I was warned very sternly 4 years ago, when I first came to Albania, that the road from the north to the south was very long, with many twists and turns, and in terrible conditions. Four years on, I thought that it had to have improved. Surely an 8 hour bus journey was because the bus stopped in every town on the way, and that it had to go to different places. Surely they’d built a proper motorway by now??? Well – if that was the plan, it’s a little behind schedule.

Thankfully – Magdalena was driving, and I wasn’t on the bus!! We left Tirana in a hive of traffic. Lane discipline in Albanian terms means that you know how many lanes there are, and you have to be disciplined enough to find your way to the front in the shortest amount of time. And to everyone who hates people not indicating when changing lanes… You can forget coming here. You’ll be lucky if the indicator light works let alone if the driver is courteous enough to use them!!

After battling our way out of Tirana, we got on to the motorway. ‘This is good’, I thought to myself. Not too much traffic… Two lanes… Fast road… It was a shame it lasted about 20 kilometers.
Imagine a road which was about one and a half car widths across, had pot-holes the size of wheelbarrows and had so many lorries coming the other way that your pants were bound to be slightly more soiled than they were at the start of the journey! This was terrifying stuff. There were some bits of the road that had sheer drops to the sides… The twists and turns were bigger and scarier than Oblivion at Alton Towers.. and I wont mention the number of times I hit my head on the ceiling!! Bless Magdalena – she kept apologizing, but I knew it wasn’t her fault.

Road-works on the motorways back in Britain gets on my nerves… But hey.. at least they leave signposts, informing us of lane closures and they also light the way brightly. We nearly fell down a ravine, due to one set of workmen who seemed to forget to show us that the road was diverted away from the big hole they left. Ok… granted – they were trying to improve the road… But it just wasn’t being done quick enough for my liking :o)

Overall – it took 7 hours. We left at 3, and I didn’t arrive in Sarande until 10. Most of the drive was in torrential rain, and the worst thunderstorm I have seen for a long time. Typically, as soon as we arrived, the lights went off, and the electricity went dead. Power cut.

This journey was one big message to me – Welcome to Albania.