Finally reaching my destination, sort of

Trip Start May 06, 2007

166

Trip End Jul 24, 2008

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Flag of Albania Sarande, Albania
Monday, December 17, 2007

When my furgon arrived in Gjirokaster, I immediately boarded a bus to Sarande. Once I finally arrived, it was too late to visit Butrint, the nearby ruins and my main reason for heading to Sarande. As is the case with most Albanian transportation, there are only a few buses there and back each day. I had missed the 11:25am bus. The next bus wasn't until 2:30pm and would only give me about 45 minutes at Butrint before the last return bus at 4:30pm. All of this is assuming the bus actually runs according to the posted times - not necessarily a safe assumption. I decided it wasn't worth risking it and would head to Butrint the next morning, spending that day in Sarande.

There really isn't much to see or do in Sarande. I spent some time walking along the shoreline, but it wasn't nearly as pretty as the shoreline in Croatia or Montenegro. That afternoon it started to drizzle a bit and there were more power outages. It made for a very exciting day.

When I woke up the next morning it was pouring rain. I decided rather than getting soaked or waiting around another day hoping for sun that I would skip Butrint (I've seen plenty of ruins - these can't be that special compared to all the others) and head out of Sarande. The frustration had built up and I was ready to get out of Albania. I had originally planned to head to Gjirokaster and go through Korca to get into Macedonia, but when the bus I boarded to Gjirokaster was going all the way to Tirana, I decided to just head back there. The route into Macedonia from Gjiro is not so well defined or easy to travel whereas the route from Tirana to Macedonia is much more straightforward. At this point my frustration level was just too high to deal with more difficult travel than necessary. I wanted out of Albania and I wanted it quickly.