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Published: July 30th 2014
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Albanian Motorway
No, really. This is a fully functioning motorway on a Tuesday lunchtime Less than 48 hours and we'll be on a big boat going across a big sea, hopefully drinking wine. Had to say goodbye to the dog which is clearly far far worse than saying goodbye to any person I think. I've taken a million photos though and have an A4 page of pictures in the 'folder'. (I've found that having copies of all the reservations/docuiments/tickets in a nice folder makes life so much easier)
Got the 'folder' together and all was going well until looking at the Legoland tickets there appeared to be a 'discrepancy' somehow I have booked Legoland Germany not Denmark. Oh and a Knights tent'. Great. After a greovelling e mail (thanks Ash) they've refunded so I can book the right tickets. I booked the tickets, checked the invoice aaannnnd - I've booked to arrive today (yes, at half past nine) and leave tomorrow. Stupid website has changed my dates. Great. Cue another e mail to a different country and a bit of fingers crossing. Oh and it only booked for one person. SO at this rate I'll be 'everything is awsomeing' on my own through the wrong legoland.
Jason the van has had his service
today and is off on friday for a last minute new shoe and engine check. Still can't quite shake the feeling that something will go wrong based on last years Albanian 'joy' Having left Athens,and headed up through Greece, through some seriously poor areas and beautiful mountains, we arrived very hot at the Albanian border. There was surprisingly little interrogation although you do have to buy 'tax' I'm pretty sure there is no actual amount you pay but I think ours was about 30 quid or so. In some countries you need a green card insurance too which you buy at the border. So we drove. It started ok, bleak but beautiful landscapes, not too bad on the road front and very hot. The the road well, kind of well, stopped and was replaced by a quarry in the shape of a road. This was the main (and pretty much only) road from Greece all the way through Albania to the capital. There were boulders, half finished tracks, Lorries on the wrong side of the road, dust, potholes, drops of over 12 inches from one part of the road to another, blind bends - the lot. I think it's safe
to say that even before the radio lept out of it's casing I wasn't really loving it. After this I was ready to cry but didn't and just hoped it would be over soon. We got pulled over by the Albanian police (fortunaltey their lack of English and our lack of Albanian meant the waved us on. And on. And on. Well over 50 miles of terrible quarry roads and we got to the beach 'resort' of Durres (think Marbella in 1976 and you'll have it). Our hotel, the most expensive on the 'strip' at 43 quid for the night was clean and tidy with a 1970s bathroom but a lovely cool room. The beach was fairly industrial (but busy) and the receptionist spoke perfect English. A lovely night, incredibly cheap food before the next days' trip through Montenegro and on to Croatia. Oh no. This was far too simple. We paid, got onto the van, turned the key and.....nothing. Not a whirr or a murmur. And, in the ONLY country not covered by our green flag cover. After a few tries, we went into battle mode. we.......
Tried the battery back ... nothing
Tried jumping from a locals car (they're all mercs)...nothing
rang the AA who gave us their usual mechanics number. He turned up with one hand bandaged with two fingers missing and a couple of bloody stumps, no English and a truck. He tried to jump it......nothing
Putting the van on the 'AA' man's van. van too long, dug out a chunk of patio, Ash went into 'man' mode and pushed the van back off the truck, the 'AA' man left in a huff.
The chef came out to help....nothing
The chef's brother who was on holiday with his family and owned the hotel next door came to help (he's a mechanic)....nothing.
The brother and the chef then decided to try a tow start. Attached Jason to his van, hopped in and off they drove. Down the strip leaving us with nothing but a passport watching as the van went down the road.....nothing.
They came back, beckoned Ash over, he got in and...disappeared shouting 'to the horse' at me out of the window. I went back into reception. The lovely lovely receptionsist asked if it was started. When I said no she said what will you do. I shrugged.
Then, like bells from heaven, I heard the noise of a van. Got up, went to the door to see Ash hugging Bert Reynolds (the albanian security guard, real name unknown who spoke not a word of English but provided offers of cigarettes and a cheery smile the whole 4 hours this had been going on) and running up the stairs. I hugged the receptionist, told her boss to give her a raise, got in the van and began to pray.
We had 200 miles worth of fuel in the tank. A journey of 200 miles to get to Dubrovnik - the next place where green flag and EU 'standards' would work. We had 2 border crossings to get over, without stopping as we knew we couldn't risk it, half a litre of water, 2 chewy bars and potentially a four hour journey.
What I learnt:
#Albanians are lovely
#Albania is not lovely
#People the world over want to try and help you out if they can
#Albania is cheap and in 20 years could be amazing
#train to be a mechanic if you're driving through Albania - the mechanic sent was what the AA would have snet had we had European cover with them. He was bad.
So I'm off now to book in at legoland China or something. Night
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