Never seen so many Mercedes on the road before – this is the spiritual home for old Mercedes! Spent only two days in Albania. Its very nice country and people are friendly which is a opposite of what others told me. Did 130 miles on the first day, because its flat from north to the capital tianrna.
Met very nice people at kebab shop, they very keen to help and bought me coffee as well! Cycled on highway because its legal and better road, saw a guy holding a rabbit in one hand and other random stuff in another hand on side of the road trying to sell them to passing cars.
Bump into an American tour cyclist veteran, he is cool and knows everything about cycling tour, pointed out what Im doing wrong, he said he met Sam couple days earlier near Macedonia, what a coincidence!
After capital Tirana are mountains, the view was amazing, but it kept going up and up. There was a choice between tunnel and the mountains, considered past experience with tunnel,so I chosen the mountain, was very ong,m there were houses with dogs and they cahsed me, bite one of the pannier, was so scaredm I have to carry a stick all night. it start to get dark but still climbing up saw a sign said 25Km away from the city I want to go to, but luckily its all downhill.
the downhill have very nice view, but no time to enjoy it, mules in the middle of the road and people walked in the middle of the road without any lights, will be more relax when its daylight etc. have to stay in a hotel at 11pm
Saw richard again next afternoon and he gave me 200 leka because I was running out of money and will be out of Albania soon. The mountains to mecodonia was very hard, took 1 hours going up hill, people on the side of the roads were suprise to see me going up on a bike!