trip, I booked my flight to Albania and wanted to book the return flight through a different website, as it was significantly cheaper. However, the payment process failed, which I didn't consider to be a big deal and I decided to simply try again the following day. However, I realized then that while the booking did not go through, the money did get withdrawn from my account. After some calls with the provider and my bank, I got reassured that I would receive the money back, however it would take up to 14 days - which didn't help me much, since I needed to somehow get back from Albania to Austria. So there I was, with a flight ticket to Tirana for the following day but no way to get back, since all the remaining flights were way out of my budget by now with the money I had temporarily lost. I called John to brainstorm about what to do now and he suggested that I could take a bus back to Austria. Looking it up, I indeed found a connection that was within my budget - a 20 hour long drive with multiple passport controls through various countries. John told me to consider it as a sightseeing tour, and I was on board. I wanted to go on this trip by all means, so I would.

    After a short night, I would land in Tirana around 9am. From there, I would have to take a taxi to the bus terminal, which would take me to John's city, Përmet, around 3 hours south of Tirana. I had never been in Albania before, neither did I speak the language or had any internet connection to help me find my way as I did not have an Albanian SIM card, and while John and me had been talking almost daily for around a year, we had never met each other before. Everyone that I've told about my trip beforehand considered me to be absolutely crazy, which I did actually agree with, especially given I had not even booked my bus ticket back to Vienna yet as John and me still needed to figure out when and how we would return to Tirana. He still had to figure out with his family in Tirana which days exactly he would stay there until his returning flight to the US on the 30th. In the worst case scenario, I would be stuck in Albania for god knows how long until I could find a way to buy a ticket back to Vienna some way. Of all the adventurous things I had done within my life, this was probably the most daring one so far. And there I was, finally settling into a quiet an peaceful way of living the recent months.

    After spending Monday in Përmet, the main plan was to go to Borsh together, where we would spend the weekend at the beach before returning to Tirana either Sunday or Monday, where we would spend a night at his cousin's place, which was why I could not book the bus ticket back to Vienna yet. All things considered, I already made peace with returning back to Austria with a missing kidney.    Lue lisää

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    Tiranë to Përmet

    22. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    I have no idea how I even managed to wake up in time, but I made my way to the airport at 5am, dancing along to my music on the way. I've never seen it this busy before, but the security check and passport control actually went by swifter than expected. I spent the flight fading in and out of sleep before I finally set foot in Albania. I did it, there was no turning back now. My first impression was dying of heat under palm trees accompanied by a lovely old taxi driver who tried to show me some interesting sights along the way despite struggling with English and who, according to John's price estimate, did not even rip me off too bad. The radio was blasting traditional Albanian music throughout the drive to the bus terminal, where he helped me to find a bus to Përmet. The only one we could find would leave 1,5h afterwards, so I had some time to kill at the busiest, noisiest bus terminal I've ever been to. Given I was on holiday, I decided to get myself two different Albanian beers and sat down in the shade with my bus driver and another local who spoke English and offered me to smoke a joint with him. Gotta give Albanians one thing, they know how to make a good first impression. He then played Albanian hip-hop for us and I started my Shazam journey as well. Two men started yelling at each other some distance away from us. 'Is this normal?' I asked but he just laughed and did not give an answer. This gives me flashbacks to how I met John, but I would rather not display what happened that day. 👀 I started to lose the fear about this trip. Maybe it was just the weed, but the frightened excitement started to turn into a curious excitement. Somehow, this trip would be nothing far from an amazing memory.

    Everywhere along the road, there are new, modern buildings being erected. I've never seen such a rapidly evolving country before. The hilly landscape seemed Mediterranean enough, yet different in the amount of mosques whose minaretts gave it a unique vibe. The donkeys walking along the street gave it a nice flair as well. The further South we got, the more mountainous the terrain became like. This started to feel like a drier and hotter version of Austria. It was around 4pm when we finally reached Përmet and now, after loads of anticipation, it was time to meet the man, the myth, the legend himself. We put my stuff in the room and went out to eat some soufllaqe, a kind of pork shawarma in pita bread with fries, vegetables and tzatziki as snack before walking to climb up the town rock (yes, that's literally its name). Since I was pretty exhausted from the journey, we decided to head back and just have a chill evening inside. However, his aunt and uncle wanted to go grab food with us so we went outside for a walk through town and waited at John's cousin's store for an empty table to get more traditional Albanian food, Patëllxhan të Mbhushur, stuffed and baked eggplant, and Fërgesë, a vegetable stew with cottage cheese. We planned our trip to Gjirokaster the following day. A band performed nearby so we could listen to music during our meal while people danced to it in the street. So many strangers and acquaintances of John approached us, having conversations with us and being helpful in every way. It seems like half of the town has been made aware of my arrival beforehand as I am getting introduced to everyone. The community here is quite strong and lovely. The country itself seems like an alternate universe to me, however. It's a Mediterranean Muslim communist country with alcohol and pork everywhere. We then headed back to his cousin's shop where we met some of his friends. Everyone around us smoked and drank raki while the imam called to prayer. Albania is so surreal.    Lue lisää

