Sunday, 6th of September, 2020.
Luckily I am again in a very good hitchhiking spot. But my luck just gets better and better. First, this beautiful and wonderful lady stops for me. Evis is going to Tirana but she says she can drop me at Lezhë. She speaks great English and we have a good time until Lezhë. Unfortunately the ride is not long and in less than one hour I have to say goodbye to her. Evis drops me at the Lezha Monument, which I want to see before I go to the beach. Yeah, that is the plan: this time, instead of staying in town, I am going for a splash in the sea!
I am still not sure if I will walk, hitchhike or take a public transport to the beach. Since the van it is incredibly cheap and gets me there earlier, I decided to take it. With backpack and everything! We wait until the van is full and we leave.
Before the beach, a quick pause to use the bathroom in a fancy hotel and to wash my t-shirt. I also stop in a market to buy some snacks for lunch. Snacks because the money I have is not enough to buy stuff for a sandwich and I still need to grab the bus back to Lezhë.
I completely forgot that it is Sunday so the beach is full! Damn it! Of course you have to pay for renting a chair, so I just find a spot in the sand. I ask this young girl, who is sunbathing, if she can just take a look on my bags while I go to “swim”. It is super hot weather but the water is quite cold. After a while I come back, dry at the sun a bit and go back for a last splash. Since it is too busy here, plus the sand and everything, I decide to, after taking a shower, I will find a quiet (and clean) place where I can sit down and eat.
The showers are surrounded by this wooden wall for a bit of privacy. Worried about my backpacks, I ask this group of men, sitting in the first table near my stuff, if they can keep an eye in my bags just while I take a shower. They seen trustful and nice. After I get dressed and ready, one of them asks me if I drink beer. I answer yes. So they invite me for one. I accept. They are from Kosovo and work all together in the same company. It is a weekend vacation they are taking but soon they will be heading back. They pay me not one but two beers. We talk for a while and they all are very friendly and not for a moment insinuate anything bad. My biggest surprise it is two of them leave for a while and when they come back a few minutes later, they have this small bottle of brandy for me. It is a gift from all of them to me. I think it is very kind of them! When they leave I also decide to go. Which was stupidity because I should have stay in the good table with a nice view. Maybe I would have remember to take a picture of the beach, which I did not.
I do not care about the time I am coming back to Lezhë. It is still super early and the only thing I need to do is check again the directions for a good place for camping and hitchhiking. The ones I have from before are quite confusing right now.
I sit under a shade just across the street from the bus stop. I eat my snacks slowly. And then I decide to grab the bus because I do not want to be in a rush later.
In Lezhë, I exchange five Euros to buy food and walk into Hotel Liss and ask the manager if I can use the wi-fi. I tell a little bit of my travel story and she also asks some questions. Even before I use the wi-fi, the wonderful manager Inida says that I could stay in one of their rooms for free because she is sure that the owner (a very generous man according to her) will insist on that. I kindly say thank you but refuse because I am fine. So at the coffee area I get my directions and I am ready to go. But when I come to say goodbye she tells me she already talk to the owner, he saw me on the cameras and he insist that I spend the night with them. What? Well, I do not see a reason to refuse that. It would be nice to have a real shower and a good night of sleep. So I accept.
Inida brings me to a very nice room on the first floor and she even say she actually wanted to bring me to the 4th floor, where I can have a view, but I say it is not necessary. The room is of course much more than I can expect / want and I still cannot believe. I decide to go first to buy some food for breakfast and lunch to the next day and for my dinner tonight. And I can use my sandals instead of my boots, yay! Everything it is so calm and perfect. I now just regret I did not take my camera and went for a quick walk aside the river which crosses the town. Lezhë is quiet a nice town to visit and it has beautiful views.
When I come back I chat a bit more with Inida. She is truly an angel! At my room (laugh), I send an email to my future Workaway host in Tirana, telling him I am coming on the day after tomorrow; and I create two great reviews for these two hotels here in Albania where people were so wonderful to me, in Shkodër and here in Lezhë. I also make one for the camping where I staid for free in Shkodër, even that the manager over there was not so nice.
I check out next morning not so early as usual, just after my breakfast in my room. Downstairs I finally meet the owner, Tony. He does not speak English but Inida does all the translation and he really seems like an honored man. We talk about his son, who is a great box fighter. Tony insist for me to take breakfast but I tell them I already ate in my room. Then he insists that I let the driver to bring me to Patok, my next destination. I say it is not necessary and show him my hitchhiking sign saying “Patok”. So after taking a photo together he offers me one last thing: 1000 Leke. Two notes of 500 to be precise. That is about 8 Euros I know now, so it is not that much in Euro but for me, right in my condition, it was too much and I refused many times. But he insist and would not take it back. I could buy a lot of food and even buy me a new earphones (finally!), after mine being broken for so long. Afterwards I accept the money and I know that for Tony it was not about the money at all, he just wanted to help.
Walking to my hitchhike spot, a man stops me and start to talk with me in Italian. A lot of people in Albania speak Italian and German. I do not need to wait too long until somebody stops for me. Uhul, Patok come to mama.