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The BalkansSlovenia: FIRST NIGHT IN PRISON
We’re staying at a hostel in Ljubljana which used to be a military prison,
each room has been designed individually by local architects, and the hostel itself sits in an uber trendy bohemian free commune. Most of the complex is squats, filled to the brim with artists and musicians… If you ever come to Slovenia this place is a must. I mentioned to Lucile before bedtime that if M wasn’t covered in graffiti by the morning I’d be surprised…
To be honest, after seeing the quality of the art whilst arriving I wouldn’t have minded too much… In the morning – sure enough we had some, albeit very little. Amazingly they’d got her name right and given her an M
on the rear door… I think we got off lightly
The city is stunning, it feels unspoilt despite the appearance of a handful of global retail chains in the old town. Traditional pubs and restaurants can be found everywhere, the centre itself is beautiful
with tight cobbled streets, and enticing medieval alleyways there’s lots to explore. It’s all overshadowed by an impressive castle which I’m glad to see is actually still in use, not as a residence, but as a part gallery / classical music venue. I prefer to see Castles in use, rather than left to rot, there were only minimal concrete scars. Our second night in Slovenia was a rather different experience. We arrived in Piran, with a screaming fanbelt. Which initially was a great worry, now the source has been identified less so, although a constant annoyance. Another job for the list. Little did we know the heavens would open just a few minutes into the camp, I struggled with keeping the fire going, setting up the tent whilst being soaked to the bone whilst Lucile cooked up her usual magical dinner… I neglected to finish the setup of the tent, which we paid for about 1000 times over during the night and the following day. Shortcuts are not possible, I know this, I’ve learned this many times over but it seems I had to learn it one last time. So the sleeping bags got wet, we were effectively rained on most of the night, and any noises outside were considered totally hostile. Images of locals with sharp weapons (mostly sickles) holding burning torches wondering how best to attack this monstrosity parked in their town danced through our minds, at least for the first hour. I’d better get used to bush camping, and this was a great introduction, the very kind lady who informed us it would be fine to camp was in fact spot on, no one minded. We were an amusement during the start of their journeys to work or to school, especially those who were lucky enough to see me exit the tent in my long johns (bought by my mother and reluctantly taken on the trip – I’m now (once more) eternally grateful!) After leaving the “campsite” and having a great breakfast in Piran
we were on the road again, looking forward to finding somewhere with toilets and better still a shower. Croatia: Arriving in Pula, just a short hour’s drive south of Piran we were again disappointed to find that all campsites are closed…. A pattern emerging?? No one’s stupid enough to camp in February in the Balkans… Surely???
is charming who invited us for tea and Rum, Croatian Rum no less, which (surprisingly) is absolutely excellent… We communicated solely in German, discussing best fishing practices (which hopefully will keep me fed for the duration of the trip), land mines through the Balkans, the cost of living these days and Croatian history…. Not bad when none are speaking their own language... Dinner tonight is Croatian Chicken (with tomatoes). Lucile goes fishing: Chris loses the bait.
