Saturday, 2013/09/07

After a day's break from riding, we like to ride the bikes again. Nevertheless, the farewell to the beach life is not easy.

This day will bring quite a few curves. It is probably the day with the most curves and definitely the most gear changes. Even the coastal road to the south in the direction of Sarandë is very winding, but after slipping with both wheels in a curve - a really weird feeling - I'm a bit more careful for a while. We do a short detour to Sarandë, but we don't like it very much, so we don't stay. We still have a long distance ahead of us and the German couple in Split told us, the route we will ride today, is partly very bad.

We make a first stop near the ‪Syri i Kaltër (Blue Eye), a well worth seeing. In a restaurant, we have a delicious lunch. The innkeeper is a rather strange guy who mimics bird sounds and similar sounds all the time. But the cheese we eat here and the honey are delicious. We decide to buy some honey and they fill it in plastic bottles, because this is safer and more practical for us to transport. Unfortunately, we do not negotiate the price before, so we pay 10 euros for each bottle. Well, you can learn something from doing stupid things, right?

After lunch, we make the detour to Syri i Kaltër (Blue Eye) with stuffed bellies. For using the road up there you have to pay toll. I think it was just 100 Lek for each of us, about 70 cents.

It's about 2 kilometers along the lake, which water is coming from the spring and a river. At the end of the street there are some more restaurants. From there it is a 200 m walk to the spring, which really has an impressively beautiful color. Would have been nice to plunge into that blue shimmering water, but we still have a lot of kilometers to ride that day. So we stay in the motorcycle clothes as usual quite sweaty.

On the way we meet a single German motorcyclist, who tells us that she lost her top case, which she noticed as she wanted to turn around to look for her husband, who wanted to take a picture somewhere. I note her phone number and the phone number of her husband, and we promise to keep an eye out for the topcase and inform them if we find it. We meet her husband a few miles later, also searching the top case for a while. When writing down my travel memories at home, I send them a text message to ask if they finally did find the top case. Her husband tells me that unfortunately they didn't. Fortunately, there were no irreplaceable documents or things in it, which couldn't be replaced.

The route leads windy along a nature reserve and then turns north in Çarshovë. We're passing through a pass whose highest point we do not really notice. Whether we are distracted by the many curves or the great views, who knows?

Opposite to our expectations, the road isn't very difficult to ride, but perhaps we ride the right motorcycles for these kind of bumpy roads. Nevertheless, on Albanian roads one must be quite attentive, often potholes emerge from nowhere or there are unpaved areas behind a curve or heavy bumps that are neither marked nor really recognizable. Therefore, it does not really surprise if someone loses his top case. My fellow rider is also a bit afraid and so I ride behind him for a while to see if his panniers are vibrating too much. They don't.

Fortunately, approaching Korçë there are not so many curves any more. But our ride is slowed down by crossing cattle herds or by slow moving vehicles, which are home built and mostly not very environmentally friendly. We overtake a hay transport from which we wave happy cheering young girls. Sometimes little boys are standing along the street, moving their right hand as they want to throttle up while they laugh to us. All along the road are friendly people.

Just before dusk, we arrive in Korçë. However, we still want to go to Voskopojë, as the Italian travel guide has recommended this place and a good hotel there.

We ride towards the sun on the winding road to Voskopojë. In the main square, my fellow rider asks two young men about the Hotel Pashuta and gets the information that it is closed. One of the guy tells us, that there's another accommodation. We have learned and will not be fooled this time. It was just too obvious. My fellow rider asks someone else where to find the Hotel Pashuta and although we need to go through a narrow and rather dirt road, we find the hotel or guest house right away. The Hotel/Guesthouse Pashuta is a good recommendation for the night, as the owner couple has really created a very nice property. There are tables with other guest In the garden, mostly families. It will take us a while to get our things sorted out and get showered. Also the power fails a few times, but as a camper I own a flashlight.

Of course we choose our hosts for dinner. The German could imagine a dinner under the open sky, the Italian, however, is already a bit freezing, so that we take our dinner in the guest room.

On arrival we were greeted by one of the daughters of the owners, which showed us the room with a separate bathroom (only for us). Now another daughter serves the dishes. She speaks fluently English and Italian. We not only get a really delicious meal here, but also have a very pleasant communication with the owner's children (there is another son who is able to speak English too).

The guest room then fills up with some other Albanian guests. In particular, one of the guests is looking for communication with us. He is a sports teacher and coach for various sports and claims that he also started as an athlete for Albania and trained some national team. He tells us, that in the old days everything was much better. He could, for example, go running with the foreign ambassadors in Tirana. Also, he complains from his experience as a teacher (his wife is also a teacher for mathematics) about the younger generation. I have a completely different opinion but we don't get together in our discussion. Another Albanian, obviously on vacation together with the other guy, seems more likely to be a representative of unrestrained capitalism, but his English is much worse, so I often do not really understand his remarks.

We try to talk more with the young waitress, because she seems more open minded. The parents of the host family is very friendly and pleasant, even if a direct communication is not possible.

During our journey, we are always excited about how cosmopolitan the young people here are. We both believe that these young people are real Europeans or even cosmopolitans and that they will significantly influence the future of our societies. At least we hope so! And in the same thought, we also hope that the influence of Mafia structures will be broken by this young generation.