Tirana
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
64
120
Trip End
Sep 02, 2008
Tirana,
Albania
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Somewhere between Elbasan and Tirana, we drove twenty kilometers along a mountain crest. Amazing views out both sides of the van and and the hills were green and yellow from the fall leaves. At the top of this crest, we could see more than five other mountains parallel to ours in the distance, with a valley in between. The valley to our left sank so low that looking down at its villages was something like looking out of an airplane. The engine in our van made a bit of an unusual hum at this altitude, the air being as thin as it was. We drove by a lonely petrol station at the top of the mountain and we pitty the fellow who has to commute to that.
Seeing all the mountains in the distance was an instant lesson in history for me. I have been reading Noel Malcom's Kosovo: A Short History and he also writes about Albania for context. The Albanians throughout history managed to remain uncontrolled by powers in the region. Foreign peoples conquered Albania, no doubt.
But controling the Albanians has always been difficult. The Romans, for example, came to Albania. They didn't control the hills, though, hence the survival of Albanian. Lingusitically, it is the descendent of a language native to the area for thousands of years.
The Serbs, Bulgars and Byzantines never settled to any great extent in Albania. The Turks conquered it, but had the greatest difficulty keeping it under control. Albania's history is full of rebellions agaist unpopular measures, like disarming the locals and conscripting them into other armies. Without the mountains, all of this would be inexplicable. But they are so difficult to cross with conventional transport that supressing the people was impossible. Armies move very slowly up densely forested mountains.
We came into Albania well after dark. Drat! the ride to Tirana was more than four hours for the few hundred kilometers distance. It is so annoying when this happens because orienting oneself in the dark and in an usual city is not always easy.
I had the LP out and I was trying to read it in the dark, during the seconds that we had light every time we drove under a street light or a car passed. Inside Tirana it was a bit more easy and I was able to read it. The driver asked us where we wanted out but we had really no idea and rode along toward the final stop. Sill, we tried to orient ourselves by the streets around us, and traffic was thickening and we were slowing down.
Looking at the map and reading the hostel's address, and said to Bro to keep an eye out for Elbasani street. He saw that we were actually on that street, and we got out of the vehicle only seven buildings away from the hostel. We walked in a moment later and got the last two open beds! I have never found a place to stay so quickly.
We needed a bite to eat and stopped into "Subway" to get a sandwich. Not the "Subway" that we know and love back in N. America, though, but a local business pirating the name and logo. They sell doner kebab at Tirana's "Subway." Afterwards we walked in the area around the hostel. There is a neon purple ferris wheel on our road, a few casinos, and the road curves around a "river" and hugs it, passing a meat shop called "EHW." Like "Subway," the "river" is a bit of a misnomer too; it's a ankle-deep slew with fast-flowing sewer water at the base of a canal, only a few meters across...
(see the latter part of my entry on Durrės for more information on Tirana)
