Albania

In Albania, I had some interesting times.

First, there were more incidents with livestock blocking the road.

Then, I slept in my car in a gas station parking lot (it was closed). The night was really hot, so I had the hatchback of my car open a bit to get a breeze. I woke up to a street dog licking my toes. That was awkward.

The next morning, when the gas station was open, I filled up with gas, went inside to pay, and it turns out that their machine only accepts debit cards from banks in Albania. I had to leave my passport with them, go into town to find an ATM (while getting directions from someone who spoke nothing but Albanian), and come back to pay. Of course, I now had change in Albanian Lek, which I didn’t want, so I added some candy, a soda, and chips to come out as close to 0 as possible. I put the remaining change (something like 60 cents US) in the jar by the register and left with my stash.

The night before had been really interesting. I’d seen some kind of street festival going on and stopped to watch for a bit. From there, I needed to detour around the streets that were closed (still in the center of the country, not near a big city), and my GPS tried to take me onto what it thought was a road but was just a cattle trail onto a farm. I wound up literally in the middle of some farmer’s field and had to backtrack then find something else. Doing all of that in the dark and avoiding a guy on a horse was lots of fun.

Leaving Shkoder, I did get onto a normal road and drove on it during daylight, so that was simple. Off to Bosnia-Herzegovina!