Igoumenitsa, Greece to Ksamil, Albania

June 7 June 6 IGOUMENITSA, Greece – Ksamil, Albania – 55 miles

We took our time getting started as it took a while to actually figure out where we could go based on the roads in Albania. We decided to head for a national park on the coast. The ride was flat along the coast until we had to do a long climb up to the Albanian border. AS Albania is not yet part of the EU, we were forced to go through a border checkpoint. The checkpoint was literally in the middle of the mountains so thre were very few cars.  The second that we crossed into Albania from Greece, you could tell that things were definitely different.  First of all, there were few if any trees.  On the Greece side, we were surrounded by trees.  On the Albanian side, it looked as if the landscape had been stripped of anything resembling a tree or a bush.  It was barren. It was dry.  It was brown.  It was hot. It was, for all intent and purposes, a whole new world.  Little did I know at the time what Albania had in store for us.

About 5 miles after a long and windy descent into this barren landscape, we ended up stopping at a tiny “market” on the side of the road in a small village.  As we were leaving this market, we were greeted by a wonderful site! Another touring cyclist! Tino had started his trip near Vienna and was headed for Athens where he was scheduled to barad a plane to Egypt and then do a tour of Africa!  What a stud!  He was a super amazing and nice guy and filled us in on the ride that we had in store for us over the coming days.  He said that Albania riding was challenging and mountainous and looking back, I really should have taken his words more literally.  But I was too busy looking forward to todays stop in the “resort” beach town of Ksamil.     We left Tino and all of his wonderful enthusiasm and advice about Albania ( “the drivers are fucking crazy in this country”) and headed towards our destination.  The road into the small national park where we would pass through ( a medieval village) was beat up but there were very few cars.  We got to what is called a pole fairy as crossing the small river was probably only 50 yards but there was a ferry on a pole cable that gets you across for about one euro each. I think the ferry ride was honestly only about one minute. After that it was a fairly easy ride into the town of Ksmali.   What we thought was going to be a very small quiet town turned out to be full of European tourists on their beach holiday!   We quickly found an apartment for rent for only 22 euros a night.  By some miracle, we were granted with the most gracious of hosts!  The mother and father were living in and managing the “house” that had been built by the Albanian daughter who was currently living in the UK and sending money home.  The house was gorgeous and full of a million rooms.  We also found out that one most convert their Euros to the Albanian currency of Lekes and we were informed that Albanians can only travel for 3 months away from Albania without being fined.  Again, just one of the many things we would learn about this country.  We spent an extra day here ( a much needed day off ) to visit the small, rocky, umbrella-lined beaches of the area.  Our hosts were simply the most gracious people we have ever met on any of our trips and gave me endless lemons, strawberries, onions, and potatoes from their garden.  Jeff and I simply fell in love with this couple!