Feb
18
Written by:
Roel
2/18/2010 10:40 AM
Really, at the border of Albania, the tarmac stopped and made place for ... a lot more gravel, big stones and deep potholes. And, as in the whole Balkan, a lot of cattle on the road. Just in Albania, there were also pigs wandering the streets (if you can call it streets). We entered via the Vermosh valley, crossed the Albanian Alps and entered Theth valley. Again UNESCO world herritance. And a huge spectacle!
On the road we met a Belgian guy, living in Rotterdam. He used to be a 'contractor' and has been working in the Balkan and Irak during the wars. Protected and guarded by the (in)famous US security coorperation named 'Blackwater'. In the mean while, this company has changed his name again due to some incidents that happened in Irak. But also he had delivered 24 ambulances to Bosnia. He looked like a commando... Strong and no doubt with an iron condition.
As his bike couldn't handle all the Albanian shit, he decided to go walking into Teth National Park. Over 30km, 1/3 going up, 2/3 going down. It took us 1,5 hour by bike, he did it on foot in 3,5 hour, walking that is.
From this point, we had to drive 90kms of offroad, to reach the tarmac and the first 'reliable' fuel station. From there on, it was tarmac towards Greece.
As Koen couldn't stay the whole 2 weeks, we started riding south to the Ferry. We had 4 days to get from the North of Albania to Igoumenitsa. No idea how long it would take and we decided to use the little tarmac Albania has to make time.
Little gravel roads become bad tarmac, bad tarmac becomes reasonablee tarmac and this becomes rather good tarmac. And at this point we enter a new express way that heads south.
LET THE CANONBALLRUN BEGIN.
Unbeleaveable! Everybody enters this competition!!! Everything that can go flat out (read: horse & wagon, cars with broken tires, new trucks, old shitty cars, Hummers, fat Mercedeses, Trabants, bicycles, ...) goes flat out, wrong side of the road or not. Never seen this before...
We arrived on time, took a 24h ferry ride to Venice and arrived there around lunch time. We left and after 1400kms more or less of highway in all kinds of weather, I arrived home at around 3 o'clock in the morning.