Today marks 2 weeks since I last washed my hair and the last day of my week here in Albania.
I had a lot of anxiety about Albania. It had nothing to do with the infamous mafia, the Albanian bad men in the film Taken, or it’s tarnished reputation as a place to travel in. Apparently Albanians were notorious for smuggling drugs, weapons and people too. But no, I had no idea about any of those until I was actually in the country frantically google searching whether it was safe to hitchhike in Albania. I had anxiety because it was relatively unplanned. You see, the initial plan was to meet up with my fellow Aussie, London based pal Sambo. Sam’s visa had run out and she was, likewise, making her own way home via every country that her car would take her to. She was road tripping across Europe and we arranged itineraries to cross paths in Albania as we both had the same idea of making up for the lack of vitamin D in our lives for the last few years in a mere few weeks and fry ourselves on their beautiful coast line.
So I arranged the flight into Tirana, Albania’s capital and that’s as far as I had planned as Sam was providing transport and accommodation in the form of her car and tent. Albania, we found out was wild camping friendly, meaning you could set up camp anywhere and no one gives two hoots. You beaut.
Unfortunately, exceptional circumstances meant that Sam had to pull the pin on her travels early and head home to Australia. Even worse, she’s based in Sydney and I’m in Melbourne so we didn’t get a proper farewell unless you count the teary, countless mimosas we had the day before her own departure from London, which I don’t count. We love you Sambo and promise to catch up soon!
So some last minute booking meant that we kind of took what we could get and compromised on the places we actually wanted to go to for something in between them all as accommodation was few and far between in this high season. We booked a campsite in Himarë midway between Sarandë and Vlorë and not at all in Dhërmi where I really hoped to go. But beggars can’t be choosers. My next concern was that rome2rio failed me telling me that there were several buses that go from Tirana to Himarë per day but when I clicked on the schedule it came up with only 1 bus at 07:00, several hours before we landed. A bit more extensive research later and I was none the wiser relying on fellow blogger Adventurous Kate for information, none that was really reassuring as she promised no one will speak English. It was about then that I realised that I actually don't know anyone that's been here. We decided to wing it anyway, land and worry about it when we got there by asking our way around much like the 21 year old me who landed in South America with no Spanish and no idea what I was doing or planning to do.
Turns out that almost everyone wants to help us. Strangers made it their mission to get us to Himarë. The first bus, the shuttle from the airport to the city centre, although there was a huge language barrier, understood what we were trying to do and dropped us off earlier so that we were just outside the main bus station where we could get a bus to Himarë. In there we got all kinds of conflicting information, not because they were unhelpful, but I just think just because no one had any idea. It was at this stage that we got our first invite to someone’s house. She was a young girl, maybe 20 who was visiting her family in Albania. She was our translator for about 5 minutes when we were trying to get information and when she’d done her job she offered to house us. As much as I would have loved this, we had to decline as it was not convenient for our plans to get this 6 hour bus journey to our accommodation.
We took a gamble that didn’t pay off and landed ourselves in a town called Vlorë instead of Himarë, which was about half way, thinking it would be easy enough to get there from this town. It wasn't. Here again, many concerned locals saw us with our over-sized bags and made it their mission to help us. One man and his wife called his English speaking son, put me on the phone to him (at this stage I had no idea who I was talking to), his son then got in a taxi to where we were, the taxi driver had a huge argument with the Dad about the situation as he was under the impression I was going to pay £50 for a ride with him, the Dad paid him to go away and continued his great concern for us. Just as we were about to call it quits for the night and get a hotel, as person after person assured us it was too late for a bus and the Dad may have offered us a place to crash, low and behold the bus appears in the distance. About 7 locals all interested in our cause ran onto the road to hail the bus. You see, we weren’t at a bus stop as it doesn’t appear that they use bus stops. You just seem to wait along the route of the bus and hail it down. This last bus driver, again, went out of his way to get us to Himara Kamping after seeking an English speaking passenger out to translate for him. He dropped everyone off at the final stop and took us 5 minutes further down the road, meters from our camp site at just before midnight where we exhaustedly trudged our way in, surprised to find the whole town awake and firing still.
Himarë Kamping where we stayed, situated 20 meters from the waters edge and our favourite swim spot, was a great little find. We paid €15 per night for a tent that slept both Will and I and which was decked out with a mattress and pillows. All the tents were beautifully set up under olive and lime trees. The showers and toilets were open air and solar powered. It had a bar and a small menu that you could order food from which was very cheap, a main meal at dinner costing about €3, a beer €1.20 and breakfast about €2. Denis, the owner, worked tirelessly but was the most chilled man I've ever met and so helpful in helping us find our way.
When I was booking the campsite and left with very few options within our budget, I compromised on Himarë thinking it would be an ok place to base ourselves and do day trips out from there to the neighbouring beaches. No where in my research did I see Himarë itself come up and so I was not expecting much from it. With no car at our disposal and a public transport system that we learnt to not rely on, we got creative with our modes of transport first kayaking to neighbouring beaches (BSOR represent), hitch hiking for the first time and of course the ol' two feet and a heart beat. Everywhere we went though made us realise what a hidden gem we had found in Himarë. We much preferred it to many of the beaches we visited despite some of these beaches going up on Lonely Planets "top 5 beaches in Albania" and although it was not untouched and still very busy it had not quite made it in the tourist scene, being from what we could tell a holiday location for Albanians.
Where the Adriatic meets the Ionian sea, the Albanian Riviera was stunning from North to South, very affordable and very hospitable. The weather just shone a brilliant 30 degrees for us the whole time with fresh, crisp evenings. We budgeted about €20 per day each and exceeded it slightly but not by much. Albanian's were super friendly and will drop everything to help you. I never once felt as though someone was trying to overcharge me or rip me off and take advantage of the fact that my Albanian is limited to "It is delicious!"
An absolute must do if you are in the area!
Notes for the environmentally conscious traveller:
Albania will kill you with it's litter, plastic bottles and disposable everything from table cloths to it's overuse of straws and plastic bags. I don't have many positives to say as we collected a bag of rubbish from the beach every day. I'm afraid to say also that it wasn't difficult to find a plastic bag to fill, some we found in the ocean, others on the beach and we would fill it in a mere minutes.
The tap water is not safe to drink so pack a portable UV water purifier if you have one or boil the water to refill a drink bottle. The language barrier makes it difficult to ask to avoid the straw or plastic bag so persistence with a smile is key. Like I said before, they are very friendly people and were not easily offended.
