The past two days in Albania have contained the most exiting and the most rewarding travel experiences and motorcycling experiences that I can remember. Okay…so I live in the moment, but what say you of putting your bike on a small ferry at the Corfu Harbor, arriving at the Albanian harbor at Saranda at 10 am to get your passport stamped by the police and customs and then to ride through the small town to the beach to find a hotel for 20 Euros looking out on the promenade and fishing harbor, then riding 1/2 hour to the Butrint ruins and spending 4 hours feeling like Indiana Jones – there’s nobody there but the archeaologsts and some really big and thankfully lazy snakes (and a lot of pesky mosquitos). I wish I could upload photos and video – I took a ton of them. This is a Greek, Roman, Byzintian archeological site that is being dug out now. Theres a lot to see already and I spent 4 hours poking around – talked with some of the archeologists and while I was there one of them found a coin. Google the place (Butrint Sarada Albania) and you’ll find some information on it and if you can come now now now before it becomes overrun.
That was yesterday. Today I took the Breva on some pretty rough roads winding up and down from beach to mountain. One of the mountain roads was so high that it looked like I was going to ride straight into the mountain just behind it. It felt like I was flying, but I kept my eye on the road so I didn’t fall off …no guard rails here.
Albania is a land of geographic extremes where you can be at a white sandy beach one moment, then an hour later be 500 meters on a rocky road to some ancient ruins, then in some horrible east bloc town (they could use some imaginative architects here) and then in a town made of rock that’s barely hanging on to the cliffside. The land and roads (and conditions) change from flavors of California’s Highway 1 to Jamaica’s interior to the Cinque Terre to the Rocky Mountains. Manzanita and granite to red earth and then pines and ferns. Roadside stands offer apricots and honey now, and people are stopped by the road gathering some herb. The people are startled to see you but quite friendly – tourism is still so new here that they gawk. That’s okay, because I am just gawking every second. I wish I could add more but I need to find a hotel here in Vlora, and then maybe I can find an Internet cafe that can give me an ethernet connection for my laptop and I can show you some photos.
Until then, keep the emails coming to motomisadventures@earthlink.net – I’m not able to download my normal email here.
Carla