- it wasn’t the weather for it
we’re empty handed and have no more lures left… We stayed at Giovanni’s campsite again and spectacularly failed to get up before lunch time… Something to do with the local beer and wine I think. Despite feeling like we were on a farmer’s private lane, the map continued to inform us that we were in fact on a main road… Tarmac eventually appeared again after an hour and signs for the Bosnian border suddenly appeared. During 2 hours of this driving (whilst Lucile slept) I saw only one other car on the road, a few toads, a huge rabbit and an enormous owl… Just no people. Being in the heart of the Serb Separatist area, tired at night, with UK plates, doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. There’s something a little sinister about everything tonight, maybe it’s just being tired from the drive and the lack of friendly tourist welcoming faces which I’ll just have to get used to, but the thought of all the war criminals still being hidden probably just a short distance from us makes us think our earlier jokes on potholed dirt tracks about “looking for Mladic” seem a little to real. Banja Luca seems to be populated by boy racers (in Lada’s) and police, both in equal measure. It is 12:20am however on Saturday morning. In the morning it became clear that our worries were unfounded, everyone seems to be just as friendly as we’ve become accustomed to. Whilst Lucile paid the Motel bill I was checking over M, who the previous night had had problems with charging the batteries… First thing thismorning, no charge going to the battery at all. The charging warning light was on, and the alternator was making some very very funny noises (which I originally thought was the Fanbelt slipping). MAJOR MECHANICAL PROBLEM After a check of all the connections and a quick inspection it’s off to a garage to see if we can find a new alternator… We tried 3 garages and had absolutely no luck, a lack of a common language being the main difficulty. The alternator however had now started charging, just with the awful noise… In the fourth garage, we found a helpful mechanic, with piercing blue eyes who spoke a little English and asked us to follow him to somewhere that may be able to help… We drove for 5 minutes, arrived at what seemed to be his fathers garage where everyone agreed that the best course of action was for us to drive in daylight to Sarajevo (4 hours away) and seek help there – where a Nato base (full of Landrovers) and better equipped garages await. So off we went, following to the letter the kind mechanics’ directions, not able to use the headlights, or indeed anything electrical it was quite a drive, especially through the fog and heavy rain. I used windscreen wipers sparingly for the first hour, once every 10 minutes to give my eyes a rest from staring through what at times seemed like a hall of mirrors… Then the road disappeared. We were again on dirt tracks covered not only in potholes but also snow. I’d been trying to not use the brakes, as the brake lights used up precious battery resources (we now had 75% battery power), engine braking was making my eyes water at some of the corners, and the roads getting worse and worse were a huge worry. We arrived on the main road after 2 hours of off road driving, potholes disappeared and traffic arrived, which brought its own challenges… Not being able to indicate, brake, use headlights or use the wipers made it tiring, and every policeman we passed waved at us to turn on the headlights (it was dark already due to the rainclouds) we waved and said “OK – THANKS” with the old thumbs up, and hoped they didn’t follow. We arrived in Sarajevo on Saturday night 25 minutes before dusk, with just 25% battery power remaining, just enough hopefully to start the engine on Monday morning and find somewhere to repair M. The Nato Base may be our only option, short of flying in a new alternator. At the time of writing (Sunday afternoon), we’ve not yet been able to locate the new part, and will probably be here until Wednesday – which is absolutely fine because this city is incredible. We’ve only been here ½ a day and we’re absolutely loving it. It’s odd to see war ravaged buildings all around, but the city’s thriving, and the people are great – more on Sarajevo (including pictures) soon! Sarajevo: Our hostel is run by an extremely welcoming and warm Australian / Bosnian lady. After mentioning in passing our Land Rover problems, she went out of her way to find where we could find a new alternator. I wondered whether the siege had made people so accommodating, that it may have made the residents of Sarajevo more in touch with humanity than others not exposed to so much suffering… I then remembered every other person we’d met so far in the Balkans, all of which had been so hospitable and kind.
We stayed in the old part of town, which consists of dozens of tiny streets, full of small traders and much to Lucile’s joy, mostly selling tat. Well not quite true, there’s a fair amount of quality souvenirs, from far eastern looking tea and coffee sets, to handmade chess boards.
The main city mosque is right behind our place, the iron bars on the mosque’s outer walls serve to keep the bustle of the busy side streets away from the tranquil courtyard. Cats play in the grounds, and people sit generally in contented silence.
The city still has scars from the war, it’s all around you. The eeriest of all these scars are the “Sarajevo Roses” the impact craters from Serbian shells, often found in marketplaces, near mosques and anywhere that crowds of people assembled. The impact of the shells on concrete leads to one large crater, around an inch deep, 30-50 cm wide, surrounded by smaller shrapnel scars, 4-5 centimetres in diameter, for each shrapnel impact on the ground, countless others would have cut through cars, buildings and people. These benignly named but gruesome landmarks are filled in with bright red paint by the people of Sarajevo, where shelling killed scores, simple brass plaques mark the place where the shells struck.
