Weeks ago I met a woman in Belgrade, named Debbie. According to her friends, she is perhaps the most well traveled woman I have ever met. Not just in the number of countries she has visited, but in her knowledge of the people and cities as well.
Debbie convinced me, in the span of an hour or so, to spend a week in Albania, as opposed to anywhere else. Her description of the people and the country were enough to convince me it would be worthwhile.
Getting there would require a little work on my part.
From Istanbul, there is nothing direct and affordable. A plane ticket would be 150 euro and the two days it would take me to travel overland, including a night at a hostel in Bulgaria would still be less than half of that price. I figured I would go for the bus trip.
Bus rides to Sofia, Bulgaria were easy to come by. Getting from there to Tirana, Albania required a little more finesse. There are no direct means of transport, so I needed to loop through Macedonia to get up there. I had initially planned to stay in a city called Skopje another night, but upon arriving at the Art Hostel I decided I didn’t want to hang around.
Don’t get me wrong, Art Hostel seemed a nice place, I just wanted to move on. I rolled back up t the bus station and purchased a ticket for the late bus into Albania. With several hours to kill I wandered around the city, looking at some of the sights, and sampling the local fare. Full, but not satisfied, I went back to the bus station to catch my 7 o’clock bus and realized there is a time change between Bulgaria and Macedonia.
If you do manage to do the same thing, and wind up with an hour to kill, don’t panic. There is a cool espresso shop in the terminal called New York Café with wifi. If you don’t feel like sitting in the café, you can sit in the main lobby of the station and piggy back the signal with the code 1234554321.
Most places do not accept credit cards, and they use dinars for currency there, so be aware. Euro will work in a pinch in some places, like New York Café, but often you wind up paying far more in euro than dinar.
Fun fact about the Skopje bus station. The marked “Information Office” closed 5 years ago. If you need help ask at the main ticket window. There is usually someone who speaks English and they can check your luggage for you for 50 dinars a day.
Be very careful to hold on to your ticket. I was almost kicked off the bus many hours before Tirana, because the bus driver thought my ticket was to another city.
At one such stop, I noticed the crew of breakdancers on the bus walk over to the nearby grass and say their evening prayer.
I didn’t know Muslims could breakdance.