Journey to Tirana

I was traveling to Tirana today, so I had to get up early.

I was out the door and waiting for the bus before 8am which was very hard for me to do. I was so sleepy and cold and hungry, but the bus came fast and I was able to immediately change to this old other bus... Plus they stopped for food in Budva (Montenegro).

This bus took me to Ulcinq (Montenegro). Someone had been talking to me on the bus, and then I started talking to this Japanese girl too and it turned out that she was going to Tirana as well! That was good news since there was still no direct bus to Tirana from Ulcinq so it could still be tricky to get there.

The three of us walked around Ulcinq for about an hour or so, got coffee, and then headed back to the bus station. The guy was visiting Ulcinq, but he helped us buy a ticket and get on the right bus to Shkodër! There were two Aussies on the bus other than us and that was it. None of us even got a stamp going through the border.

Shkodër was chaotic as hell... actually after crossing the border a lot of things changed. The Aussies on the bus were also going to Tirana, so now we were four foreigners trying to navigate through Albania. We were all directed to a random part of the road beside a gas station with a bunch of vans (the bus drivers told us this was where we had to connect to get to Tirana). These were "minibuses" but really just vans. They had signs where they were going, but the drivers were yelling the destination too in case you couldn't read. The place made me feel like I was going back in time. The driver was overtaking cars with oncoming traffic on a regular basis... I have been in fast cars now, but nothing that... crazy. The driver was on a mission.

Turns out everyone here drives like a bat out of hell! We arrived in Tirana after an hour or two on this "minibus" in the early evening. There was a taxi there willing to take all of us somewhere for cheap (one euro each), so I was dropped off close to where I was surfing. It was raining and dark by then, but I somehow found where I was staying pretty easily and quickly!

There were two kiwi's staying at the house as well, so I settled in and chatted a bit with them and my host, Olta. Olta was a quite a sweet girl :) I was starving though and I had no Albanian money, so I forced myself to venture out to find an ATM and cheap food. It took 5 ATM's before I got money, so once I found that I went straight to the closest place to buy food. I made my way back with a couple wrong turns but overall pretty easily.

The kiwi's had beer and Olta gave me some wine, so we ended up chilling at the house during the evening. I had been traveling since 7:30am or something stupid like that, so I was exhausted and ready to sleep.