It’s easy to imagine snipers lurking in the hills which surround the city, when the mist descends, as it often does, I can only imagine the brief relief this must have given to residents during their three year siege. Sarajevo was surrounded in 1992; the Serbs didn’t leave until 1995.
We spectacularly failed on the first night to find anywhere decent to go for a drink. This was due to a combination of tiredness, the stress of travelling without essentials such as wipers and lights, not having time to acclimatise to being in the relative normality of Sarajevo after the apparent coldness of Banja Luka and fact that every bar selling alcohol is outnumbered 4-1 in this mostly Muslim city. After struggling through 4/5 drinks in bars with pumping outdated house music, I call it a night. I’m absolutely exhausted but Lucile is more than a little disappointed (well she did get to sleep in the car) due to her unquenched thirst for cheesy music! Sunday, we take up most of the day walking through the city and its suburbs, finding in the daytime many of the bars and clubs recommended to us, which we failed to find the previous night…
We decided to have lunch somewhere cheap and quick after missing breakfast, so darted into what we thought from the signs outside was a fast food joint, specialising in pizza and toasted sandwiches. The entrance was down a flight of stairs, again just off the main street, and once at the bottom, a sign read – “Ring the Buzzer”. Which with just a little bemusement we did, a smart waiter opened the door and invited us into the restaurant. It’s rather like walking into a suave gentleman’s club in the West End. Hardwood panelled walls and classy furniture, with expensive cutlery, wine glasses and each table set ready for the local upper classes to dine was not what I imagined from the tacky boards just a few metres above our heads. Our initial reaction was – oh, a cheap lunch suddenly looks like very expensive. Lucile ate pasta with an amazing creamy mushroom sauce, I had Cordon Bleu with roasted vegetables, mini baked potatoes and an excellent salad (with a good glass of red wine – well, it was after midday), it cost around £10 for both of us. Well fed and feeling smug about finding this bizarre little gem we were on our way again.
The Library in Sarajevo was attacked by the Serbs on the night of 26th August 1992 destroying a huge part of the former Yugoslavia’s history. An incendiary device landed, gutting the building and little survived the flames.
Monday morning, first thing, we set off for the British Embassy to find out how many Land Rover dealerships / part distributors there were (if any) in Sarajevo. After seeing the hoards of people queuing outside the German embassy our hearts sunk, fearing a long queue, we were greeted with friendly consulate staff, and absolutely no-one in front of us. Armed with information on the British Bosnian Service, a company run by a great guy called Selvedin - who looks after all the Land Rover needs of the local embassies, NATO and EUFOR we felt a little happier. A quick call confirmed that an alternator for a 300TDI was sitting happily in their stock room so we just started M, with what little battery life remained and headed off to BBS. The BBS shop is filled with pictures of offroad days, many with British Land Rovers, brought over every year by the UK Land Rover club. Selvedin is a keen off-roader, and given more time I’d have loved to join him and his friends for a day’s offroading in the mountains, safely away from the landmines thanks to their intimate knowledge of the country.
The alternator wasn’t cheap (to be honest bloody expensive at £300), a bit of a rip-off, but I had no choice – we had to leave Sarajevo that day. For £10 it was fitted, which saved me probably 4/5 hours work, to read, re-read the Haynes manual, and then get it wrong a few times. Given our limited time, and a need to get to Mostar ASAP, I was pleased when after ½ hour we were up and running. I’ve taken the old one and plan to strip it down when I have more time on my own… I’ll let you know how I get on!
