We relax in the morning, doing nothing. After lunch we bravely get on our bikes to bike the half hour into the city of Shkoder. Amidst the cars on the main road we get a good feel for the massively chaotic traffic, but we get a good of the city too. This Albanian city definitely feels the furthest away from home so far (it also is literally). We enjoy one of the countless cafés and have dinner at an amazing tiny restaurant that is for vegetarian Albanian food, can you believe it. By the time we need to bike back it's dark and pouring rain. We also quickly find out I have a punctured tire (again). We manage to fix it under an awning of a gas station, where the attendant is quick to offer a tub of water to help, without needing to be asked.
The next morning we use the WiFi of the campsite for laptop stuff: PhD work and administration. When we had enough we decide to drive on again. We want some mountains again, so we head back inland, to Thet. The drive is nice, but we actually give up before we get to the city and national park. Spurring Vespa on on the steep mountain roads where the asphalt is crumbling and too small to fit two cars side-by-side is too exhausting. We spend the night on a parking lot with a view of the mountains we already have around us.
We spend most of the next driving to the south of Albania. We pause for lunch at the Patok Lagoon, which really wasn't much too see at all. On the main road we encounter all traffic you can imagine: ancient looking lorries, a horse drawn cart, grandpas on bicycles and kids on electric scooters. The middle of Albania seems pretty empty, but then we hit the Green Coast where we stop for the night. This is a beautiful stretch of coast, with tall, green mountains plunging down into the sea.
We get up somewhat early as we hope to get a full-day hike in, in Llogara Nation Park. Even though the weather is very cloudy we have a great time. We climb up steeply through a dense forest and then spend most the time on a mountain side overlooking the sea. Flog is boiling up out of the valley by the time we start heading back. Then we drive a little further, hoping to sleep by the sea. We find such a stretch of beach, together with some 20 other campers in a neat line. We join in, but are kept awake the whole night by very strong winds.
