Through Albania to Kosovo…

Entering Albania... The state of the sign told me things were going to be a little different here...!!

Leaving Podgorica, the first 15 km of road is on a modern motorway, but from the turnoff on this road to the border post that we chose to cross into Albania with, the road deteriorated quite badly… It was clearly not used too often… It was potholed and cracked in many places, narrow and twisting, and passed through a huge wetland that had been designated as a national park of sorts…

The road surface was as bumpy as those in Africa...

At the very northern tip of Lake Skadarsko, we rounded a sharp bend and there before us lay the little border post that consisted of a small room and a rusty boom gate… Our passports were checked, and we rode a short distance to the Albanian checkpoint, which was in even a worse state of disrepair…

But progress was being made in the area… The road was in the process of being widened, and a spanking new service station was in operation, just a few kilometres inside Albania… Naturally, after just 32 kms in the saddle, Willi wanted to stop for coffee… I realized then that we were in for a very long day…!!

Riding into Shkroder... In a country where half the population seems to spend their time chopping firewood...!!

The road south from here went via a few small villages and then through the town of Koplik, before entering Shkoder… It was easily the worst road I had ridden on since those in Central and Eastern Africa… A new road was being built alongside the old one, but judging from the effort being made, would not be ready for years to come…

The old one is extremely narrow, and overtaking on the bumpy potholed surface had to be done with care, as not only do you have to keep an eye on the road-surface, but you also need to be wary of the Albanian drives, who have scant regards for anything smaller than the vehicle they are driving…!!

My first impressions of Albania were not very comforting… It was dirty, with litter strewn all along the road, houses falling apart, fences rotting, gates hanging on rusted hinges… It seemed that we had ridden backwards in time… In Shkoder itself, a fairly large town, the roads were not any better condition…

On the outskirts, we stopped at a service station to refuel, and Willi re-set the damping on my rear shock, which improved the handling on the bike, and stopped it from bouncing around so much on the rutted surfaces we expected to have to ride on for the rest of the day…

But we were in for a surprise… The roads between the towns are in very good condition…!! It seems that road-works were begun out in the countryside, and are all working towards the major towns, rather than the other way around…

We rode up into the mountains, high above Shkroder...

Many abandoned checkpoints like this one, spoke of tighter controls in days gone by...

Some of the litter covering the roadside made me want to do just that...

The ride to Kukes, near the Kosovo border, was made through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ridden through… It climbs into the mountains, and dips down into valleys, hugging sheer mountain sides, twisting and winding through hundreds of switchbacks and hairpin bends…

It often followed the ridge of a particular mountain, with steep drop offs on either side… It crossed bridges that spanned deep chasms, and ran through the smallest of settlements, some containing barely half a dozen homes… This was a wild and desolate part of Albania, and the area we had been warned not to travel at night through…

In some places, the road crumbled to gravel, but for the most part they were in great condition...

High up in the mountains, stands of straggly pine trees grew, lining the narrow road… We passed through Kcira, a small town where many of the building were boarded up and abandoned… It looked like the remnants of a long forgotten war zone…

Beautiful scenery and a road that twists and turns, climbs and dips... But mostly "climbs"...!!

Machine gun posts like this one are to be found all along the roads of Albania, and even inside some of the towns...!!

We rode down into this village to seek shelter from the rain...

We entered the town of Puke, which was about halfway to Kukes… it had taken us well over an hour to ride the 60 kms to this point… It was slow going, hardly a straight section of road to be found anywhere to this point and it got even more difficult from there…

There were areas where the road had not been repaired and I shudder to think how long it would have taken us if the entire stretch had been in as poor a condition as these few were… But in the main, the road was great to ride on…

The higher up into the mountains we rode, the closer we got to the thick cloud cover that hung above us, and we knew that at some point, it was going to rain… I wanted to ride as much of this section on a dry road as was possible, and pushed hard, leaving Willi far behind me, as he seemed to want to ride at a slower pace than I did…

All along the road, we passed many of the thousands of machine gun posts that had been built to protect the valleys and villages from an enemy that never arrived… The Albanians had the crazy idea that the forces of the Western world would one day covert their country, and invade them… This served to isolate them completely, and the result is a country that has a lot of catching up to do, to be fully integrated into the broader Europe…

"What the heck are we doing out here...??"

A soaking wet Willi prepares lunch...

Just before the village of Fuche Arrez, the rain came down, forcing us to seek shelter at this tiny settlement…

We sat huddled under the roof of an abandoned building, where we unpacked some of Willi’s considerable stock of groceries, and ate cheese and biscuits while we waited for the rain to subside… A table and a few chairs were already under the roof when we got there, and a short while after we sat down, the weather improved…

Willi got the bright idea of parking his bike under the roof as well, even though it was already soaking wet… He had hardly got in parked when the owner of this wreck of a building came dashing up and asked him to move it back outside…

We changed into our rain gear, as we were certain that we had not seen the last of the foul weather…

But luck was with us this time, and we rode through blazing sunshine for the rest of the way into Kukes… But the first half hour after the rain was on a surface slick with water, and going into some of the corners, with water still running across the road, was more than a little nerve-wracking…

Far above the village, I stopped to take this photo... An amazing part of the world, northern Albania...

Typical Balkan weather... One minute its raining, the next the sun is shining... You can still see the raindrops on my visor...!!

The water on the corners made the rest of the ride a little tricky...

Crossing the final bridge into Kukes...

While Willi ate, the shopkeeper and I compared eyebrows...

We managed to dodge a heavy shower of rain just before Kukes, and Willi decided that his growling stomach could no longer be ignored…Our meal in the village just 35 kms behind us, had clearly worked its way through his system already…!!

Despite the fact that we still had about an hour to ride to get into Przren in Kosovo, and it was already late afternoon, we stopped at a little service station where Will ordered and ate a kebab, while I chatted to the owner…

“Do you have any de-worming medicine for my friend…?” I asked him…

Unfortunately, his meager knowledge of English, left my questioned unanswered…

New motorway linking Albania with Kosovo...

Entering Kosovo...

A spanking new highway took us from Kukes to the Kosovo border, where our papers were carefully checked, and we were informed that we would need to buy insurance to ride in this fledgling country…

We paid €15.00 for this privilege, and motored on to Przren, through countryside that was filled with both old and broken down buildings, as well as new and modern looking homes and factories…

Balkan Bakkie.... These little tractor-trailers zip around on the main roads...

Kosovo has already adopted the Euro as its currency, and this made matters a little easier for us… We stopped in the old part of town and began our quest for a place to spend the night… The cobbled streets were crowded with people in the late afternoon, and seemed to have a special vibe… Restaurants and coffee shops lined the narrow streets, and before long we located a brand new hotel, and got ourselves settled in…

After a stroll around the area later that evening, we decided to spend a day here, resting up from the hard ride we had made through the mountains of Albania… My shoulders and lower back ached from the effort of throwing the Big Fella around the hundreds of sharp corners we had negotiated throughout the day…

In the old town of Przren, Kosovo, our parked bikes attracted plenty of attention...

It had been a ride to remember… The three hours it took to ride just 130 kms from Shkroder to Kukes will remain one of the most interesting I have ridden so far…

©GBWT 2010