Escaped from yacht world in Montenegro (it’s really just Caravan Club for rich people, just with Crystale instead of UHT milk). Our minibus down to the capital of Albania, Tirana was fun. We were lucky enough to have the wonderful musical accompaniment of that young, some would say sexy (I think I probably would), Iglesias fellow (not the old dead classical guy – his son… can’t remember his name) and Avril Lavigne on a loop. For four hours.

Tirana itself was very cool. Fantastically vibrant city that felt really on the up. Funky bars and restaurants. And finally we found somewhere cheap. Had a delicious dinner of grilled meats, bread, salad, beer and mineral water for equivalent of 4 euros each.

Kept singing different Albanian anthems that I made up in my head. It started with “Albanian Families” to the tune of the 1980s TV advert for “Sylvanian Families”. And then it went on. “We’re the kids of Albania, woah” and “Welcome to Tirana” (to the Manu Chao song “Welcome to Tijuana”) were my faves.

Albania has far more similarities with India than with any country in Europe I’ve ever seen. The toilets are fecking disgusting (I’d go so far to say, worse than India), power outages and water shortages are the norm, and the “roads” are in a complete state (and instead of cows wondering about aimlessly, here it is donkeys. I know. It’s brilliant).

I still haven’t worked out how the road system works. Or even if there is a system. The drivers here seem to have collectively imagined a third lane into being, which as far as I can see does not actually exist. It makes for really interesting journeys as cars dodge back and forth searching out the gaps. Every bus ride is like a hair-raising kamikaze game of cat and mouse. It took me almost half a day to work out that vehicles are supposed to drive on the right hand side. There at least seems to be some vague agreement about abiding to that rule – sort of. I don’t think there are any others.

Our second bus journey here, to Dhermi (pronounced “Thermi”) was hilarious. We spent the first hour taking the huge bus down a two-lane, but I think really supposed to be one-lane, “one-way” system out of a major town. Luckily we had two policemen riding on board with us so they were able to get out every now and again and order the traffic around to let us through. The people on the bus were fantastic and we had lots of sing-a-longs, with the policeman taking the lead. Several helpings of grilled goat’s brains and Italian Job finale bends later we finally made it to Dhermi.

Yes, I did say goats brains. GOATS BRAINS. I ATE GOATS BRAIN. I ATE GOATS BRAIN. ME. I ATE IT. And Will has the photos to prove it. Having not tucked into a horseburger in the end in Ljubjana, I thought I’d better up the ante a little. Earlier in the day we had met a guy who had told us about the national “delicacies”, and he had explained how he thought goat’s brain was really rather nice. And tasted a bit like condensed yoghurt. I really didn’t get that. Until I ate it. And it did taste like condensed yoghurt. Really disgusting gone-off condensed yoghurt. I also tucked into a bit of goat tongue (mmmmm… or rather, hmmmmm), and finished off with some goat’s face. Which was the nicest bit. But then I stopped. It was okay while it lasted. But you have to know when to stop. But Will and our two new Albanian best friends tucked into the rest of the poor goat’s face like it was a KFC Bargain Bucket.

Later we shared a proper dinner of a Milka bar and a Nestle canned iced Cappuccino.

The next day we went to grab some breakfast at a restaurant. When we asked for the menu the waiter man explained that there wasn’t one, but that he could serve us their usual breakfast fare. Cow’s head soup. We politely declined.

It is perhaps no surprise that I was violently ill the day after the goat’s brains, and have spent two days in bed. Thank goodness for Adam & Joe who totally got me through feeling like crap.

Albania is donkey heaven. They are everywhere. I am so happy.

The coffee took a turn for the worst again with a very bad cappuccino for breakfast this morning.  A crappucino might be a better description as it seemed to be a very small espresso with canned squirty cream on top.  The good news is they have excellent Turkish coffee best described as “black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love”.

We are thinking of heading back to the UK and then heading down to Asia rather than head up through Bulgaria.  We thought the budget may go a little further in Asia as travelling in Eastern Europe in August is a little more expensive than we had planned.

When we got the first mini bus we met lots of people keen to help us on our journey and know all about where we were from and what we were doing.  This was often challenged by a lack of a common language but this small obstacle was nearly always resolved with inventive sign language, phrase books and reference to a few known words of either Italian, French or German.  The international language of Football remains strong with the only form of communication available with one guy being him reciting all the premiership football results and telling me of his love of the “Minchester Yooonited” (please apply comedy Eastern European access liberally).

From this minibus we then met another Albanian, Idy, who had been studying in Florida.  He gave us lots of insight into Albanian life and told us about where we could get a cheap Mercedes.  Apparently Germany has the same system as the UK for scrapping old cars to stimulate new car sales.  The Albanians have seen this as a good opportunity though and through various connections the cars are sent down to Albania with new papers rather than being scrapped.  So if anyone fancies a good second hand Merc this is apparently the place to go.

