When you see flowers, think of Albania

Yes, I am skipping writing about Greece right now because I want to write about one of the most intense experiences of our trip so far, which was our night in Albania.

Albania's reputation as the poorest country in Europe was confirmed by our almanac, which lists the Albanian per capita GDP at about a quarter that of Guatemala. But Albania's "HDI", a sort of quality of life index, was significantly higher. So we really didn't know what to expect.

What we did NOT expect, however, was any sort of developed tourism, especially campgrounds. Our guidebook mentioned that in the Albanian culture, travelers and foreigners are traditionally welcomed, and that it is not unusual to be offered food and lodging by individuals. So we decided that we would look for a roadside cafe or restaurant with convenient flat parking, have a meal, and ask if we could sleep in the parking lot.

Finding a restaurant was a bit tricky for a couple of reasons:

1. Roadside commerce in Albania is generally small and unsigned. We passed what felt like about a hundred car washes on our route. The most basic ones were simply kids with a hose and bucket, and the more sophisticated ones included a power sprayer, shop-vac, and potentially a gravel or cement parking pad. We also passed individual entrepreneurs sitting on the side of the road next to small tables with a few items... motor oil, shampoo, etc.



2. Of the business that looked like cafes, it was difficult to tell which served food. Most looked like bars, with groups of men sitting around watching TV.



3. It was getting dark, and the roads were getting crowded with people finishing the day's work, leading cows, goats, sheep and chickens along and across the highway on donkeys or on foot.

Finally, we pulled up behind a larger, newer looking place, hoping that they had a kitchen. As we were preparing to get out of the car, finding the phrasebook, putting our shoes on, etc., an old man appeared at the driver's side window. Craig rolled down the window, and the first thing the man did was reach in and shake his hand. As we were trying to figure out how to ask in Albanian if we could eat there, a crowd of men of all ages appeared at the side of the car. One of them spoke Italian. "Mangare?" we asked crudely. He indicated that we should come inside.

We managed to order a beer and some soda, and one of the younger men, who had studied some English asked us if we'd like something to eat. We said we would, and handed him our phrasebook so he could point to the things that they had. (There are no menus in Albania, I think!) We ordered bread, cheese and "lamb", and ate surrounded by about a dozen young men who were watching soccer games via satellite on a flat-screen TV. No one else was eating. The older ones (probably in their twenties and thirties) made sure we were comfortable by telling the younger ones (teenagers) what to get us. In the back corner, the oldest generation sat around their own table. Besides me, there was one other woman in the place, behind the bar.

After about an hour and a half, one of the young men came over to our table and indicated that he'd like to buy us some more beer. He sat down, and taught us how to toast in Albanian. It sounds like "Zoo-a!" Before long he coerced his friend, the one that could speak some English, to sit with us and loosely translate. So that is how we met Luan and Rigels. Rigels introduced us to the worldly one of the bunch, the one who could speak Italian, had lived in Italy and Greece, and had two cell phones. He was introduced to us simply as "Chef".

We showed them pictures on our camera, and took some photos with our new friends. Then Rigels said we should take a picture with the table of older men, and we were introduced to each of them, all beginning with "Baba" ("Grandfather", I think). The we took our picture with the apparent patriarch of the family alone, and he indicated, through sign language, "where are you going to sleep?" We asked if it was ok to sleep in the camper behind the restaurant. Yes, yes, he shook his head (the older people in Albania have the opposite head motions for yes and no that we do).

Satisfied, we went back to our table with Rigels and Luan, where Craig got coerced into drinking Raki (Albanian grappa) with Luan, and eventually, after Rigels asked us "Would you like to sleep in the house of Chef tonight?"

So we drove across the highway and up a dirt road to Chef's house, where we slept on a comfortable sofa-bed in a parlor-like room on the second floor.

In the morning, we were greeted by the patriarch (who I think lived there too), met Chef's wife and children, and communicated with hand motions and rudimentary Albanian until Rigels showed up and could help out. We showed them Seattle on our mini-world atlas. Chef's two-year old son was fascinated with the atlas, sitting on the floor and turning the pages. That prompted the four-year old to get another book, which turned out to be the manual for the family car. And that's when I realized that they had no books.

So we left them with a picture book of Greece and a bottle of Italian wine in exchange for their hospitality.

Back at the cafe, the women picked me a bouquet of marigolds and Rigels said "When you see flowers, think of Albania."

And we will.

-SK

Our Bulgarian Odyssey

Part I: Driving

OK, we complained about the Serbian roads, but things took a turn for the worse as soon as we crossed the border into Bulgaria. Our road atlas (unfortunately, the coverage on our navigation system ends at the eastern edge of Austria!) showed a four lane highway from the Serbia/Bulgaria border all the way to Bulgaria's capital city, Sofia. Instead, we found a potholed two-laner, with regular uncontrolled lane closures for construction (or maybe just REALLY bad potholes). Yes, this means weaving your way through traffic on a one-lane highway. As we approached Sofia the road eventually did become four-lane, but the pothole frequency and depth increased, so it was hard to say it if was an improvement or not.

Part II: Finding a place to stay

Bulgaria is not exactly a tourism hot-spot, and so none of our campground listings or guidebooks mention where to camp near Sofia. However our road atlas (yes, the same one that was wrong about the four-lane road) showed a little tent symbol not too far away from Sofia's ring road. So we decided to see if we could track it down. Eventually, we spotted a sign that said "Camping" (luckily, that word is pretty universal!) on a frontage next to a busy arterial into the city. After about 20 minutes of gut feeling navigation through Sofia's apartment blocks, and in the waning light, we found ourselves at the gate, where a handful of stray puppies watched as the campground manager filled out the archaic form (technically supposed to be registered with the police) detailing where we foreigners had spent the night.

