Albania

Shkoder, Albania - Puke - Lake Ohrid, Macedonia. 200miles / 320 km.

One of the first things we saw when entering Albania, riding through the outskirts of Shkodër, Albania’s fourth-largest town, was a lone goat crossing the road at a zebra crossing. No herder to steer it. A little later, a dog, at a different crossing. No owner to lead it. And then, incredulously, a gaggle of geese doing the same at another crossing. No farmer to chaperone them.

Make of that what you will, but I’m still bewildered.

On the subject of dogs, in both Bosnia and Montenegro before this, and now Albania, there are wild or ownerless dogs everywhere. A host in Bosnia referred to one as a “community dog” as it came and went with free passage. Clearly, it was healthy.

There are dogs in the road, dogs that chase, dogs at the bakery, restaurants and campsites, all seemingly well mannered. You can hear dogs barking and howling at night, and they particularly enjoy the Muslim call to prayer, joining in whenever they can.

But it was only in Albania where the dogs appeared to know the Green Cross Code.

I don’t feel qualified to adequately summarise Albania. We only briefly transited through it, like a passenger on a connecting flight. Our route bypassed all the major cities and instead looped through the mountains in the north. The idea was to avoid the highways and eventually drop into Macedonia north of Lake Ohrid

Guest House Riza 

This region of Albania offered seemingly boundless mountain ranges. Huge vistas, rocky peaks and remote, open landscapes. Sometimes barren, sometimes forested, it felt vast on a Canadian scale.

Albanian breakfast 

Our hometown for the evening was Pukë. Aptly named, as you arrive with motion sickness after travelling roads that appear to have no straight sections whatsoever. Incidentally, Puke is just before Rrape if you're looking to locate it on a map.

Questionable humour by the unusual placename 

Pukë didn’t offer much in the way of accommodation. However, one guest house stood out on Google: Guest House Riza. As we approached, the landlady came out onto the lane to wave us in.

Odd, considering we hadn’t booked anything or made an enquiry.

The main road passing between factory blocks. The road littered with it's waste. 

It only became apparent much later what had actually happened, when the guest who had booked the room turned up. By that point, we were already safely tucked up in their penthouse, leaving them with the cheap seats.

The following morning, after a local breakfast prepared by our kindly host, we followed the mountains for another 100 miles of road treachery.

There were potholes, landslides, gravel, rocks, wood, sunlight, rain and wind. And far too many roadside grave memorials to those who hadn’t survived the journey.

One thing that really stood out up there was the poverty: shacks, run-down houses and entire towns that appeared to be scratching a living out of the dirt.

All the more surprising, then, that we saw the highest concentration of Range Rovers — many of them still wearing UK registration plates.

I don’t want to feed into any stereotyping. I can only assume there are a large number of entrepreneurs in this remote and impoverished region of Albania, who simply prefer their Range Rovers from England.

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And with that, we unexpectedly found ourselves at a small border crossing, with no queue.

The route