Day 24 - Albania hell !

Woke early just as it was getting light and stuck my head out of the tent. The light was not the dawn but a full moon. I checked the time and it was only 5.00am. I lay awake till 6 ish then stuck the kettle on, as it came to the boil I could already hear the lorries running along the lakeside road. The rain started again so we put all the bike gear on including the waterproofs and then packed away the sodden tent. Just as we were leaving an old Dutch guy came over. He asked the usual stuff. Where you going and where you have come from. I got into a bit of a chat with him. He and his wife had toured most of europe but this was his first time in Albania. He was working his way down to Greece to see if he could get a ferry to Italy and return that way rather than go back through Albania." Why's that " I asked. "To dangerous on the roads and dirty" he said. On that he gave me some Kunas for a very good exchange rate and we said our goodbyes. Its not just us that doesn't like this place I thought as we rode out of the campsite.
We continued on the lakeside road dodging pot holes and now huge juggernauts that took up the whole road until we turned off for the mountains. The road wound its way up, heavily worn by all the lorries making the hairpins difficult in the dry let alone the pouring rain. We then descended following the river to Elbasan. The rain eased for a while but with wet roads we left the wet gear on. We now not only dodged lorries, pot holes and cars but had to avoid landslides across the road. The heavy rain overnight had caused a lot of damage with boulders and mud strewn all over the place. I took it easy but not the Albanians, they just carried on flat out skidding and dodging all the way down. Complete madness.
We eventually arrived in Elbasan and left as quick as we could. Narrowly escaping a collision with a ten year old. He came round the bend on the wrong side of the road riding a very strange contraption. Imagine a Honda C90, take the front wheel off and fix it to a huge steel , two wheeled trolley. The whole thing is then steered by pushing and pulling on the trolley that's loaded up with fruit and veg. Fast and very dangerous looking for any one let alone a ten year old.
After Elbasan came Tirane. We approached via the mountain road again. It was a beautiful dry evening when we last passed this way. I remember thinking at the time how risky the roads would be in the wet. I was now about to find out.
The road was silky smooth and we climbed for a good half hour. Every bend had my butt clinching to the saddle with shear drops on both sides in parts. I needn't have worried the tyres held and never let go once. On the decent into Tirane the sun came out for the first time in nearly two days. We left the wet gear on to dry it out and help warm us up. Tirane, its a strange place. A sort of mix between those that look like they have very little and those that appear to be rolling in it. All going about daily life together in total chaos. The route through was a lot easier this time. We managed by luck more than anything else to stay on the main road both in and out. Well outside of Tirane we pulled over, fuelled up, had a drink and took the wet gear off. Feeling hungary we could not find any where to eat so decided to carry on towards Shkoder. Shkoder is a large town at the outlet of lake Skadarsko. You can turn towards the coast and head for Budva as we did on the way down or turn inland and follow the lake round to Podgorica then take the fast road and tunnel back to the coast. On the trip down we took the coast road. Not only did we have to cross the worst road bridge ever ( if you recall it was made out of small sections of rotten timber nailed together with six inch nails still protruding ! ) But we also travelled up the section of road that we nicknamed butcher's ally.
This was a section of road that went on for about five mile or so. Each side of the road was lined with small timber like shacks. As we approached I remember saying to Angie that there was a horrible smell in the air like a butchers shop. We soon realised that was exactly what it was. The road was lined with Butchers slaughtering and butchering animals literally on the road side. Now don't get me wrong I don't have a problem with it and eat meat myself but to ride by as they cut animals throats and gutted them with out any form of drainage or hygiene was a bit much for us. We stopped and checked the map and decided to take the long way round and enter Montenegro at Hani I Hoti. Big mistake ! We road into the centre of Shoder and picked up the road out. It was the usual bad standards we had come to expect and we thought nothing of it. After a mile or two we came across a section that was completely devoid of any sign of Tarmac. The main road was now a mud track. After all the heavy rain huge pot holes were full of water and we carefully picked our way around them getting soaked by lorries and cars flying through them at daft speeds. Some ruts were so deep that the wheels of the cars disappeared, water coming up to door level. This went on for a good half hour and I kept thinking that as a main road it must improve but it didn't in fact it got a lot lot worse. We debated on whether to turn round but decided to carry on. We crawled on with no option but to ride through the pot holes not knowing how deep they were. I like a bit of fun and adventure but I was not on the right bike for this kind of stuff. Heavily loaded with camping gear and with Angie on the back I hated every second. Waiting for something on the bike to give or a tyre to blow. I had full breakdown cover for the whole trip except in Albania !!
The ruts and pot holes joined up and had now become one huge lake of water. I stopped and waited for a car to go through then followed his route hopping to gauge the deep bits. The bike was up to the foot pegs in water by now. This went on for a couple of miles and then the road improved a little to being one with just dry pot holes. The section took well over two and half hours to negotiate and I was relieved to get to the border.
We sat in a que of lorries for a few minutes then I sussed out that even though they were in the lanes marked for the border crossing they had parked up. I weaved my way through to near the front to find two lanes out and two lanes in. Not a problem except every one going out was using all of the lanes and totally blocking the place up. I sat like a good English man in the correct lane and watched while every one else got through. Sod this I thought and joined in. We got through in about half an hour.

Goodbye to Albania. We will not be in a hurry to revisit. In fact next time I think we will cross from Italy to Greece and sod the expense of the ferry !
Montenegro, the roads good the driving standards notably better. We sped towards the coast road. The route continued to take us along the edge of the lake. It was beautiful with mountains coming down to the lake that was so large it could be mistaken for the sea. We crossed a section of bridge and entered the tunnel that would return us to the coast road. €2.50 later we popped out into the sun with the sea in front of us. Back on route and the bike and wife appeared to have survived unscathed.
We were both starving. We had eaten nothing since breakfast and it was now approaching 5.00pm. But I was concerned that we needed to catch the ferry at Tivat and get through the border into Croatia before dark. I persuaded Angie that we needed to keep moving. I reckoned on about another hour or so of riding to get to Dubrovnik. It started to rain again so we stopped and put the wet gear back on and to think I did consider leaving mine at home to make room for other stuff ! No sooner had we put them on the rain stopped.
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