Tuesday 17th July 2012……Albania in and out!!!!

Well my fears and trepidations about getting to Greece were totally unfounded as I am writing this from my hotel room in Greece Tuesday morning at 8.30am!!!!

Here is how my day went yesterday…

I got up at 6.30am now this has to stop that is three days in a row of early rising!!!!

Left the apartment at 7am and walked across the street to the bus stop and started to stick my thumb out for a ride.  Within 5 minutes a young man stopped and picked me up and dropped me right outside the bus station at 7.30am in time for my first bus at 7.40am this bus was from Kotor to Bar and the cost was 7 Euros and it was easy not a full bus and I arrived at the bus station in Bar at 9.40am.  I literally walked into the ticket office bought a ticket for Ulcinj for 2 Euros walked out the office and got on the bus and it left right away…..this was a smaller bus than made lots of stops but still got me to Ulcinj for 10.30am….into the ticket office and bought a ticket for the bus to Albania for 5 Euros and that was leaving in two hours at 12.30pm…so far so good!!

I walked around the small station went to a market and bought some yogurt and we left right on time this bus was a bit run down but the driver was very helpful..he took my passport getting used to that now and away we went on small back roads..

and soon got the border

No problems here and just a 10 minute wait on the bus whilst the driver took the passports in…..then we arrived in Shkodra around 2pm.

This bus stopped at a roundabout on the main street and I got off the bus and there was a Furgon(a small 12 seater passenger bus) with the driver offering rides to Tirana for 5 Euros…so I got in there it soon filled up and 70 minutes later I was in Tirana.

Now this is about 3pm and I thought when I get to Tirana I would need to find a room and wait for the buses to Greece the next morning and was prepared to do that…wrong!!!

Now I have learned there are no bus stations in Albania the buses just stop on the main streets so my mini bus driver did this did this and when I got out in the main street the driver asked me where I was going and I said Greece he walked me across the street to a travel type office where this young man asked me where I wanted to go and I told him and he said the nearest town he could get me to was Ioannina in Greece I said perfect and he said the bus is leaving in two minutes.  I paid the 20 Euros fare and he walked me to the nice big bus and I got on and we left!!!!  How easy was that…it was now about 3.30pm and they told me an 8 hour drive….I had the back two seats to myself so was quite comfortable and I had frozen drinks and food and books to read and music to listen to and was quite content.

Albania is a stark struggling, depressed poor country and the bus went through many back roads which were in poor repair and lots of poverty and very dirty…did this lovely church…

The bus had two drivers and it was a tough drive for them many narrow roads with on coming traffic…they made a few stops for washrooms and food and at 9pm we were at the Greek border…this is where it gets a bit silly…..first we had to hand in our passports again and the driver takes them inside and comes back out a few minutes later and hands them back and then we had to get off and get our bags from the storage underneath and open them the police man did the typical lift the top item and then said OK and so we eventually got back on the bus…now this is just leaving Albania..we drive a couple of hundred yards to the Greek check point and again handed our passports to the bus driver who takes them in the office and again brings them out and hands them back to us and we drive about 50 yards and the bus stops and we all have to get out and stand in line then go through passport control and get our passports stamped and back on the bus and we are finally after two hours in Greece.

About 40 minutes later the bus stops on the main street close to the airport in Ioannina and the driver tells me this is where I get off and he gets my back pack from underneath..so here I am 1.20am in the morning on the street…I see a taxi across the road and asks him to take me to a hotel and finally at 1.30am here I am in my hotel…

I had a quick shower and a great sleep…now it is 9am a much better time to get up the view from my fourth floor room

and I am going down for the breakfast that comes with the room, by the way the room was 30 Euros.

So summing up it was an awesome day I am so lucky that everything turned out so well even better than I had hoped because I am in Greece a day earlier and the town I am in is only 110 km away from where I need to be so I am closer here than if I went with my original plans…..the cost yesterday on buses was 39 Euros so cheap……  18 hours and a distance of about 600km…life is good!!!!!

So B is where I started and A is where I am now and C is where I have to go to today…I have an apartment booked in Kalampaka for tomorrow for two nights but I will go there today and see if they can put me up an extra day if not find a room somewhere else till tomorrow..why I am going there??   YOU will have to wait and see!!!

Thanks for all the good wishes for the journey it really was so easy!!!!!