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    Gjirokaster

    23. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    Today our plan was to explore Gjirokaster together. We started our day at a café and stacking up on water since during the daytime, it will be a burning hell there. Somehow, it ended in a discussion about American politics within John's family, which was not what I expected waking up to. The conversation continued throughout the car ride to Gjirokaster and was interrupted by John's family giving us the entire history of the region, pointing out ruins and other places of interest within the beautiful, mountainous landscape, before they all shouted at each other disagreeing over Albanian communism. I had the good sense to stay out of it, although it was amusing to listen in. We picked up a friend of John's uncle we ran into in Gijrokaster and went to the ruins of the castle together, from which we had an amazing view of the city and its surroundings. John's uncle had to get the car fixed, so we explored the city with his aunt. It would depend on the state of the car on whether we would go directly to the beach town in the evening or return back to Përmet for the night before going there the morning after, so we brought our bags just in case. By the time the heat set in, we had to stop by a café for some time for cold drinks and I poured the remaining water I had over my head. Given how much sweat I was covered in, it didn't make much of a difference. For lunch, we went to eat at a fancy restaurant that was owned by a friend of John's uncle's friend. Somehow, everyone in Albania knows each other. I was very happy that I had John with me throughout the trip. While his family spoke English, no one else did, at least no one who was older than we are, and the Albanian language is beyond me. I cannot decipher a single word, apart from some loanwords. We ate fried feta cheese, beef chops and pork skewers. Afterwards, we decided to make our way to a beach town called Sarandë. By now, I had developed a taste for Albanian music since I was bombarded with it everywhere and I didn't mind at all, it has a very happy vibe that just makes you want to dance. In short, these songs are absolute fucking bangers. John and me are starting dancing repeatedly, even out on the streets in public since neither of us cares too much about the looks we are getting. But for now, the four of us just put the music on full volume and started a little party in the car while driving through the Albanian mountains.Lue lisää

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    Sarandë

    23. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We arrived in Sarandë and hung out on the balcony for a bit to settle in, charge our phones and figure out our plan of action. I decided to use the time to book my return ticket, only to run into issues with my bank again that could not be solved until Monday. Fuck. Yes. I was done with this shit. Since I would not be able to book anything before figuring out the issue with my bank and would never make it back to Tiranë in time for the bus on Monday morning, John suggested I should just stay with them until he himself drives back to Tiranë to catch his flight, which meant some more days than I had initially planned. I didn't have much of a choice and honestly, even if I had, the idea sounded way too appealing to put down. I was indeed stranded in Albania, at least for now, but we were going to figure something out one way or another. We decided to go to the beach to swim for a bit and then headed on to walk around the promenade. I was starting to realize that I was getting the real Albania experience since I was just with John and his family instead of what a tourist would see, and I was all in for it. We sat down on a bench for some deep and a lot of not at all deep conversations while getting slightly tipsy off of different Albanian beers until we decided to continue walking along the beach front. We encountered some Jehovah's witnesses and had a religious discussion in half Albanian, half English for a while before walking along the beach some more and go for another swim. John's aunt called in the meantime to ask if we wanted to go on a boat tour the next morning. We decided to head back to get changed into some fancier clothes to eat at the seafood restaurant that's owned by a friend of John's dad. We got a seafood platter and grilled seabass while the people at the beach were partying and bombarding us with their music, so we had something to vibe to at the table and also in the middle of the restaurant when the right song came on. We learned that the boat tour would start at 10am and go on all the way till 5pm. John's aunt and uncle would go for the sightseeing deck while they booked tickets for the party deck for John and me. Well, I wasn't planning on staying sober during this trip, but this determined by sure that I wouldn't. After dinner, we were too stuffed to keep doing anything for the rest of the night, so we decided to climb back up the mountain to our place to call it a day. After already almost having two cars crashing into us on the way here, I was aware that traffic rules in Albania aren't considered to be more than a vague guideline, however the absolute chaos we discovered on the streets walking back, the lack of any order despite police presence and the fact that I seemed to be the only person slightly thrown off by this made it very clear that guidelines are meant to not be followed here. After the third shower of the day, which was as needed as the first two, I was ready to pass out on my bed. Or at least, so I thought. We managed to get lost multiple times within the chaos, no one really sure where to go, least of all me, and an awful amount of climbing uphill with a full stomach caused enough tension for angry yelling throughout the streets. Though I did not understand the words, the message was clear. After miraculously finding our way back, I fell into bed and decided not to get up again until someone would drag me onto that boat tomorrow.Lue lisää

