6 September 2025 (sunny and hot) 77km

Awake at 5.38am.

Julia was awake at 6.15am and we had an early breakfast.

We had a refrigerator, so could store yoghurt and milk.

Today we were heading towards Vlore, back on the coast. If we were considering the inland road, we would have to decide by Fier. 

Carried the bikes back downstairs and we loaded up. Julia locked up the apartment and we were away.

The road was perfect. Smooth surface and very little traffic.

This morning we would greet and be greeted by a wide variety of people. One young lad pushing a wheelbarrow along the road, stopped, said hello and high fived both of us.

It was so nice.

From people in cars, on bikes, motorbikes, in cafes, herding goats, turkeys or just at the side of the road.

Lovely way, with only a little while left to ride in Albania, to gather these touching moments. The open, friendly interaction with the Albanian people has been the highlight of this country for me.

Such a common sight, these unfinished buildings.

Forget your tourist spots and "must sees" the people have been hands down, the friendliest of all the Balkan countries. 

The power lines here resemble photos I have seen of India, which is not so surprising. It is a relatively unknown fact that Mother Theresa, who was of Albanian descent (but born across the border in North Macedonia), in her spare time, was in fact project manager for Indian Electricity.

Something to photograph that looks almost pleasing to the eye.

Well Toff, looks like Algida are streets ahead here.

I'm not sure when or even if, Albania will become a first world country, but you know what, small steps in the right direction, especially in disposal of all rubbish, improving water quality and distribution.

Updating sewage treatment plants and an overhaul of driving quality and severe penalties for not adhering to the driving code will all help bring tourists and improve the economy. 

Stopped for some photos in Fier, probably the nicest city we've encountered in Albania.

As we left Fier on a main road the traffic was again terrible, but about 10kms out we pulled over to have a coffee just as the main road also had an option to join the motorway, hence taking traffic away from us. 

The coffee was lovely and the two guys and their mother who ran it had done a great job planting loads of beautiful plants both in and out of pots. Seeing all that burst of colour on what was otherwise a pretty dreary ride was what made us stop.

Leaving here we carried on, again on a relatively low volume road, which was so nice.

Decided to take shots of some of the different aspects of today's ride, including the bunkers.

These were introduced by dictator Enver Hoxha during the Cold War from 1960-1980’s.

Estimated to have built up to 750,000... that's right folks...talk about overkill.

No wonder they don't have any money..! 

2014 estimates reckon nearer 173,000 were actually built.

He was paranoid about an imminent takeover.

Even had one to withstand a nuclear explosion.

Firstly, the way they build stuff here, the big bad wolf could probably have blown it down and who would have wanted to take it over anyway.

You'd have had a helluva job just clearing the rubbish up.

The first bunkers were constructed in 1967 and continued through to his death in 1985. 

Ju here. Watching people collecting trash has given me hope for Albania. Some look very official with High vis jackets and a pair of work gloves and others look very dirty and downbeat and unofficial.

A lot of the unofficial ones drive old style little motorbikes with a trolley on the front or at the back. These makeshift vehicles are used to transport not only sacks of rubbish, but people, old washing machines and watermelons.

So I've done a bit of research. Apparently the dirty and unofficial looking collectors are often Romani people. They can earn about $15NZ for collecting about 1000 cans or plastic bottles. They also collect just bits of plastic. We saw an old lady today pushing her trolley which was overflowing with bags of rubbish, but we could see it had been sorted. I would have liked to take a photo but felt maybe it was rude, so I didn't.

Probably a good job, because this trash picking has been made illegal. So they try and do it in less public places as they are marginalized by the general population and mistreated by the police.

That's so weird to me as they are doing a hugely important job for next to nothing. So who are they selling this waste to you may ask?

Well apparently, in Albania's bid to become part of the EU, some ‘private investors’ set up recycling plants, anticipating this would be a necessary step for Albania if they were to be accepted into the EU.

Only thing was, some suspected these recycling plants to have been set up by the Mafia and the big worry then was that they would transport all of Italy's trash (and underworld crime too probably), across the water.

So the Albanian government made each municipality the owner of their own rubbish and therefore illegal for anybody else to deal with it.

Then we have the official collectors with their high vis vests, collecting the rubbish in big plastic bags, not sorting it at all, and then heaping it all on one of these unofficial rubbish dumps and setting fire to the lot. As you can imagine, it stinks and certainly would not adhere to any EU greenhouse gas initiatives.

About a month ago, there were thousands of wildfires all over Albania and I suspect this is how most of them started. By official rubbish burning.

We passed a fire yesterday with the rubbish collectors in a nearby vicinity collecting outlying rubbish to throw on the fire and take any foliage away from the flames. But you can easily see this getting out of hand. It's not like they have handy hoses to douse any out of control burning.

And as for the Mafia. We were sitting at a brand spanking new garage on the top of a hill about 6km from Vlore yesterday. Must have cost a bundle. There were three guys having a drink when we arrived, but by the time we'd ordered, they'd left.

We sat there eating our ice cream, drinking our coke, filling our water bottles and blogging and in all that time, we were the only customers.

I noticed two cars parked in the shade by the only pumps in the place. Neither car had a license plate. They were occupying the only space where you could actually get petrol. 

It was then I thought about the mini series Ozarks and the problem these drug cartels have with laundering the money they're making. Having just read all this stuff about the Mafia and waste management, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what was going on here.

On the bike you have a lot of time to ponder. Now back to Pete.

Rode into Vlore at 2.30pm and after a bit of a hiccup finding the address, we reached the apartment for the night.

Met Joel, who took our money and gave us any relevant information about the place.

After showering as we were soaked with sweat, we did some washing and wandered down the road to buy some stuff for tomorrow and check out food places for tonight. 

Decided to go to Saint Tropez restaurant. Now....we have been to Saint Tropez and this was nothing like it. Not for style or quality.

Arrived at 6.30pm, asked for two drinks. Received them and asked the waiter if we could order. No. Apparently, no food til 7.30pm.

We toyed with going to another place, but we had our drinks so asked the waiter to take our orders as soon as the kitchen was open. About 7.10pm we see him delivering food to another table.

Tried to catch the attention of the waiter for the next fifteen minutes. Another waiter joined the party and after neither one approached us, I approached the new waiter and asked if we could place our order. Then original waiter comes over. Of course there's only a few things that we can order that are gluten free and when we asked for Caesar Salad, apparently they don't have it, only Greek. Well for a girl who doesn't like cucumber or olives, that wasn't going to work. Shame we had to wait an hour to get that vital piece of info. 

So we paid our $12 for our beer and wine and walked to Minimal, a restaurant down the way. Talk about world's apart. 

A young girl greeted us when we arrived. Took drink orders, answered questions we had about best road to take tomorrow, then brought us a complimentary bruchetta.

Took main orders, prompt with meal and it was delicious. Thanked her and left her a nice tip.

"Don't go into the woods after dark." 

Walked back to the apartment, (which included a walk through the woods, in the dark), and read up about the possible routes for tomorrow and blogged.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end for Albania. Down to our last few days on their crazy roads.