Rides to Gjirokastër

I woke up the next morning ready to meet my next host, Allan, in Tirana and travel with him down to Southern Albania! He's a Peace Corps volunteer from NYC, had been living there for a year and a half, and spoke Albanian. We met up in the main square and had coffee before going to a "bus station" to catch a bus to Fier. It was early enough in the day, and warm, so we decided to be cheap and only buy a ticket to Fier (approx. halfway) and hitchhike from there!

We got out of the bus and walked about 50 metres to put our bags down on the side of a dusty roundabout. We had just put our bags down; Allan hadn't even put out his thumb yet before two people pulled over that were going to Gjirokaster! We weren't even waiting like 30 seconds before we were on our way in an SUV. The guys were impressed that Allan spoke Albanian, and I was happy to be getting there waaay faster and cheaper than the bus. We talked about hockey on the way hehe. The guys stopped on the side of the road to buy fish before we were dropped off on the side of the mountain!








We went up to a hotel with a view of the city and the sunset:




The house had no heating, but it wasn't as cold as the one in Perast so it was fine :)