We were sorry to be leaving Sarajevo, but there’s still so much to see and still a very long drive to Istanbul for Lucile to catch her flight back to London. Only 6 days left, and we’re conscious that there’s just not enough time to do everything. We made the decision to drive onto Mostar, rather than stay another day in Sarajevo. On the journey out of Sarajevo, we were reminded, as we were on the drive in from Banja Luka of the enormous loss of life the war inflicted. Thousands upon thousands of graves cover the hills as you leave the city. Many graves sit quietly together in clusters of 8 – 15 stones, possibly where entire families lie. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to see this – in the city, where burnt out shells of buildings precariously stand, where bullet holes riddle locals’ kitchen windows you never really imagine people dying, the awe at the scale of the conflict is clear but only in the hills when you leave the city is the loss of life apparent. It’s a memory of Sarajevo I’ll never forget. Monday 12th February 2007 Mostar is only 100km from Sarajevo, but through winding mountain roads, the speed limit is generally 40km per hour, which the trucks wisely follow. Any more, even in M and you’d be in trouble. Affluent Bosnians in Mercedes and Audis zip past on what look to me like very risky if not suicidal corners. Entering the city, it’s clear that the scars of war are more severe here – even though the conflict ended 12 years ago. There was either heavier fighting here, or not as much money for reconstruction. Searching for campsites again proved fruitless, no signs were seen and everyone we asked looked at us as if we were mad - we eventually opted for a motel. Although we’d driven around the city a couple of times, sticking mainly to the ringroad, hoping in vain for campsite signs, we hadn’t yet seen the famous bridge, and had only distant passing glimpses of the mosques that are scattered around the city. The “Motel” in question, sits next to a raging waterfall, accessible on one side via a bridge, it looks at night like a fairytale hotel, a smaller version of the Mostar bridge sits 100m away linking the motel with their own private bar. Lucile came back asking whether I wanted the good news or the bad news… I thought “this will be expensive”, but the bad news was that, as the motel was virtually empty, we could get a whole apartment for €50 (euros). Tired and hungry, and looking at the views we’d get, it wasn’t really a hard decision to make. When I walked into the motel, the owner, a returnee from Germany, greeted me and said “Your wife, woman or, err, ‘whatever’ has looked at the room already”, which shocked me but really pissed off Lucile… It’s kind of typical of the Balkans, it’s very much a man’s world. He then insisted the parking was secure. Despite M being parked on the road, his security would check every 15 minutes, and keep an eye out from their posts.
The apartment was great, sitting above the restaurant, accessed by a shared balcony overlooking the small bridge and the local mosques we had two rooms, a small bathroom and the sound of the substantial river outside being forced down the narrow waterfall. The restaurant downstairs had fantastic views of the small bridge, and had been made to look as old as possible, however, not quite succeeding. The original building was apparently destroyed by a flood in 2001, and the stained pine, trying to look like oak didn’t quite work… Still the food was excellent and we felt a lot better for it. Walking out of the motel after dinner, we were amazed to find that we were in fact only one minute away from Mostar’s famous bridge, better still, we had it to ourselves. Originally built in 1581, it stood for over 400 years before it was destroyed in the fighting between the Muslims and Croats in 1993 (after they’d fought together against the Serbs). The new bridge is impressive, the attention to detail is excellent, but it’s not the original.
If you leave the main tourist streets which follow the river, you find building after building where only pockmarked walls stand; it looks like photos I’ve seen of post Second World War Europe, the sound of rats squeaking can be heard as you pass, which unnerved Lucile somewhat…(
Here’s some photo’s of the bridge (and us) in the daytime:
Tuesday 13th February 2007 In the morning, we set off – heading for Kotor in Montenegro, 10 minutes into the drive I noticed that the rear door wasn’t locked, I asked Lucile to slam it, which she tried whilst moving, but with no success. Thinking that something must be blocking the door from closing I stopped on the verge, jumped out and immediately saw that someone had tried to force the door, presumably at some point in the night. The frame surrounding the smaller of the two rear windows was dented, with paint missing, and on opening the door to inspect, the door came away and flapped around in my hands as the top hinge disconnected. It seems the pressure of the attempted break-in had snapped the hinge, hence the door appearing to be open. For now, a rope holds the door firmly in place, and we’ll need to get it sorted ASAP. On the plus side, nothing was taken – but so much for “secure parking”. We took the most direct route to Kotor, travelling on B roads through the rest of Bosnia, minefields littered the countryside, the first marked fields we’ve seen. Many fields have been identified, but many remain uncharted. The advice which one would be foolish to ignore in Bosnia is: don’t go anywhere off-road unless the locals do. Stick to the tarmac.
