I arrived in Shkodra as it stirred itself at first light.Arriving anywhere first thing in the morning can be an interesting experience; watching as a city wakes itself up.
On this occasion I was doing it after spending the night sleeping on a bench in a Montenegrin bus station. This meant that I was only blearily aware of what was going on around me. The yawns of the locals as they made their way about their business made me feel strangely welcome.
The taxi that brought me from the border with Montenegro dropped me off in the centre of Shkodra. Actually that is not quite right. Assuming I wanted to head straight for the capital, Tirana, my taxi driver brought his car to a screeched halt diagonally across the nose of the bus that was just leaving to go there. Quite what the passengers on board thought of the emergency stop their driver was forced into is one thing. What they thought when I then declined to get on board because I was heading back to Montenegro the same day, goodness knows!
So as I stood on the edge of this roundabout, my every fibre demanding coffee and pastry, I noticed that my fears about being the only tourist in Albania were unfounded. Car after car kept passing me with Dutch, French or German number plates. I assumed that these sun-hungry Northern Europeans were using Albania as a short cut to self catering holidays in Greece. The presence of all the camping Euro-familys made me feel more relaxed as I went about my search for breakfast.
Until I had to cross the road.
As I stood waiting for a gap in the traffic, I began to notice that all these Mercedes with Northern European number plates were not loaded with families from the Low Countries after all... They all had solo male drivers. Solo male drivers who all looked distinctly Albanian.
The sound of the penny dropping could probably have been heard in Scotland Yard when the first UK registered Merc went past... While it was possible that some Germans might have thought camping in Albania was a great holiday option, I knew from the reaction of friends and family for a fact that I was the only Briton mad enough to venture to these parts of the Balkans... Yes reader... All these cars were in fact stolen.
After negotiating my way through the stolen traffic I faced my first main challenge. How on Earth do you go about drawing money out of a cash machine when you have no idea of the Exchange Rate?
As options came up on screen as varied as 10 Lev to 5000 Lev, I tried to remember what button I would press if I wanted £20 and pressed it. In the end I must have guessed right as I just had enough money to send a couple of postcards and fund a taxi back to the Montenegrin border. Oh and enough to pay for half of a 'Full Albanian' breakfast.
The ingredients of a 'Full Albanian' breakfast:
- 20 woodbines
- 3 stiff double espressos
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