After packing up and leaving the nice appartment again, my mum’s and my ways split. She’s going back home tomorrow morning and takes the bus to Tirana, I take the bus towards the south. It’s hot again, no signs of the announced rain.
My bus drives along the coast and up into the mountains, crossing the Llogona national park where the driver makes a short lunch break. The mountains are all green and full of different species of pine trees again and I read on a sign that (like where we hiked) there are still wolves and lynxes here. There are also many bunkers on the way that have been colourfully painted.
I am the only person to leave the bus two hours later in a small village in front of a bar. Vuno, my home for the next two days. I make my way a few hundred meters down and away from the road to my hostel, that is the refunctioned old primary school of the village and surrounded by forest and sheep. It’s an absolute hippie place with beds in the old classrooms, outdoor showers and a tea kitchen. For now, I’m not ready to sit on the common table in the garden with the others and chat while painting some kind of relieve mountain model, so I decide to go to the beach.
The closest beach is 1 hour walking along the road away and called Jalë. After 10 minutes or so I hitch a ride with a milk distributor van, which afterwards I thought could have been a stupid idea. But I’m lucky and the guys are nice and drop me off down at the shore. The beach is a lot more touristic than I thought and there are 9 bars, a hotel and the sand is packed with rentable umbrellas. Nevertheless, it’s quite empty and the vast majority of tourists seem locals.
All on my own, I couldn’t leave all my belongings alone between all the umbrellas, so I decide to cross the beach and climb on the sharp rocks on one edge of it and settle there. Nobody does that and I am looked at like an alien, but I’m used to that. The water is crystal clear and turquoise and there is quite a bit of marine life going on at the rocks. Above the water surface, my main effort is to ignore the noise pollution in form of terrible music pouring out of the hotel on the other side. I hope the beach for which I came to this village will be better.
Besides civilization, the water is really nice and I take two swims and chill out reading in the sun for a bit.
Hoping I will still get a ride up, I pack up, go back to the beach and sit down in one of the restaurants at the beach around 6 for an early dinner grilled fish. This time I ride with a very sympathetic couple of young Albanians and am back in the village for sunset.
My shower intentions fail after a few drops because apparently there is no water anymore. In general the place is very basic. The toilets are somewhere behind the corner under a bridge and you have to walk through the dark over a very bad road to get there. The showers have only a curtain but no doors, of course no hot water but in my case no water at all and everything is falling apart. Freakin’ hippies.
There is an elder German couple, another German girl, the young Albanian owner, a Mexican couple, another south american guy and a German guy who has been living here for months. The German man cooks a very good risotto for all of us on a camping cooker and I get a surprise second dinner. After that, there is lots of talking at the campfire in front of the house. I learn that the whole village is practically in hands of the family of the owner. He has 30 first grade cousins and so many uncles, aunts and cousins he doesn’t even know them all. It seems like the whole area is owned by 3 families. Bars, restaurants, shops, hotels, it’s all them. I learn about the Albanian mafia, that all the expensive cars you see around come from a very good cocaine business, Albanian police, jail and corruption. Later in the evening, a small girl comes by who is also a cousin of his (or aunt? Who knows.). She is amazing, very grown up and smart, speaks better English than any of us at the age of only 10 and entertains us until midnight.
