Our last few miles of Greece were glorious as the bus took us round hairpin bends with every corner revealing even better mountain views, Woolly sat with his trunk pressed to the window waiting eagerly to spot the sign welcoming us to Albania.
Woolly says – It pays to be vigilant! Suddenly the bus stopped in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere…..are we going to mammothnapped? Had we broken down? Why is everyone getting off? I jumped down to find the women hoisting their backpacks into position and setting off up the road to what looked like a stern official…..uh oh were in trouble by the looks of it, but instead of him arresting my two pesky companions he merely smiled at them, took their passports before handing them back. It seemed like a good idea to follow them, as we trekked up a rather steep slope Jo seemed to have problems breathing, talking and walking all at the same time, I hurried ahead to make sure I wouldn’t be left to pick her up if she collapsed and as I rounded the bend I saw the red flag with a big black bird in the centre waving in front of me…..Hello Albania!
You have to love his caring nature!
Woolly says – having stamped our passports we were in, taxi drivers stood waiting around and I knew from my planning that this might well be the better option of getting to our destination, it appeared that Jo agreed and having showed one of them our rather tatty piece of paper with our travel details on it, I heard the word ‘Sarandre’ which sounded sort of right. Having agreed our price, I trotted off to his vehicle and we were on the way, the views were stupendous, lots of green amongst the rocks with stray cows, sheep and goats walking happily along the road. As we took to the mountains the roads began to twist and turn at an alarming rate and having glanced over at Zoe I knew she would be sporting a gentle shade of green to match the landscape! I hadn’t the heart to tell her that Albania has the highest rate of deaths by driving, I gripped on and continued to look around me.
Based on the Balkan peninsula the countries coastline runs along the Adriatic and Ionian seas. It has a Muslim majority – a legacy of its centuries of Ottoman rule, back to the Turks again- around twenty per cent of the population are Christians, divided mainly between the Orthodox and smaller Catholic denominations. After World War II Albania became a Stalinist state under Enver Hoxha, and remained staunchly isolationist until its transition to democracy after 1990, the 1992 elections ended 47 years of communist rule.
Woolly says – hey it’s me that gives out the information! After the millionth twisty road we appeared to have arrived in a town…..shame it was the wrong one! Sanandre is the region and we need to be in Himare a mere 50km or so away…… bus time. The Albanians seem to be the friendliest of people as they helped us locate the bus, loaded our belongings on and even exchanged euros for LEK for us before we chugged off along the coast and wonderful blue sea. Himara has a varied history covering the Greeks, ottomans, many wars and Ali Pasha who apparently owned some castles here, blimey that man gets nearly as far as Hadrian! For once though we weren’t here to do the touristy bit but to help out on a local campsite.
Having walked through the town several times in both directions and having failed to find our destination in desperation and afraid that Jo would expire under her heavy load I popped into a local bar and requested a taxi, ‘No Taxi’ said the lady serving, ‘hmmmmm pardon, do you mean no taxi’s now or no taxi’s ever?’ I asked, ‘No taxi’s?’, looking at the pair who had sat down to rest I knew that me returning with a ‘no taxi’ wasn’t going to go down well, I turned my pleading eyes to the lady and indicated the lump that was slumped in the corner that was once Jo, ‘please’ I begged. Five minutes later a man pulled up in a car and indicated for us to get in, well this could end in one of two ways!
It ended well and as we pulled up outside the campsite we couldn’t thank the man enough. Having spoken to the lovely owner of the site and agreed what we would be doing we arranged to check into our room before returning for a bbq.
Woolly says – BBQ’s are always good in my eyes and the fish that arrived on my plate was delicious, with a early get up we thanked our host and headed for bed. Arriving back the next morning I set about supervising the cleaning and re-organising of the kitchen in between trying to stop Jo from singing for fear of breaking glass wear. To be fair to them they worked hard and having washed pretty much everything in sight we were done for the day.
We did feel that we had made a huge difference even though we spent a lot of our time falling over our apparent leader! The next morning dawned dark and grey with rainclouds overhead, we wanted to finish a few bits in the kitchen area and start on something else to help out but our arrival was met with fresh coffee and orange juice and the instructions that we needed to enjoy the day and go and see the castle.
Woolly says – that sounded like a brilliant plan and having grabbed a taxi ride up to the top I followed the tiny passageways of cobbles around the empty and beautiful ruins. Himara Castle has been inhabited since the bronze age but the main structure hadn’t been started until the 8th century BC, building work continued up to the middle ages. During the Ottoman reign it became the capital of the region and having resisted change for over five centuries remained in that position of power. From the 1800’s it lost it’s use as a castle and became a village with wonderful views across the ravines, sea and mountains. The ruins proved to be delightful with a wonderful display of wild flowers growing everywhere, each twist and turn led us to another ruin with all the windows and doorways left intact giving an indication of the size of the homes that they had once been. Diving through one doorway I beckoned the girls over into to what appeared to be a church, pitch black inside we stepped gingerly in and it wasn’t until the camera flash went off that I realised the glorious paintings that were there, still so lovely to see they must have been superb when new.
With no one around we happily tramped thorough building after building that had been left abandoned to the elements with pretty yellows, pinks, blues, reds and whites of the lovely flowers that seemed to cover everything. Feeling that we had covered everything that was there without actually going into peoples homes, although the furry fined was happy to do that, we found a pathway back to the road.
Woolly says – The people are so friendly here I didn’t think they would mind a visit from us! It had been a delightful morning and as we neared the town centre again it seemed a good idea to sit and have a short rest before heading back, never had one of my suggestions been greeted so well as with a loud clap of thunder the heavens opened and we fled under cover. With hot drinks we watched the deluge outside and considered what the rest of Albania was going to offer us.