Bunker spotting
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2007
1
76
144
Trip End
Oct 01, 2007
Tirana,
Albania
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Apart from a couple hours of necessary shut-eye in the morning, I spent most of the ride watching the countryside and looking for the ubiquitous bunkers. While there didn't seem to be many around further south between Gjirokastra and Fier (in the middle of the country), the frequency jumped up considerably as we edged closer to Durrėsi. From there they popped up just about everywhere. Plunked down in yards, buried in high weeds, jutting out from hillsides, lurking on the roadside, propped next to new houses . . . the things are all over the place at some points. They come in a few different sizes, from the small, single-person bunkers arranged in rows (the most common) to the larger, more intimidating giant tortoise-shell ones that strategically loom over the area from higher ground. A few have been broken up or somehow flipped upside down, but a far greater number just sit and sulk, gradually collecting more garbage and weeds.
A couple failed attempts by the Allies to foment anti-Communist rebellion immediately following the war or no, Enver Hoxha was a seriously paranoid man. The former doesn't easily explain the point of building so many, as they pretty much all went up in the 70s after Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Just who they expected to make a full-scale invasion of the country is beyond me, as by the era of Nixon few people knew or thought anything of the country anyhow. Supposedly a lot of them have been dismantled (not an easy task, given their seriously resilient construction) in the more recent development all around the country, but you wouldn't know it when driving around the countryside. Someone gave me a figure of an estimated 40,000 across the country - that's a crazy number of defensive bunkers for a nation this size, built during a time of peace.
I didn't actually get many good shots of them. I somewhat absent-mindedly chose the wrong side of the bus (the left - facing the oncoming traffic and the glaring sun), so I missed some of the best opportunities. By the time a seat freed up allowing me to switch sides, the greatest bulk of them had already passed. But I did get a few and - as any visitor here knows - a visit to Albania is incomplete until you've got a good bunker picture. So I did finally succeed in that, even if it took a lot of hasty shutter-clicking.
I've just got tonight in Tirana and then I catch a bus to Struga, just across the Macedonian border in the morning. The ticket only cost me 10 Euros, which isn't too shabby for a three-hour, international bus. In Struga I then have to change for a connecting bus to Ohrid, the biggest tourist hub in the whole of Macedonia, sitting smack on the eastern edge of the ancient Lake Ohrid. With a couple nights there, I should be able to relax and enjoy the views for a brief spell.
Albania's been a highly intriguing stop in the trip, which is especially great given that I originally wasn't even sure I'd add it to the itinerary. Gjirokastra and Berati were fascinating destinations filled with history and Tirana turned out to be a good deal of fun to pass a couple evenings in. The best thing without a doubt has been the people - easily the friendliest and most welcoming I've encountered thus far on the trip. It's refreshing to visit a place where people are genuinely interested in knowing where you come from and will go out of their way to have a chat and make you feel at home in their country. Given the amount of horror stories (read: hogwash) running rampant about the place in neighboring countries, it's good to get here and see what's really happening. No two ways about it: Albania's a severely underrated and seriously interesting place.
