Oh Albania!

Location: Thessaloniki, Greece

Distance Travelled: 3,163 km

So its been quite a while since our last blog entry. Internet has not been as readily available as it was in the earlier days of our trip. We have officially made it 3200km and are currently on the Greek coast outside of Thessaloniki. Life has not been this great in quite a while. Actually, life has been pretty rough. When we last left you, we were in Podgorica Montenegro. We had been struggling with the Balkans but we had also been pleasantly surprised by what they had to offer. What we didn't know was that we were about to be savaged by the mountains of Albania....Oh Albania!

Since the beginning of our trip, people have been warning us about Albania. The usual remark people made was " ALBANIA!? ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Of course, we paid no heed to these warnings. To us, Albania was just another challenge that, if attacked head on, could be overcome. Well, in the end, it turns out everyone was right. We WERE crazy to go through Albania, but it was a challenge that could be overcome. The question, however, was at what cost.

Now let us preface this blog entry by saying that we have really tried to not complain throughout this blog. we've wanted to keep the blog fun and positive. We figured no one wants to hear about our sore bums, or our disgustingly putrid clothing that hasn't been washed in weeks. Well, the next few paragraphs represent a stark departure from that line of reasoning.

With that being said, we would like to express our belief that Albania is the WORST place in the world you could ever want to cycle through! Holy Shit! We literally nearly died there. We actually found ourselves saying over and over in our heads " We WILL NOT die in Albania! We WILL NOT die in Albania!"

For those of you who don't know anything about the geography of Albania, lets just say its a country of mountains. Mountains, however, come in all shapes and sizes. Some mountains are few in number but tall in stature. Other times they are plentiful but short. As it turns out, Albania has every type of mountain you can imagine.

There were days where we would cycle for 100 kilometers and 67 of them would be uphill...and by uphill we mean UPHILL. The physical challenge of climbing mountains on a bike is pretty damn difficult. The psychological battle that accompanies that challenge, however, is the real war. It seemed that the geographical nature of the mountains of Albania were such that mirages became the norm. That is to say, after winding up the mountains and finally reaching the top, our euphoric joy always turned to manic depression as we would realize that climb had only just begun. These psychological defeats were by far the hardest parts of our days.

Two days into Albania we found ourselves in a horrible situation... With the sun beating down on us at 40 degrees, and mountains all around, Chad began loosing his senses. Dizzyness, nausea, confusion, exhaustion, and general disorientation set in. With the next village (usually consisting of of a few houses and an understocked general store) 50 kilometers away, this was the worst place in the world for one to get sun stroke, but that's exactly what Chad got.

Our only option at this point was to pull over and try and get his body re-hydrated and cooled down. For nearly three hours chad lay on the side of the road motionless and in a daze. I collected water from a natural spring that was luckily very near, and forced ourselves to drink as much as was possible. It was during these hours that the scariest realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Even if we had wanted to (or needed to) quit, there were hundreds of kilometers of mountains in all directions that we would have had to climb. We were truly stranded. This was by far the lowest moment of the trip.

In the end, we waited on the side of the road and until the heat died down and chad came back to life. We pushed up the road as far as we could until we found a place to camp. Camped out next to a small stream and with trees to provide shelter from the unforgiving sun, we ate a dinner of plain rice and re-hydration salts. It was a dinner for kings.

Ultimately, we took the time we needed to recover from the first blow that Albania hit us with, and we managed to push on. But this was by far the last blow. There is little time to describe the many ways in which Albania savaged us, and I'm sure you probably don't want to hear about some of them. Briefly though, Albania's roads (or lack thereof) slowed us down to no end. At one point, the main road turned into a gravel minefield of potholes that stretched on for 40 km.

This did quite a number on our tires, and some days all we did was change flat tires (the official count is now Chad: 23; Ramsey: 14).

Gremlin children used to chase us in the streets as we passed through their villages and would try and steal our food that we had attached to the back of our bikes (they got a load of bannanas from Chad, but sometimes helped push in exchange).

Also, Ironically, the spring water that potentially saved our lives when chad got sun stroke ended up giving us both explosive diarrhea...Ever try riding 120k in a full spandex body suite under those conditions? yeah...don't try.

Well there is so much more to say about Albania but we really have to run. If you ever want to know more about it, just ask one of us and we will be sure to rant your ear off for hours.

Since making it through Albania, though we have ridden through Kosovo, Macedonia, and now Greece. Every one of these countries deserves its own blog posting, and we will do our best to do that! We will see what happens though.

But for now, we must say goodbye! its time for a dip in the Mediterranean!