Behind the beauty of a country.

Albania has conquered our heart with its stunning beauty, the spontaneous warm people and the little tourism!

On the road, sometimes we’ve got the feeling we’re catapulted years back in time. On the countryside we see shepherds with big flocks of sheep, farmers working with a sickle or transporting goods with only a donkey, horse or an old car with hay piles.

Every road is flanked by many little, but uttermost cozy bars, filled up with people drinking tiny cups of coffee. This is often accompanied by cigarettes – it seems that anti-smoking campaigns didn’t make it to the Balkans.

From health to environment; the amount of dirt and rubbish next to the route or in pure nature is overwhelming sometimes. Environmental awareness seems quite far away – this counts as well for Bosnia and Montenegro – are poverty and political neglect part of the explanation for this situation?

The food is amazing – top on the country list until now – often fully self-produced! Next to that, we receive food presents nearly everyday – and are so very grateful for it! Thrice we we're given a free and delicious dessert after our ordered meals in restaurants, we got free apples and a bag of cherries (and actually a bunch of questions to answer as well! 😉) from the supermarket lady after buying bread there, people tend to give us free water or offer ice to refill our drinking bottles, …

This comes along with broad smiles and asking about our experiences, the eagerness to give advice about what to see in the neighborhood and ease to talk with about their lives.

We are astonished by this hospitality, as Albania makes somehow a poorer impression than the other Balkan countries we’ve passed. The poorer, the more the need to share?

Although the country is beautiful, we continue to meet people who tell us about the corruption in the country (“there goes enormous amounts of money to few, but nothing to the people, we’re used to see for ourselves”), the inefficient economy which results in an outflow of young people… They don’t expect things to change quickly. Life isn’t easy for the average Albanian, that’s for sure.

What more to tell?

After the mountains, we’ve become coastal climbers and beach bed “benefitters”. Yes, we slept in a “four poster bed” on the beach – for free, as the beach was almost deserted at that time.

We survived a little flood in our guesthouse apartment during a heavy thunderstorm, as the sink became an eager producing water source (due to an overloaded waste system?)! We pity the owner as the apartment was all new. After getting our goods into safety, he offered us a new 3*** room with top view over the sea – completely for free!

These people – so much poorer than us and yet always prepared to give the best of themselves to comfort us and make us happy.

In some way it keeps reminding me of the Indian people we are cycling for. I hope our project offers the children a little financial support to built up a better future for them.