Oh Albania, land of mystery. It has not been that long since outsiders have been allowed in the country. What do you know of Albania? Hmmm? After seeing my illusions destroyed in other Slavic countries, I threw out any expectations of Albania. Getting there proved more difficult than I thought though.
I had to take a bus to Ulcinj, Montengro and then supposedly wait for a minibus to show up to take me across the border to Shkodra. When I got into tiny little Ulcinj, there were no minibuses to be seen and it was about 2:00 in the afternoon. I figured that if I waited around for an hour or two and then took another hour and a half to get to Shkodra and then wait for another minibus to go several more hours to the Albanian capital, Tirana, I may be arriving late at night in a city of which I have no knowledge. So I took a taxi. I bargained the driver down to 25 euro for what turned out to be a two-hour trip. Not a bad deal I think. I had to pay 10 more euro at the border for visitor taxes and I got my first look at the ubiquitous Albanian pill boxes.
Pill boxes are round, dome topped, concrete, mini-bunkers with a slit in the front and an open back. They are arranged in a line of sight formation with a larger command bunker thus eliminating the need for complicated communication systems. I saw these things all through the country and there must be hundreds of thousands of them. They are everywhere. I guess it is not surprising for a country that has been invaded so many times.
Upon crossing the border, my first impression of Albania was a strong smell of horse manure, pigs in the road, garbage, and half crippled old people. But that was just the first mile. After that, it was lots of garbage and road construction. I saw a large castle looming above Shkodra and would have liked to see it, yet the need to find a room for the night was more pressing.
In Shkodra I lucked out and was able to jump out of the taxi, walk across the street and into an already full minibus. The normal problem with minibuses is that they won’t go until they are full. I took the last seat and we were off. I was dropped away from the center of Tirana and it took me a bit to decide which way to go. There was a big roundabout and several ways looked promising. Fortunately, I picked the right way and ended up in the large central square, from which, I knew the directions to the hostel.
On my walk to the hostel I saw the last thing I expected—the giant smiling face of George W. Bush. On the pyramid-like exposition center, which children were climbing and sliding down, was a huge banner with the US and Albanian flags, and the oversized noggin of the president of my country. Despite this, I kept going to the hostel. The people at the hostel were very friendly and spoke some limited English. They did tell me that they were happy that Bush was going to be visiting the country next week. Apparently, the United States has been very good to Albania ever since Woodrow Wilson. Go figure. I had no idea. Albanians like us. Weird. The cleaning woman was so excited that I was from America that she went and found pictures of her daughter, living in Hartford, CT, and showed me all of them. They were not particularly interesting pictures as much as it was interesting to see how excited she was to show me. It was a fun experience.
One interesting thing about the country was the custom of hanging stuffed animals or scarecrow men on houses and buildings. The intention is to ward off the evil eye. The effect is a bit spooky as an outsider since even cute fuzzy cuddly wuddly stuffed bunny rabbits take on a whole new dimension after they have been exposed to the elements for a few months. Sort of a Stephen King dimension. And the scarecrow men are just plain spooky to start with. I was told that people don’t really believe it anymore and they do it out of tradition, much of like our “knock on wood” habit that is based on scaring away evil spirits.
On the advice of the very friendly hostel staff, I went to a traditional restaurant and had Tevé mishi which is a clay pot of braised veal and pickled onions. It was fantastic. I started with a Tirana Biere, tsatsiki, and toasted bread and finished with some Albanian raki, a grape spirit. I left with a happy tummy and a good buzz. There was a big jazz festival nearby that would have been good if I wasn’t so tired. I dropped early.
There is not much to see in Tirana so I intended to leave the next day. If only I could.
