TREES FOR LURË
Finally seeing the nursery area…
15th April - 18th April | 2023
The next morning, we left at about 9am to go to Tirana to pick up Albi, the carpenter, and Anisa, another helping hand on the project. Like that, I finally could get an idea of the city centre of Tirana, and I am sure, I haven´t missed anything yet. Just on the outskirts of Tirana, we went to a wood place to find out prices for wood and transport to Lurë. The car already needed a boost to start at the petrol station earlier this morning, but now it didn´t do anything! First, we tried jump-starting from another car, but nothing, nada ... The boys tried for another 2 hours to figure out the problem, whilst we girls at some point went for a cafe just up the road.
Once back, and Pavel has spoken to his mechanic, we pushed the car to a nearby slope so that he could bump-start it. As it is a diesel car, it worked - Hurray! At least we can go back to the garage and then make a plan B, C and D on how to get up to Lurë. We already left Anisa at home as all the plans were only transporting for 4 people. When arriving at the garage the air coolant started to piss out now. So good we didn’t take this car up the mountains!
During lunch, at a nearby shack, we finally decided to rent a jeep from the garage (how practical that he does provide the service!). After about 15h we finally hit the road to Fusë Lurë. In Rrasher we stopped for a cafe and shortly after at a lovely restaurant, where we booked a table for lunch tomorrow, on our way back. And shortly after the restaurant the offroad started; remember, yellow roads in Albania are (yet) mainly offroad. It was another good 90mins over bumpy and curvy roads into the mountains of Fusë Lurë.
There we went directly to the nursery of the plantation of www.treesforlure.org to visit Imër, the landowner. After talking, we went to our accommodation, where we got a delicious homemade dinner - YUMMIE!
The next morning, after a delicious traditional breakfast we headed to the nursery area. And guess what, we had a problem with the jeep! We could smell burned rubber. When we arrived at the nursery we checked and the belt for the A/C just fell off. Well, at least that explains the burning rubber smell and we still can use the car!
Mira and Albi would measure and plot the land for the 1st of 3 greenhouses. The plan is to construct one each year, over the next 3 years, to be used as a nursery for www.treesforlure.org .
Whilst they were measuring the space, I went around taking pictures of the stunning landscape, helping or trying to count the trees from last May. Also, did we get served Imërs wife Valbona with some traditional milk. Like that, the morning went by fast and at lunchtime we were back on the bumpy road to Tirana.
We stopped at the "N´Kanú" restaurant along the SH34. If you are ever in the area, please stop there for lunch as everything is homemade and traditional food. So no point in mentioning it was super delicious! Shortly after we were on a "proper" road all the way to Tirana. After we dropped off Alb and then the jeep, we walked the 15mins to the bus terminal. We took the last bus to Durres, where we arrived approx 30mins later. We all were pretty tired, so it didn’t take us long to hit the pillow.
The next day, it was time to organise a bit of my social media and prepare for the next days of travelling. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is not too good for the next few days, but as long as it is not pissing it down, I should be ok. The idea is to loop around the border lakes of Albania and North Macedonia and then hopefully spend the weekend with Pavel and Mira visiting Berat and Gjirokaster.
The next morning, after breakfast and packing, I headed towards Peshkopie, where I would stay in the lovely hotel "Nëna Dashuri Agriturzëm" (www.nenadashuri.al), where I stayed with James last year. When I set google to get me to the other side of Tirana I forgot to take off avoiding the motorway, so I had the scenic tour to Tirana this time ;-) I think it was good I made this mistake as it looked very dark over Tirana, but by the time I was there it was sunny-ish. The traffic was not too bad - lucky me! After Tirana, it was lovely mountain roads, with a lot of turns and some switchbacks. At one point I was up to 1200m with 8C.
The last 20km to the hotel I remembered as I did it just last week, even though it was nearly 1 year ago (time flies!). It felt so nice to be back! The family gave me such a warm welcome! In the evening I had a starter as a main course, which was far too much, but so delicious homemade - njam, njam!
Oh, a friend of mine from Finland put me in touch with a biker girl in North Macedonia, who already has travelled around the world on her motorcycle. We had straight away a very good conversation and it looks like I will go to Skopje once in Greece.
In the next blog, I will take you around Lake Ohrid, into North-Macedonia. Have a Rakëh until the next blog will be ready for you ;.-) I will try to keep it up for you twice a week...
Places | Cities:
Tirana, Fusë Lurë, Durrës, Peshkopie
Driven km | Trip:
Total | Steffi: 2475 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
./.
Health issues:
./.
Special thanks to:
Pavel (www.treesforlure.org) and Mira to look so well after me and Nëna Dashuri Agriturzëm (www.nenadashuri.al) to be such an awesome place with yummy traditional homemade food.