Albania | Day One
What a beautiful, still untouched country!
20th - 21st April | 2022
Can it be better than waking up right next to the sea, hearing the waves and the sun shining?
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long and the dark clouds started to come in. Also on Steffi, she had to use all her Joker cards on the first 1km leaving our camping spot! Starting with a drop within the first 5cm and continuing until we went back to the road! Not a good start for her; took a huge chunk of her confidence away!
We had a lovely breakfast in Himarë at the beachfront and then we went off to see the old navy bunker - offroad! Steffi finally had her horse under control, which helped her to gain back her confidence. This bunker entrance was amazing to see!
Soon we forked off into the offroad into the mountains to Kuç. What a fantastic offroad track! And the view we had all the time! What a panorama; just incredible!
Unfortunately, it started to rain, so we tried to dry our cloth as good as possible at the restaurant in Kuç. The owner was really sweet, she got the heater out for us! And the food was yummy, and the boys were happy about the meat! And all washed down with a Raki :-D
Once we all were in our rain gear; Pavel who had forgotten his rain gear had improvised with a massive bin liner; we were on the way back out of the mountains on a spanky new asphalt road to Tepelenë. We still passed 1000m altitude though! Once we passed that the weather got better and better. That allowed us to see the fantastic gorge of the Bënçë River (? not 100% sure) - and again, it was just breathtaking! We stopped nearly every 10km for pictures!
From Përmet we drove to the natural hot springs of Benjë, where we also planned to camp for the night. Of course, first off to the hot spring, with a beer! It was nice, but for our taste (after the rain in the mountains) it could have been a bit warmer! However, you had a view over the snow-capped mountains!
We had to pitch up our tent in the dark, and also find the firewood, so we had a late dinner and non-stop bike stories until about midnight.
To read more about our time here in the amazing country of Albania, keep an eye our for our next blog post ‘Albania | Day Two’….
PLEASE NOTE, some pictures are courtesy of Pavel (Far and Further) - thank you that we can use them for this blog!
Places | Cities:
Himarë, Porto Palermo, Qeparoh, Borsh, Çorraj, Kuç, Progonat, Bënçë, Tepelenë, Këlçyrë, Përmet, Benjë
Driven km | Trip:
Total: 8605 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
. / .
Health issues:
. / .
Special thanks to:
Pavel of Far & Further (www.farandfurther.org) for his great company, and all the giggles we had!