Part III: Camping

The campground looked like something built for a communist-era "back to nature" campaign. It was mostly a collection of run-down cottages, with a grassy area where we nestled in between the only other tourist, a young couple from Poland in a tent and a Spanish family in an RV with a dog that seemed to be recovering from surgery. (Maybe veterinary services are cheap in Bulgaria?) Instead of the typical "sanitary block", we were instructed to use the toilet and shower in the bathroom of one of the cottages. The cottage smelled of mold, and the shower looked like it was missing its bathtub and curtain. There was a showerhead coming out of the wall, and a drain on the floor. When we showered, the entire bathroom got wet and steamy. Perfect environment for the slugs living there. (Luckily, out next Bulgarian campground, near the Rila monastery, was much, much nicer!)

Part IV: Stereo Shopping

Strangely, although Sofia feels like a (barely) second-world city in many respects, its ring road is full of brand-new shopping centers. And the most popular type of store is the electronic mega-market. We were intrigued, since we'd been looking for a small speaker system to hook up to the iPod, and couldn't help stopping at the MediaMarket to look around. They had more speaker systems than I'd ever seen, and the store was so new that they weren't sure of the price of the one we were interested in. After going to downtown Sofia and checking prices on cnet at a smokey internet/online gaming place, we realized that Bulgarian electronics cost the same as American electronics. But we were so enthralled with buying stereo equipment in Bulgaria that we continued our quest, this time a the Technopolis, which was even bigger than the MediaMarket, and walked out with a Altec-Lansing speaker system covered by a Bulgarian warranty.

Part V: Wine Touring

Supposedly in the communist days, the Bulgarians supplied the majority of the wine for the USSR. And all the vineyards went out of business when Gorbachev started an anti-alcohol campaign, and then the eastern bloc collapsed. But our wine book mentioned that things were turning around again, and that the Diamanitza winery near Melnic was doing wonderful things. So we decided we would do some wine tasting. We found Melnic on our map near the Greek border, and headed that direction in hopes of finding the winery on the way. Melnic turned out to be a dusty tourist town (or the closest thing to a tourist town in Bulgaria), with inflated prices and alas, no Diamanitza. We were hot and hungry, but we were on a mission to find what our book called "probably the best wine in Bulgaria". After a complete wild goose chase of following signs with no arrows down partially paved roads, we decided to give up and get something to eat. And then it happened. We spotted a tiny sign on a building in the middle of nowhere that looked like an old factory. The security guards didn't speak English, but another employee did. We couldn't taste because the person who does the tasting wasn't there, she said. She thought we could buy the wine though, but after a quick call on the cell phone, she decided that wasn't possible either. But she drew us a map to a bottle shop in the nearby town (which we had driven through three hours earlier!), where we found the wine for less than half of the price of similar bottles in Melnic.

Part VI: Leaving

With our newly purchased wine and speakers in hand, we headed towards Greece. Approaching Bulgarian exit customs we gathered all the paperwork: our passports, the insurance card, the registration for the camper, and our copies of the forms filled out by the campgrounds to let the police know where we had spent our nights. There were about 20 cars in the line in front of us. We pulled up behind them and waited. And waited. And waited. In the 104 degree heat with no air conditioning. Ultimately, it took us two hours to clear Bulgarian exit customs. and we didn't even have the forms we had so carefully saved. It was by far the worst border crossing we've done in Europe!

The photos here show a bus stop in Sofia, and the Rila Monastery.

-SK

Driving through the Balkans

Our route from Austria to Greece took us through the Former Yugoslav Republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. Quickly.

We drove across the three countries in two days, and managed to avoid getting any Croatian or Serbian money. Actually, we tried several times to get Serbian money, because we were trying to save our Euros, but had trouble because we found only one ATM on the entire section of Autoroute we drove (about 6 hours drive!) and it was out of order. In place of ATMs, there were plenty of money changers - guys hanging out at the Autoroute rest areas with wads of cash and bad exchange rates.

It wasn't that big of a deal, since Croatia and Serbia both accept Euros, but we ended up cash-strapped at the end of our Serbian drive because they don't accept credit cards at the toll booths, and the trip cost over 65 Euros!

Luckily, I keep a separate container full of change (handy for parking and laundry) and we had enough coins to cover our fees for entry into Bulgaria which included:

1. a 6€ "disinfection" fee


2. a 4€ weekly vignette to drive on the Bulgarian national roads

The guy at the vignette window was really patient while I stacked up my 10 and 20 euro cent pieces on this counter.

And you might be curious about this "disinfection"...

Apparently, the Bulgarians are afraid of getting some sort of dirt-bourne invader from their neighbors, because part of (and just a small part, see our next entry!) the Bulgarian border control process requires driving through a pool of dirty water (oops, I mean sophisticated disinfectant) and a sprayer that barely reaches then top of the front bumper. Oh, and paying for this.

The only obvious effect of the disinfection was a (luckily temporary) short in our right turn signal.

The photos here show Ljubljana, Slovenia, and road construction in eastern Serbia. Thankfully, this was not the expensive toll road.

-SK

Lots of catching up to do!

15 Sept. 06

Sorry for the black hole of blog entries. We haven't had wi-fi lately, and there's so much to write about that honestly, we're way behind...

I'll try to post several entries as we get them done.

We're in Croatia now with Gary and Margaret (Craig's parents)!

-SK
Hvar, Croatia