Another comedy town name was found en-route: “Celebici” was a great amusement. Here’s a picture of me and Lucile leaving Celibici.
Whilst on a comedy note, here’s a few things Lucile probably shouldn’t say next time she’s in the Balkans: “You can keep me as a hostage?” (To the owner of BBS when I needed to go to a cashpoint to pay for the alternator), and “let’s just bomb it along” (on leaving Sarajevo). We crossed into Montenegro on a small mountain pass near Trebinje. The Bosnian guards seeing us on our way were confused when looking through our documents to find that we had no insurance for the country – something which the guards on our way in should have sold us… My mistake, but one I won’t make again, although travelling without third party insurance is cheap, if you hit anything, you could be in serious trouble. Montenegro: Arriving in Montenegro with smiling chirpy border guards, we’re happy to see that finding warm, welcoming people continues as we progress further south. We drove down the mountain into the clouds below and arrived at the coast of Montenegro. The first part of the coast was impressive, but nothing compared to what we were greeted with as we entered south-eastern Europe’s largest fjord. The water is turquoise, similar to Venice and the rest of the Adriatic, huge mountains surround the fjord, with waterfalls every few miles, the largest of which surges out from under a bridge at an amazing rate.
On first seeing the walled city of Kotor, my initial reaction was “are they crazy?” The city walls cling to the mountain a good 500m above the city itself, arriving at dusk (which is early for us), the walls were warmly floodlit and it was quite a shock. It seems a bit of overkill to be honest, but apparently it stood them in good stead, they were the only Balkan state which withstood 400 years of Turkish occupation.
We had seen one campsite which was open an hour before on crossing the border, but decided to press on closer to Kotor. We had assumed (wrongly) that if one is open, there must be others. No such luck, driving 15 minutes past the ancient city along the fjord we found a campsite, after enthusiastic help from two young locals, but it was closed. They only spoke Serbian and around 5 words of German and when the perfect-English speaking owner turned up he was amused to find us wanting to camp in February. He’s a charming man, and extremely welcoming, although the toilets and showers aren’t yet set up for anyone, we’d be welcome to pitch our tent and stay the night – making us his first guests of 2007. So semi-bush camping it was… Wednesday 14th February 2007 In the morning I opened the main window in the tent to find an incredible view, looking out over the water to the mountains which surround the fjord, not bad for €5 (euros). I’d had some problems with the lights since the alternator was replaced. The issue was only identified the previous night, it meant that the full beam on the offside front headlights and winch spotlights were always on – the right nearside light not working at all, so the first hour and a half of the day was spent fixing that. We’d managed to get up surprisingly early for us, an 8am start was a record. Still, we planned to get through Albania after leaving Kotor, so it was essential.
We only had a few hours to spend in Kotor, which was a real shame, I’d have loved to climb the walls but I estimated it would take a good 2 hours if not more, probably not a great idea either with Lucile getting a cold. We wandered around the backstreets for a while, noting that the city seems to be mainly populated with cats, there are hundreds of them all over the city, sitting together in smallish groups. It gives part of the city a rather nasty cat piss smell which reminds me of a house in Rugby I once lived in! A few hours isn’t really enough time in this city, apparently in summer the place is heaving but this time of year we’re pretty much the only tourists – quite common since leaving Venice.
On the way to Albania, we passed Sveti Stefan, where the latest Bond was filmed… Me – I can’t resist a good tourist photo….
Albania: We left Kotor and headed towards the Albanian border at around 2pm, eating the last of our food en-route.
