“ALBANIA”
Albania is a great country. Especially for little adventure riders like me, which were trying to find the small adventure with their motorcycle out there. But no planned remote trips at this journey for me and Чернотa.
Because I’ve already done parts of Macedonia and Albania a few years before, I used both countries on this trip just for transit. Few people would now think that’s sad, but I don’t think that it is. Due to the usage of mostly back country roads also a transit ride through Albania has its highlights. Trust me, you will find them further down below … ^_^
Day map: This day Чернотa and I rode from our camp in Macedonia, near the village Vetunica westwards through Albania to Montenegro. There we found near the city Burtaisi a spot for shelter. The route this day was beside a punctured tire quite easy and it offered nice panoramic views in Albania. Total distance this day: 490km or 304mi.
Around 0600 I went up and inspected my finger. The wound was healing nicely due to the usage of a good ointment I’m having with me. I put a new plaster around it. Because I was riding the day before without a right glove (for putting less stress on the wounded index finger) …
I had on this morning a real badass sunburn on the back of the right hand, which now seemed to be worse than the finger wound. LOL. Mr. Krabs finally stood up and enjoyed the morning …
…
mood near the shelter. After that and doing the morning toilet I stowed the …
camping gear and settled up my trusty Чернотa. And off we went …
along one of Macedonias main east-west routes. In the Balkan countries, especially beginning with Bosnia and further southwards, more and more Islamic and …
Orthodox prayer buildings appear. Not far away from this church another face of the Balkan countries showed its ugly smirk:
Environmental Pollution. 🙁
Albania and Macedonia are probably the worst of the Balkan countries regarding this issue. That reminds me on my last trip in somewhere in the Balkans: While having a rest with the bike near a river I gave a curious shepherd boy a chocolate bar. I watched him eating it and afterwards he had thrown the plastic into the river. I asked him why he was doing so. He laughed and stated somewhat like: everybody does it and that the river is floating to the neighbor country so it will be OK. If it won’t be so sad it would be yet again funny … .
This country and later their people will have much to learn. By the way: Who has found the poor dog in this pile of rubbish?
Чернотa and I went on westwards where we passed this …
mosque. Short before midday I recognized that Чернотa’s back was swerving. I made a stop …
and found out that back tire was flat. Instantly I remembered myself that the back spare tube was damaged due to another breakdown at this trip. Damn! Hopefully the damage isn’t that bad. I began to remove the …
back wheel and also removed the back tire. What I found was new to me:
one spoke nipple came loose and found its way through the rim band and punctured the tube. I never have seen this before. Whatever! I tightened the spoke again and turned the rim band a bit. With the repair kit I got it managed to repair the tube. After mounting tire again and putting the whole stuff together we …
pushed on to get some mileage done despite this little time loss.
After fuelling up the …
weather near the border to …
Albania went bad. Barely after the border crossing itself …
it pelted with rain. But only for a short while. The street got dry and a local farmer boy, only protected with summer clothing and his curly head, showed me what is possible with older 250ccm -2-stroke KTM SX Model on Albania narrow streets. Чернотa and I pushed hard to keep up with him, but we haven’t been able to overtake him. Finally, we let him ride away. The fabulous smells of the 2 stroke healed a bit my damaged ego. ^_^
The eastern part of Albania is streaked with huge valleys, after that …
typical scene for the Albanian countryside (gravel road, simple houses/farms with own animals and little fields), we began our …
climb for the central mountain masife of Albania. The view over the before mentioned …
huge valleys was absolutely …
astounding! Чернотa brought me up to a little …
plateau. We followed the track further upwards and like the high, also …
the joy of riding gained! What a f***ing nice view which …
accompanied us along this great trail! As I told you in the first lines of this day ride report …
Albania is a beauty and you …
can’t do anything wrong in the planning of a …
trip in this fabulous country. There are so many beautiful …
Places in this nice country that you won’t miss them. But you also wouldn’t be able to visit all the beautiful sights in one tour!
In the late afternoon we arrived at the border to …
Montenegro. After a short palaver with the border guard about my fish-box-number-plate …
the sun slowly went down in Montenegro’s south. So it was time for finding an adequate shelter for the night.
We found after billions of spider webs along the field track this nice place for the night under an oak tree in a small valley. The sun was urgently sinking. I put some …
noodles with tuna, tomato sauce and onions in the pot and opened up a can of fluid gold. Before dinner, I turned off the stove and had a short walk on top of a small hill beneath. There I got a great view to the …
disappearing sun. While watching at his scene I thought to myself: “Montenegro’s name is truly fitting totally to its scenery!” (Montenegro = Black Mountain)
Total covered distance on this day: 490km or 304mi.