Our hostess was waiting to open the gate for us and give us a cup of coffee as we left at 4:30. It was a 25 minute walk to the town's bus gathering area. A person or two was up, but the town seemed empty. Just as I was starting to have doubts, a big, green bus belched around the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke, and as it stopped people appeared out of the shadows.
We loaded our pack and suitcase, paid the fare (about $2) and as we boarded I showed my “Connect to Berat” iPod message to the driver. He read it and smiled, but was really interested in the iPod. With a nod to the back he motioned us on, and we set off lumbering slowly up hill out of town. The next two hours we slowly wound up and up along the ocean, over a high mountain pass, past beautiful gorges and through deep forests, through little towns scenic and devastated grey shells. Sure enough, there are pillboxes here and there, along with assorted communist era statues and monuments. As we go along, the driver stops in random places to pick up people (they know about when the bus is coming, and just wait and flag it down) and drop people. Maybe it is next to a field, by a store, where two roads meet, or in front of a house. We barely make it over the pass, but then scream down the other side, around curves, like we have no brakes. We just randomly pass and are passed, and it is nothing to drive on the other side of the road to avoid potholes. We avoid people, animals and horse drawn carts.
We hit the outskirts of the city of Vlore. Half the city is modern beach resort and the other half never reconstructed mess with horse drawn wagons plodding down the streets.
We are hoping at this point to get off at the right place in Fier and find a connection to Berat. As we draw near to Fier, I am hoping the bus driver remembers us and that we want to continue on to Berat, in his busy day of drop-offs and pick-ups.
As we enter the town we seem to pick up speed and start to weave in and out of heavy traffic. We cut off some drivers, get in the wrong lane and run several red lights without even stopping. A few minutes later, honking, we are behind a minibus (Furgon) that just won’t get out of our way. The driver rolls down his window, and gestures (angrily?) while honking madly, but the Furgon driver is either deaf or oblivious and just plods along in front of us. At a red light the Furgon stops, so our driver just rams him. BAM! He jumps off and proceeds to yell and gesture at the mini-bus driver. Then he climbs back on, looks calmly at me, and beckons us forward, pointing at the minibus. It takes me a minute… I look out the side window and see the driver’s helper throwing my pack out into the middle of the street (almost landing it on a car) when I suddenly realize...
The driver points at the Furgon and says, "Berat."
They literally rammed the guy to get him to pull over so we wouldn't have to make a connection by waiting at the Furgon corner. They slung Gail's suitcase out and we ran up onto the mini bus where we were shown the only available seats, in the back. Moment of panic: I left my camera on the other bus! I charged back off and on, and the passengers were just passing it forward to the driver! A quick thanks, back off, and back on, and we were going as my foot was lifting off the ground.
And so this is how you make a bus connection in Albania.
So, the first bus, about 120KM, took us two hours. This trip, about 50KM took two hours. That tells you about the road. A fully loaded minibus on a 4WD track, that just happens to be one of the major roads in Albania. Cute village, ugly town, forest, dry fields, people making haystacks with a pitchfork, cows, mules, wagons, bouncing in the seat (kind of rickety, a ride in itself. Disneyland should get this as an idea) dodging potholes and oncoming traffic, we dodge right and pass left, then we dodge left and pass right. It is like there is no “our side” of the road here, and no speed limit. A little kid pushes an adult-sized wheelbarrow loaded with hay, zig-zaggedy down the road (dodging potholes), dogs run, groups of people are walking, some try to flag us down but after ten more (standing room only) we are full. Concrete memorials to the "Glorious Highway Worker," mosques, dry fields, teddy bears on new construction, on and on... In four hours, not a single bathroom stop. Lesson #163: no coffee or drinks before leaving on the bus!
I told Gail that we are really earning this place; you have to really want to go to Berat to end up there. But when we got to Berat, what a beautiful city. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We are let out by a mosque. (iPod: We want to stop at the mosque in Berat.” Which one? Oh… there are many to choose from. They figure, since we are obviously tourists, it must be the IMPORTANT mosque, so that is where we are.) So, at the corner by the IMPORTANT mosque, I pull out my iPod to look at the downloaded map to our residence. A man looks over my shoulder, looks at me and points right up the street in front of us. I smile, he smiles and we cross and start up. At the second cross street I again check the map. “Go right here?” I am thinking, “or is this just an alley?” when I hear a shout! And behind us the same man is running up the hill, pointing right! Right!
This time I give him a handshake and we hit each other on the back, then we head up the alley/street/path.
We walk a ways, and I see a kid playing. “Desaret?” I ask and he sets off, excited to lead the tourists through a deserted building, up some steps and through a door into a wonderful, dark, cool home.
The pension owner was surprised that we actually showed up, and so after a little wait (we got cold water!) we ended up with the most marvelous view room with wrap-around balcony. A really great room, looking over Berat, the river and snow-covered mountains. Even the view from the toilet was spectacular!
Quick to settle in, then we set out to eat and wander the day away. Gail had the most beautiful looking food, a purple and orange salad, my beef shish-ke-bob was yummy and the wine good.
We walked down past the Leaded Mosque, out of the tourist zone onto RealLifeVille, then back around past the old town center and the Bachelor's Mosque into the Berat where people live. Wide, straight streets (to land jets on; think communist rule) dull, concrete monuments to "workers productivity" or whatever in the public parks, kilometer after kilometer of concrete block apartments, sometimes painted, often just dull, cracked grey. Even the "cute" cafes look cheap and plastic, artificial with Pepsi umbrellas over sun faded plastic chairs. There are signs all over, saying “SHITET.” It is spray-painted on some buildings. In some places it is abbreviated as SHIT. After laughing, then thinking about it, it must mean either “for sale” or “for rent.”
The normal town of Berat seems a little tired, a little dusty and worn, but the old town, UNESCO area was great.
It got really hot around 16:00 so we hid out in the room and a cafe for a couple hours before hiking up up up to the castle and upper town for sunset. We literally slid down the cobblestoned street, and ate an early dinner at 21:00 in anticipation of another early morning bus ride. (We found out that the bus gathering area is at the next mosque over, and the bus to Tirane, the capital, leaves at 5.) The town was lit, the call to prayer echoed from the minarets, and the residents came out for the evening. We wound the meal up with Raki, the traditional drink here. Mine was plain, Gail's had a walnut in the bottom of the glass, both were harsh.
At dinner Gail suddenly had an insight: there have been no McDonalds, Starbucks or Burger Kings in Albania. There is Coca Cola but that is about it. This really is a different place. Hard to believe we are in Europe in 2012.