We were a little apprehensive about Albania, it wasn’t originally in the plan, so I hadn’t researched it at all. The first border we crossed (verified by my GPS) was manned by cattle, we were forced to turn around after it turned into a dead end and found a similar crossing, although this time manned (with people). (Albanian border.jpg, Albanian border guards.jpg) (hmm - someone forgot to send these photographs - will update as soon as I have them x) Lucile had been reading little snippets to me from our guide book of the Balkans, apparently, there are still to this day blood feuds which involve whole families living in self-imposed, heavily armed isolation to avoid extermination from their enemies. It seems it doesn’t take much to start one of these blood feuds, and once they’ve started, they escalate quickly into all out war between the two factions. Many Albanians still live by the Kanuns (apparently) used in the country since the 15th century, yes, medieval laws are still followed in this part of Europe. Not wanting to start a blood feud ourselves, we followed the speed limit (40 or 50 kmph). I was confused on entering the country to find that virtually every car flashed enthusiastically at me as we drove along, I thought something may be wrong with the vehicle, perhaps a border guard being dragged along underneath? Another problem with my lights? No, this is just something they do. To everyone. All of the time. I don’t like night driving, I don’t see as well in the dark, and when you’re being constantly blinded by full beams in your face every 2 minutes it gets quite wearing. The air in the Land Rover became quite blue, and later on in the night I took to flashing back with everything M had – the full beams, winch spotlights and the row of floodlights at the top. That’ll show ‘em. The country is littered with 700,000 tank resistant bunkers (one for every 4 Albanians), which the communist dictator built to allow for citizens to man whilst fighting any possible invasion. Apparently (according to our guide book), the designer of these bunkers had to sit inside whilst a tank attacked it. It seemed to work – he did a great job, the shelter was intact, and he was unscathed, although probably couldn’t hear that well after. (Albanian indestructible bunker.jpg)(hmm - someone also forgot to send these photographs - will update as soon as I have them x) We’d heard that diesel was cheap in Albania – but it wasn’t that much less than anywhere else we’d been to in the Balkans. The equivalent of 81 cents, it’s just 3 cents off the price in Bosnia. We didn’t want to stop too often as it doesn’t feel nearly as friendly or safe as other countries we’ve been to (and we didn’t want to accidentally start any blood feuds), so on we drove, towards Tirana. The roads were good, for now, but the speed limit is killing us, it’ll take a long time at this rate. Each time we stop at lights we get a mixed reaction – from amusement, amazement and from shifty looking characters sizing us up to child beggars hammering on the windows asking for money for food. They chase any foreign vehicle, and often jump into random cars with locals; I’m not getting good feelings about this place. The locals drive often 4 men to a car in big dark Mercedes Benzs with blacked out windows, their constant smoking gives an opportunity to see inside, no conversation, just menacing looks and thick smoke. We’d seen 5 of these Mercedes pass us at the border posts, there’s something very dodgy about this – later we read about the mafia here: huge smuggling rings appeared after the death of the dictator Enver Hoxha in 1985 and the subsequent fall of communism, smuggling everything from people, drugs and stolen Mercedes. That explains it then. We stopped for fuel near Lezhe. After filling up, whilst Lucile used the loo, a policeman approached me, somewhat gingerly, which was a surprise, his English wasn’t great, and initially there was a bit of confusion – it went something like this: With Lucile now back, we formally introduced ourselves, Augustin, our policeman hitchhiker explained to us (whilst constantly smoking Marlboro Reds) that he has to work 100km from his home, and does this journey - hitchhiking every single day. From what we could gather - and it was difficult to communicate, he works as a ‘guard’ for a rich family. As we passed what seemed to be a bad traffic accident involving a cement mixing lorry and two or three other vehicles he told us that we shouldn’t drive through Tirana, the roads are bad as are the drivers and there’ll be traffic – we should take a smaller road that goes west onto the coast, it’s a new road, and eventually swings around south of Tirana and heads east again. Funnily this road went straight past his house… Amazing. We later found out that everything our policeman had said was true, the roads were heavily potholed, whilst not a problem for us in a Land Rover, every other car had to negotiate them as carefully as Albanian drivers can. The population in the city of Tirana has exploded over the last 20 years nearly tripling during this time, the city obviously struggles to keep up, and chaos seems to reign on the roads. Drivers are absolutely crazy here, driving on the wrong side of the road on corners just to cut into the endless traffic jams 4 or 5 cars further on. Everyone seems to do