TUESDAY, MAY 28
The hills on the outskirts of lively, traffic-jammed, and very loud Tirane are thick with trees and bushes, many of them in bloom, and with neighborhoods of houses painted in light shades of orange with soft red-colored tile roofs. Houses on the outskirts of the city are larger than close in. I already missed the crazily-painted cement apartment buildings, with their playful colors and designs. The city presents a fascinating physical puzzle into the minds of Albanians.
The bus from Tirane to Ohrid, though booked online with Euro Bus, was not a bus at all but a large, privately-owned, tan 1980s van. It smelled of mildew and smoke, and was hot as hell. At one point, Chloe pointed out the temperature indicated on a thermometer at the front of the van — 34C. I asked the driver if we could open the window. He said, no, he had the AC on.
ON THE VAN WITH US
Two French women, one Australian man and a young woman from Barcelona shared the van with us…as well as the driver’s son, who was picked up downtown. Later, the driver picked up a hitchhiker as well. When the son got into the van, he and his father started a loud argument, the father’s hands flailing around wildly gesturing.
I thought of my Greek friend, Stef, and how his exaggerated expressions, harmless loud outbursts, how easily he used to slip from the high drama to an easy laughter. That’s how it was with this father and son, yelling at each other one minute, well, more like 20 minutes, then joking around after that. At times, it seemed the disagreement might escalate to the point where the father pulled over so they could go to blows, but when the argument ended, they fell to silence, only for a minute, then took up talking, non-stop, for the rest of the drive.
VIEW FROM THE RIDE
The hills became mountains as we progressed. The houses grew in size, the plots of land were larger. Almost every home looked worn and old, though many were maintained with care. It’s just tape and wire, twine and ingenuity held things together. Goats grazed in roadside fields. At one point, we passed two men sleeping in the grass by a horse. Roosters peck at the earth in many fields. People worked the land with scythes. We followed a river much of the way, passed through a couple of small towns, which were in worse shape than the country homes or city dwelling, but even as some buildings are crumbling, others are being built.
The landscape reminded me a little bit of Ireland; much of it is quite rocky, and probably also hard to plant. It also reminded me of Utah, a strange combination — Ireland so verdent, Utah so dry, but when we wound up the hills, the vistas revealed a curve of the land similar to areas just in central Utah.
The border crossings, out of Albania and into Macedonia, were totally casual and deserted. Only one other van, and one car were ahead of us, and no one behind. The border guards looked like he was having a hard time staying awake, until we arrived with the request of the woman from Barcelona. She wanted stamps in her passport. On the Macedonia side, our accommodating driver got out of the van to ask. We could see the border guard rummaged through a small wood box in this office, looking for a rubber stamp, but he couldn’t find it. The woman was very disappointed.
We stopped many time on this “private/public” van trip. To get a coffee, and for the father and son to buy fruits and vegetables by the side of the road. When we stopped for the produce, the son offered us each a plum, not ripe, but how they eat them in Albania. It was so bitter I had to throw it in the bushes. The French women looked at me with arrogant disgust.
ENTERING MACEDONIA
After crossing the border, it was immediately apparent we were in a different country. In Macedonia, road signs were written in cyrillic. Houses were larger and more angular, painted different colors than in Albania, grey and off-white, darker pinks and soft orange. Some house were modern, sectional. Though we may not have noticed it in Albania, suddenly we realized how isolated it still is as we were again in a world of international connections, the signs and logos of international companies and businesses on billboards and warehouses. Later when we were grocery shopping, this discrepancy became startlingly apparent — Macedonia has many more foods from so many more countries.
OHRID
Ohrid was built next to a large lake, 29 kilometer end to end, and is near the border. It was evening when we arrived. We walked to the Old Town, passing a 12-foot statue of the city’s patron saint, St. Clement, and many pearl shops. We stopped to pick up a map at a tourist office, and I asked about all the pearl shops when we stopped to pick up a map in a tiny, one man tourist office. Pearls? It didn’t make sense to me. In fact, the man told us it was all a scam. The pearls don’t come from the lake, they come from China. Tourism is a thing here, because of all the monasteries.
As the sun was setting, we past St. Sophia church and walked beside the cliff walls on a wobbly, wooden boardwalk suspended just above the water. The lake lapped like the ocean and water sprayed onto us and the boardwalk. Both Chloe and I clutched our cell phones afraid we might drop them into the lake.
We ate at Restaurant Kaj Kanevche on a platform also suspended over the water. The air was so fresh, a complete change from the polluted air in Tirane. The lake breeze was chilly and the restaurant offered us blankets which we wrapped around our shoulders. The deep blue outline of mountains on the other side of the lake blended in the the many shades of blue. A group of loud, boastful Americans ate beside us.
A NOTE ABOUT TIRANE AND BUNK ART
Just a note: Before leaving Tirane, we visited the Bunk’art 2 museum by the main square. (Bunk Art 1 is in the mountains, as many of the bunkers were located in mountains.) There wasn’t enough time for us to explore the exhibition fully, but the impact was profound nonetheless. The Communist regime constructed over 175,000 bunkers in Albania, designed as places of escape should they be threatened — from invaders, from bombs, from nuclear attack. The museum explained tactics of the totalitarian regime, including a history of the police forces, life in concentration camps and labor camps, forms of torture, and more. Chloe said, “As disturbing as it is, it is so important to remember. Humans are capable of such evil.” Over 6,000 people were murdered by Hoxha and his regime.