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    Boat Party

    24. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    I woke up in the middle of the night. Unable to go back to sleep, I decided to take a late night walk and get some soufflaqe. The next morning, John and me got up early before the boat tour to get some breakfast Byrek and Trileçe to eat by the water before heading to a bistro at the beach to grab coffee and wait for the boat tour to begin. There was party music playing from the start and we knew this would end up being a good day. By the end of my trip, my playlist would consist mostly of Balkan music. We started the tour with some shots of Tequila and conversations with some other tourists. One of them happened to be the owner of the pizza place in my hometown Mistelbach where I used to eat when I was in middle school. The world is so fucking small. I realized that the stairs we had to climb on the floating ship, that already gave me near death experiences sober, we'd soon have to climb piss drunk. For now though, we just decided to dance on deck, both John and me, his aunt and uncle, and the Egyptian guys who are living in Austria as well. As John would put it, we were getting litsky as a motherfucking titsky, and it wasn't even noon yet. From all my experiences I've gathered in the Balkans so far, breakfast drinking is too common to turn down. We made a stop at Krorëza for half an hour where we jumped from the railing to cool off, which lasted for about two minutes once we returned back to the surface and were dying of heat again. We made friends with a Turkish tourist with whom we were swimming around for the next break at Lukovë and got some more shots with. John's aunt and uncle joined us and we had a nice party on deck while awaiting lunch. That was the moment that I realized we were all shitfaced before even making it to lunch. It might be a Muslim country, but even Albania can't escape Balkan alcoholism. We swam some more before returning to deck to have lunch, going back to swim afterwards. We went on to do shots with John's family and our new Turkish friend before stopping at Borsh, where we enjoyed the waves and some drunk conversations. By the time we went back on the ship, there was foam spraying from the roof of the second deck, and we couldn't resist dancing there with other random passengeres who were as - probably not quite as, but close to - drunk as us. We went on to do traditional Albanian circle dances within the foam. This was the most Balkan experience of my life so far. Once the boat let us off back in Sarandë, we went to the closest store that sold cigarettes and the nearest public shower at the beach to wash all of the salt off of our skins. We went on to find a place that sold petullas, which I wasn't entirely sure what they were supposed to be, but John told me it was a great dessert from his country, so I wasnt going to argue. We ran into his family again on our way and instead had dinner at a restaurant by the beach. After being still stuffed from lunch and this restaurant having prices that came close to Austrian restaurants, I decided to stick to fish soup and call it a day.Lue lisää

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    Return to Përmet

    25. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☁️ 36 °C

    I got up early to enjoy some coffee by myself as I needed a short break from constant socializing. We would leave Sarandë around noon to return to Përmet. The plan from there was basically non-existant. This entire trip was more of a go with the flow kinda thing. We stopped for some breakfast Byrek before starting our journey back, this time accompanied by bangers from the 80s instead of Albanian music. We made a quick stop to buy some fresh figs before continuing back to Përmet. Once we arrived and put our stuff back, we went to a café and decided to have a calm day today and just walk around town a bit once the worst of the heat had vanished. I spent the time organizing all of the music I had found so far along my trip and try to plan what we'd do the upcoming days. Tomorrow, we would make our way a bit further up North to Berat. John wanted to stay inside for quite some time so I decided to walk along the Vjosa river by myself, until I stumbled into his cousin at his shop again. I hung out there with him a bit until John finally awoke from his afternoon nap to join us. We made conversation with the Albanian dudes on the table next to us and by now I was starting to get used to strangers being open and curious. I'd miss this once I returned to the society in Vienna. I also started sketching a small Albania themed tattoo that I wanted to get in Tiranë once we'd arrive there if I happened to find any tattoo shops that'd have time for a walk-in. Spiro, John and me decided to drive all the way over to Gjirokaster for coffee and cigarettes. According to John, it was quite normal to drive for an hour to have a better scenery while enjoying your coffee over here, so I wasn't going to challenge it. We went back to John's aunt and uncle for some snacks while waiting for Spiro to get ready to pick us up. His car did not have seat belts and by this point I was not even surprised. We blasted the Albanian music I had shazamed so far on full volume on our way and were already having a great party within the car while going through the mountains at night. Both John and me said that neither of us was feeling like going back home. We knew we had to, but the thought of simply vanishing to Albania sounded more and more appealing by the minute. We also got to watch one of Albania's infamous forest fires from the window, and as twisted as this might sound and be, it was a beautiful sight. The car smelled like a barbeque even with that much distance between us and the raging flames. Since Albania is quite rural, we were able to see a sky filled with stars from the open window too. We got to experience a busy night life filled with casual bars in Gijrokaster and more Balkan music playing from each spot. We hung out for some time until all of us were close to falling asleep on the car ride back home. I went to get some more soufflaqe, which by now I was majorly addicted to, and befriended a stray dog on the way back to our place.Lue lisää