He also told us all about Albania’s most famous author Ismail Kadare and recommended some of his books which were often well disguised political satire directed at the Communist dictator Hoxha who ruled Albania.  Apparently he let the writer carry on writing them as the translated copies of the books sold into foreign countries made him so much money he wanted to keep them going.  Idy also recommended the very best of Albanian food for us to try in the region we were heading towards.  This list included:

• Pace – cows head soup usually eaten for breakfast, much better than Special K
• Pilaf me kos – yogurt and rice
• Pasqebap me pilaf – beef soup with rice
• Kukurec – lambs or goat kids stomach and internal organs worked into a long rope with the intestines and then steamed or roasted
• Koke keci ose qengji – lamb or goat kid head spit roasted and halved so you can eat the brain which he described as being like a firm yogurt.

We then changed coaches again and were looked after by more Albanian people who literally showed us from bus to bus and helped us to find banks and food and everything we needed.  On this bus we met an Albanian guy who lived in Bath, UK.  He was great company and helped me improve my basic Albanian of please, thank you, hello etc.

As the bus stopped up in the mountains I shared our list of local delicacies with him and his sister and they agreed wholeheartedly and after buying him a beer he then disappeared off from the bar and invited us to try the goat kids head.  We gratefully and somewhat hesitantly agreed and went over to the spit roast to see our lovely goat brain being prepared.  The goat’s brain was indeed much like a firm yogurt consistency and didn’t taste too bad.  I don’t think it will ever be my favourite but it was OK.  The tongue was a bit tough but better than the brain.

Enjoying spit roast goat brains

I was very impressed with Jo for trying it and the pictures tell the story of her reaction.  Soon afterwards the bus was ready to go and we left after finishing the goat brains and tongue.  As we went to board the bus again two large neckless shaved headed policemen started shouting at us.  I was worried that they were annoyed at the goats head carnage we had left behind.  It turned out they were sending us back to get the goats head as we had wasted so much of it.  We then were given a lesson in goats head eating by the policemen much to the amusement of the other passengers and spent the rest of the journey chewing on large hunks of goats skull until we reached our destination.

Dhermi itself was a fairly basic resort with pizza restaurants and bars playing loud music and showing football matches.  We didn’t head out and discover the other beaches nearby as the rooms were pretty expensive and we had foolishly forgotten our tents.

We are hoping “Mafia” is an Eastern European word for “great place” or “lovely beaches” and not just Cosa Nostra.

So the bus down to the South of Montenegro was another interesting experience.  We were heading towards Ulcinj where we were assured there would be a connection to Albania.  All of a sudden the bus driver stopped and told us to get out and pointed at another bus.  We followed his lead and jumped on the other bus. As we got on the next bus which was still only half way towards our destination we were asked for another complete fare to get us to our destination.  After a confused couple of minutes of back and forth in English and Serbian we found no middle ground and definitely no common language.  We were then rescued by two girls from New York who shouted at the guy in fluent Serbian and put him straight and then told us he had been trying it on and thought he could stitch us up because of the language barrier.  We then told the New Yorker / Montenegrins that we were headed down to Albania and they looked at us as if we were slightly deranged and said “Mafia, Mafia, Mafia” and told us to make sure we hide all of our money and never show anything valuable in Public.

After changing buses again and meeting some nice Hungarians, Germans, Brits and Australians we got on another bus and headed towards the border.  Just before the border the bus stopped for a ten minute break and we sat under a tree as chickens pecked around us and the driver tried to kill the chickens by throwing litre bottles of water at them.  Luckily the chickens were a fairly spry bunch and managed to avoid all of the driver’s chicken crushing attempts.  We also met “Fred the Albanian” who was a very helpful chap and told us all about life in Albania and where to stay in the Capital.

Back on the bus after crossing the border and playing the swap the passport game again we met a lovely German couple called Francisca and Herbert.  They were heading in the same direction as us and we got talking.  They weren’t your typical backpacking types as they must have been knocking on the door of their 70^th year.  We found out that they were due to have gone away to Brittany for a caravanning holiday but Herbert had decided at the last minute that was a bit boring and had found his old rucksack and persuaded Francisca that backpacking around Eastern Europe would be much more fun.  I think Francisca was still not 100% convinced on this but they were certainly getting into the spirit of things turning up in Tirana the capital of Albania with no room booked and searching for a cheap hostel dorm room.  We all found a hostel and stayed there but Jo informs me Herbert’s snoring was rather loud in the bunk next to her.

The snoring meant it was just like being back on the Camino and the hostel was very similar.  We got the last two beds available and ended up with the top bunks as always.

Tirana is a lovely city and has a lovely feel to it.  Everyone just seems to be out enjoying themselves and having fun.  There wasn’t an edge there of any feeling of anyone trying too hard, just loads of people enjoying their new freedom and feeling like their city is on the up.  If the number of Mercedes, Porsche and BMW are anything to go by it is.  On the other hand maybe it was “Mafia mafia mafia.”

We enjoyed a coronary challenging meal of different shaped beefburgers stuffed with cheese cooked on a grill.  These burgers varied in size from matchbox size to side plate size.  All washed down with the local beer – Korca and then onto a few cocktail bars for Tirana’s finest interpretation of cocktail classics.