Pete's Adventures on the Road

Dahab view. The land on the right is Saudi Arabia! We haven’t written in awhile as our last few weeks in Sarande were relatively unexciting. We worked a lot, stayed in a lot but also hosted a couple of couchsurfers again, which was a lot of fun. One of the travellers was from Hungary and he ended up cooking us a delicious Hungarian chicken stew for dinner which was positively delicious. The other two travellers were from Germany and are on their way hitch-hiking to India from Dresden. It seems the longer we’re on the road, the more people we meet who are taking travelling to the next level. Sometimes I feel like a bit of an imposter with my flash buses, public transportation and flying meanwhile here there are dozens if not hundreds of travellers literally thumbing it on the side of the highway with the attitude of whatever happens, happens. We even met a Spanish girl last year who had hitchhiked from Madrid all the way to Laos. We met her in a tiny village called Tad Lo and she ...

Photo Source It's been a few weeks since we got up to much if anything. I had a brief meltdown with anxiety about two weeks ago which put our trip to Himare on the back burner a bit, at least for now. The weather in October seems to fluctuate highly and we missed the last window for Himare, but not to worry. We have already decided we're going to come back to do Himare maybe in May or June of next year (after our visas reset) so more on that as well as Berat later! In the meantime though, we only have around 3 weeks left before we need to really get a move on and get out of Albania or risk overstaying. Overstaying is NEVER a good idea in any country and can cause you several issues including fines or even exclusion periods, so to play it safe, just don't do it. Although, it does depend on the country you find yourself in. For example, Thailand and Laos typically just charge you an extra fee of like $4 a day for each day you overstay. So it can rack up fast if you don...

The great thing about October in places like Albania is the fact that it can still be warm enough to swim. Would I come here purely for the purposes of swimming in October? Probably not because warm weather, as we know, is not always guaranteed, so coming here just for beaches in October could be a bit dangerous and kind of fifty-fifty. Being here though is much better as it's more likely you will experience at least one brush with weather warm enough. We went to Pasqyra beach last week. Pasqyra in Albanian means "Mirror" so it's also known as Mirror Beach. It's a gorgeous spot, set down below some chalky kind of white stone cliffs, which probably helped create the name. Looking at it, you can kind of see why it'd be called Mirror Beach. Pasqyra Beach Getting to the beach is an interesting hike through the village of Pasqyra from the main highway that connects Ksamil and Sarande, first up a paved bit of track and then through this relatively rundo...

We just got back from a little side trip to Athens to collect our things from our friends who has been amazing enough to keep them for so long. We had initially only planned to leave them for seven weeks back last November, but when Pete then suffered a lot of ill health and it went on and on for seemingly ages, I ended up having to go back to Canada and well, the rest of the story is pretty boring. So seven weeks turned into more like 10 months and we finally  got back to Athens. The bus takes around 10 hours from Saranda, which isn't too bad considering the distance. What I wasn't expecting was the border to be so close to Saranda. I know we live very close to the south, south border, but I didn't expect we lived so close to the next border along which is known as Kakavia. Saranda and Kakavia are both circled below. Map of where Kakavia is It wasn't my first border by foot/car. I'd done this only once before in Laos into Thailand and that was a colos...

Evening chill-out after siesta Having been in Sarande for around a month now I think we are in a better position to describe what Albania is like, especially now that the 'honeymoon period' is over. First off, I have to say that it doesn't really feel like Europe despite it only being a 2 or 3 hour flight to London. It is still pretty much a developing country and comes with all the things – some good some bad – that come with a developing country. Poverty and homelessness is an issue, but to be honest homelessness is an issue pretty much everywhere you go now, especially in the UK. Here in Sarande it is confined to the promenade down on the beach with a handful of beggars sat down begging for change from tourists until everything shuts around midnight and the police come along to move them. Sometimes you even see them sleeping in the middle of the promenade, perhaps hoping to tug at the heart strings of passers by. Likewise, trash is an issue in the res...

Our lovely toilet complete with toilet paper bin. What evils lurk within? So, as any traveller knows, travelling can be pretty messy, disgusting and well, shitty work. Let's not mince words here. I remember the first time being told of squat toilets and wincing in disgust and then having to actually use one for the first time ever in my life. My how pampered we are in the west to be able to sit down to pee if we so choose. When you think about it though, squat toilets are just a much lower versions of a western toilet, which women are encouraged not to sit on in public spaces due to the germs purported to be on them. So what's the difference? Well, anyways. Toilets around the world are pretty curious things, and I find myself always enjoying a good game of "get to know the toilet". Not in the sense that I suffer from traveller's sickness or anything, as to be honest, in recent years I don't seem to be touched by that unfortunate side effect of trave...

Photo Source One thing that stands out in our travels is often the postal system. Post ranges from excellent to appallingly atrocious depending where you go. In Albania, when we first arrived our landlord, Leo, told us that around the 25th of every month they will come and just throw the bills on the ground downstairs and you have to root through them in order to find your flat number. Great. I look forward to playing musical bills in a few days. Our experience hasn't been with that form of post, although it seems that Albanian delivery drivers have taken a page from the book of Canadian mailmen and like to play the game of "I tried to deliver it, but you weren't in", despite the fact you took the day off from work, and sat in utter silence waiting for the delivery and never once left the couch despite the fact you nearly wet yourself. So they claimed they tried to deliver a package Pete's mum sent us from the UK. Well, tried being the operative word, ap...