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    Vjosa River

    26. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    We got up early to pack our things as the plan was to catch the bus to Berat around noon. During breakfast, a slight disagreement arose on whether or not said bus even existed, and it was decided that we'd stay in Përmet today and the following day until John's aunt would drive us to Tiranë herself on the 28th in the morning. It wasn't exactly what I had hoped for since I was excited about seeing Berat, but it was the cheapest option and by now I had no doubt that John and me were able to have a good time in Albania regardless of the exact place. We figured we might as well return to Spiro's shop and ask him if he wanted to take us to the river. We got some fresh plums and peanuts as a breakfast snack. The moment we announced that we'd be staying here for two more days, he immediately suggested taking us to the river himself in a bit. Guy already knows. In the meantime, I got myself an appointment in Tiranë for my travel souvenir, as the money I had originally lost was finally back in my account and I could afford a small tattoo now. We decided to get some Skepasti for lunch, which is a sort of quesadilla that's stuffed like gyros. Spiro then picked us up to drive over to the river. We swam in the closed off pools of water by the old Ottoman bridge until all of a sudden the sky was covered in black clouds and thunder came rolling. The wind created clouds of dust from the dried up ground and we saw thunder strike not too far away on our way back to the car. It started hailing when we were on our way back. I wasn't expecting such extreme weather changes. John's aunt cooked for us when we returned while some Albanian soap opera was running on TV. We had stuffed eggplant with rice and fries, and a lot of it. By the time we were done eating it was still raining heavily. We decided to go to the café downstairs and wait for the rain to stop. However, after John had been struggling with illness himself the last few days, it started catching up to me too. First we blamed the alcohol on him puking, but apparently it wasn't that. I spent the rest of the day tied to bed.Lue lisää

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    Local Life

    27. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Both John and me felt slightly better by the morning. At the café, we decided to try to convince Spiro to take us across the Greek border, but that was not going to happen. We were kind of at a loss on how to spend the last day before going to Tiranë. We were hanging out at Spiro's shop for a bit with other people from town before we agreed to go to the hills once Spiro's morning shift would be over. After some breakfast crêpes, we drove up the hills to enjoy some more coffee and the view over Përmet where we got company from a friendly stray cat. After that, we headed to a restaurant to eat Fasule, a white bean soup with rice. It doesn't sound like much, but it was one of the tastiest things I've tried in Albania so far. We went back to Spiro's shop in the evening to hang out some more. All in all, we had a chill day and did not do that much, but it started to feel pretty normal to be here for me.Lue lisää

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    Tiranë

    28. elokuuta 2024, Albania ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    We got up early to have breakfast before making our way back to Tiranë. John's uncle would drive us and his aunt to the capital since John's aunt needed to pick up another relative from there. John and me would stay there for our remaining days in Albania. We were both still sick, but like the last couple of days, we'd survive on way too many meds to feel anything at all. We had another party in the car on the three hour drive to Tiranë. On the drive, we repeatedly had to go through the mantra of our Albania trip - there's nothing that can save us, we're in God's hands now. John's family dropped us off at the airport, where we rented a car for the following days. Albanian hip-hop on full volume met traffic jams and John's road rage until he dropped me off at the tattoo shop. After some more insane traffic and an even more insane parking situation, we went to a traditional Albanian restaurant near the center of Tiranë. I finally got to try Tavë Kosi, lamb baked in a yogurt sauce, before walking around the Bazaar. Afterwards, we drove around Tiranë and its outskirts with no clear idea where we're going and also no need to, as we were having a blast in the car and were just about to see where we'd end up. We stopped by our place for a bit to chill and then went to the lake and found a rather fancy restaurant there to have dinner. We went on another drive without a plan through Tiranä, only this time at night. We got a lot of laughs from the people in the cars next to us who heard our music blasting and saw us dancing at the red lights. We decided that there was no need for us to go to a nightclub, we already had the best of times and even got to enjoy a good overview of the city while doing so.Lue lisää

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    Border Hopping

    29. elokuuta 2024, Kosovo ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    We got some breakfast crêpes and headed North to see the castle in Kruje. However, we spontaneously decided to keep on driving - to Kosovo. Because, why the fuck not, we were on wheels now, baby. We stopped on the road for some coffee within the breathtaking landscape before heading on to the border, from which we made our way to Prizren, a beautiful small town near the border. We soon realized that we'd run into a problem here concerning money, since they did not take Albanian Lek in Kosovo, no one wanted to exchange them and neither of us had any substancial amount of Euros on us or in our bank accounts, for that matter. Luckily, John's language skills gave us enough sympathy points with the caretaker of the parking lot to accept Albanian money. After a lovely walk through Prizren, we decided to play it safe and return to Albania to explore more of the North of the country.Lue lisää

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