this, which leads to more traffic jams, and more opportunities for them to create a new one. No-one seems to mind however, in London this would lead to fights, here people generally ignore it – even the police… Maybe no-one wants to start a blood feud! It took us nearly 2 hours to get though Tirana, maybe afterall the policeman was right, and we’d have been better off following his advice… Albanians are certainly the worst drivers I’ve ever seen, overtaking in crazy places, cutting up everyone and even driving the wrong way through roundabouts, it’s no wonder the guide book says “for the brave few, car hire is available at the airport”. Around 20km after Elbasan I saw ahead of us chaos on the road; no more than a minute before we arrived there had been a major road accident. A hysterical screaming woman, presumably from one the roadside houses just a few metres from the crash scene came to my now open window as I came to a stop. Her arms were in the air, she had pure terror in her eyes with tears streaming down her face. As she came to me, two men dragged a stocky male in his 40’s from what looked to be once a 1990’s Vauxhall Astra. It had buried itself in a ditch, the man dragged from the car was unconscious and as someone began giving CPR I assume he had no vital signs. At this point we were only the second vehicle on the scene. The man would be fortunate to survive such a crash. Not being able to speak any common languages made it nearly impossible to understand what the woman wanted – I think she wanted us to take the man to a hospital – from the limited first aid I know, I knew that this was a bad idea. Dragging him from the car, through the broken window before checking whether he was stable was also probably a bad idea but not being able to communicate, the appearance of someone who knew CPR followed by another 20 people was an end to our involvement. Horrified teenagers ran between the house and the crash scene screaming, crying and in a state of sheer panic. I can only assume from their hysteria (over that of other people now involved) that they knew the man, possibly he was a friend or family member leaving the house before the impact. The other car in the crash – a new Mercedes - was far better off, the crumple zone at the front doing its job and absorbing the impact before reaching the driver and passenger compartment. With help on the way, and too many people crowding around there was little we could do, after discussing whether we would be of help or hindrance we decided not to stay, as all we could possibly do is look on in continued horror. After witnessing such crazy driving all day and night it’s not surprising that this is a common occurrence in Albania. I don’t know their road traffic accident statistics, but I’d be extremely surprised if they weren’t the highest in Europe. I’ll be glad when we leave this country. The long drive continued, and at around 2am in the morning, tired and looking forward to leaving Albania we arrived at the border. We’d decided to head for the Greek border rather than the Macedonian one. We were greeted by a pissed off looking woman holding an automatic rifle. We stood in silence as all questions I asked were greeted with stony looks. After a minute, a more welcoming looking gentleman appeared after obviously being woken by our arrival to tell us in perfect English we were in fact at the Macedonian border. Bollocks. It was only 65km to the Greek border, cursing the lack of road signs we were on our way again, with Lucile taking the mickey out of my terribly British greeting of the boss at the last border post. Apparently I turn into an aristocrat when tired, in a very posh accent (which apparently I have) I said “Terribly sorry for the late hour old chap” or something similar… We eventually left Albania to find a fairly officious Greek border guard, asking for my passport back 3 times to check something he couldn’t explain to me… Apparently I didn’t have the right papers from the border crossing into Albania, but everything was in order, and eventually, after fetching his boss, they let us through. (arriving in Greece finally.jpg)(and again someone forgot to send these photographs - will update as soon as I have them x) I drove until dawn, when we reached Thessaloniki. The thought of waking up in the morning at a campsite we didn’t have to leave was the only thing (apart from copious caffeine) keeping me going. We failed to find somewhere in Khalkidhiki’s first finger, and eventually drove another hour and a half to the eastern side of Khalkidhiki where the second campsite we found was open. At 10am after 19 hours of straight driving, sustained solely by Pringles and Red Bull we finally stopped. Whilst Lucile showered I opened a beer, managed two sips and looking out over the Adriatic and Mount Atos beyond I fell asleep in the sun on the grass next to M.
Upon waking up and checking M, I find that I have a leak in my main fuel tank. Something else which now urgently needs attention… To date we’ve driven 2578 miles and it feels like we did most of them yesterday. 16th February
18th February
Our friendly campsite dog took a great liking to Lucile, possibly a little too much of a liking, and kept us amused whilst we once more packed up the campsite before departing for Istanbul. |
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