Sunday, 18th of October, 2020.
I leave Tirana later than I supposed to. I allowed myself to sleep until I wake up naturally. What happened around 6.45 a.m. I had some stomach ache at night so it took me a while to be able to sleep.
I prepare myself two sandwiches, two boiled eggs and 2 slices of carrot cake. I have some Lekes left to buy some food for the next day before I leave Albania.
The first man who stops does not speak English at all. What a surprise… We manage to say something about where he would drop me before I get in the car. But it is useless. It is true that I was already for a long time in my hitchhike spot out of Tirana (Vore) but he drops me in the end of a curve / connexion between two secondary roads going into the highway. I thought it would be such a disaster, but in less than a minute, a couple stops for me.
Dimi and Aide are going just before Lezhë. But not in Lezhë. So when they leave me in the highway just before their exit, I pee just beside a highway (without hiding myself just to let it clear) for the first time. And then I walk for about 1 Km; I try to buy an apple but get it for free; and I stop in a good spot in front of a gas station.
Linda and her friend pick me up. She speaks a bit of English and him a lot of Greek. But they both are Albanian. They are going to Shkodër to buy some fish. We stop for a coffee and they get surprise about my travels and, in their words, my braveness. They give me some chocolate and stop to buy some pomegranate. Four huge and heavy pomegranates. They leave me in the centre of Shkodër (where I have not been during my last visit here). I eat and rest for a long time. It is around 16 hours so I decide it is better not to try to cross the border so late. I remember the advice of my dear friend Mari about that. So I decide just to camp outside town and since I am just about one hour from the border now, try my luck early morning. I buy a big yogurt and a burek for the next day. Some really nice young lady at the supermarket call my attention and since I do not have anything to give her as a sign of gratitude and appreciation, I give her one of my pomegranates.
It is a bit tricky to find a good spot for camping just because I have to walk a lot. While I am taking some rest, I man who looks a lot like a Muslin man stop his car and ask if I need help. He kind of offers me a shelter for the night at his apartment in town, but I do not say I need because of my plans to leave very early in the morning and do not want to disturb him about that. I finally get a empty and open grassy area, make my camping, have my dinner and try to sleep. It gets super cold at night.
Monday, 19th of October, 2020.
I get in the road probably later than I hope, around 7 a.m. Nikoli stops for me sometime after 8 a.m. He is going to Podgorica and is going to take a PCR test in a small town just before the border. How much it will cost? I ask. And he says something around 10 Euros. What? Could that be an special price just for Albanians? He does not know. Neither know if I can take the test. I come with him and we ask. Yes I can and it will cost me just 7 Euros. What? Yeah, baby! There are a few fellas waiting already to make the test so we also wait. I get a bit nervous suddenly: what if I am positive for Covid-19? The nurse who takes my blood is kind of nice.
1,16 mg / L. To be a negative result your number needs to be between 0 and 5 mg / L. Relief. Me and Nikoli can lead to Montenegro. And now I do not need to worry about being stopped on the border. Well… let’s not hush into conclusions. I get myself calming down and waiting until we cross the border to be able to celebrate.
Even though the jerks police officers of the border make a scene about Nikoli’s luggage, we get in. Yay! He gives me a big hug before drop me about 10 Km before Podgorica.
The beautiful Masha in her old car stops for me a few minutes later. She is going to Podgorica but is just doing some shopping for her Pub. Nice! So young and already has her own Pub. Cool girl with attitude. She gives me a package of Turkish coffee. Smells so good! I see her Pub. She drops me in the road I need to be to go outside of Podgorica and in direction of the border with Serbia.
Zoran is going just to Hotsalin but I say it is fine. The spot where I am it is not very good. He speaks just a tiny bit of English. It is a beautiful way we take. As I saw in many pictures before and as many people have told me, Montenegro it is a beautiful country. Zoran stops to eat and offer me some salami, which I kindly refuse. He offers me some chocolate and some biscuits, which I gratefully accept. We pass Hatsalin and I ask Zoran where are we going, because otherwise he can drop me anywhere here. But he say something about going to Graniska, dropping me there and then coming back. I insist he does not need to do that, he insists he will. We keep going. Pause for another coffee in a very scenery spot / cafe.
We get at the border. What? Yeah. This other name that Zoran was calling the border got me confused and even when we got in there I was so not sure of anything that I could even thanked him as much as he deserved. I leave Montenegro and start to walk in between some beautiful mountains. But where the hell am I? I ask some guys around and they say I must walk around 3 Km to the Serbian border. It is just after 13 hours. Fuck!
