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Chart a course to an almost forgotten European country without maps, few streets, and fewer signs. It’s a drive back in time into a land that’s been left behind.
Imagine driving your truck camper into a foreign land where you don’t speak the language and few people have ever heard or seen a camper. Now imagine that there are no accurate maps, street signs, or even modern roads. Welcome to the country of Albania. An adventure few have ever experienced awaits you.
This story came to us from Judith and Günter Reisinger-Waslberger, Austrian truck campers who dared to drive across Europe and explore Albania. She was recommended to us by Felix Agel who was featured in the TCM article, “Truck Camping Through Europe”. Thank you Felix, Judith, and Günter for broadening our truck camping possibilities!
Above: Camping next to the Adriatic Sea
Truck Camping Across Albania
By: Judith and Günter Reisinger-Waslberger
We’re Judith and Günter from Linz, Austria and we love truck camping! Our first travels with a truck camper led us to Alaska and the Yukon Northwest Territories in Canada. We rented a Ford truck with a Bigfoot and we loved it so much that we decided to buy a truck camper in Austria.
Truck campers in Europe don’t have the same dimensions as truck campers in America. As with everything in Europe, they are a bit downscaled because they are adapted to our streets and landscape. For four years we have been traveling with our Toyota Hilux and Tischer camper. Our last journey led us to Albania.
Albania is one of the last blank spots on the map in Europe. The country is situated on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea and is one of the Balkan States.
From 1946 to 1998 it was a country with a totalitarian communist dictatorship. Enver Hoxha isolated the country completely from the outside world. The long lasting isolation left its mark on the country’s infrastructure. In the backcountry there are no streets or only a few very bad streets. People there walk or ride on mules. There are no accurate street maps, street markers, place name signs, or sign posts. Often you have to ask people to show you the right way.
Until 1991, private citizens were not allowed to own a car in Albania. Only the military and leading functionaries were allowed to drive one. The country wasn’t involved in the Balkan war, but accommodated thousands of refugees from Kosovo. The war borders were redrawn arbitrarily which resulted in a lot of Albanians living in the neighboring states of Kosovo, the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia.
The country is still under construction. On the coast side and in some rural areas they are starting efforts to open the doors for tourism. Outdoor activities are getting popular such as hiking, four-wheel driving, and motor crossing. Because of the rapid openness of the country, you can experience some bizarre situations, like overtaking a donkey cart on the highway.
Albanians don’t have a good reputation in the rest of Europe. Sometimes organized Balkan gangs commit crimes in middle Europe. But the people we met there were some of the most enjoyable and hospitable we’ve met on our travels around the world. We were never concerned about our safety and camping is permitted everywhere. If you stay on private property, you should always ask the owner. Most of the time you’ll be heartily welcomed as a guest.
Our five-week journey led us across Albania. We arrived in Albania after a 1,200 kilometer trip through Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. The first impression was mind-blowing. Right after crossing the border, a Mercedes with a three-piece suit on the roof was coming towards us. And the first bridge we crossed was completely made out of wood.
Theth National Park
The first couple of days we spent were in Theth National Park. The only way to get there is a very bad gravel road. The park extends over an area of 6,500 square kilometers. Theth lays in the north-eastern Alps in Albania in the valley of the Shala River. It’s surrounded by a couple of two thousand foot mountains and some old smuggler-paths over the northern passes to Montenegro. The dispersed settlement extends over the whole upper valley and during the winter it’s completely isolated from the rest of the country. A German aid organization works in Thethi to help the residents to whip tourism into shape. They mark hiking trails and renovate the old and deserted houses for rural guest houses. They also map the trails for mountain biking and hiking.
In Thethi, you can still see an old so called blood-tower. In these Christian parts of Albania, vendetta was common. The only access to these towers was on the first floor and the only way to enter or leave the tower was with a ladder. If a member of a family was threatened with a vendetta, he was locked in the tower until the situation eased up.
The earliest settlement in the valley was during the Paleolithic when the Illyrians also lived there. In 1892 a church and in the year 1936 the street to Thethi were built. During communism even a hotel and a workers holiday home was built. In the 1980s about 7,000 people lived there and now it’s nearly a ghost town despite of many international aid projects. It seems that it will not change that much.
Drin
The next six days we spent along the River Drin and enjoyed a lot of funny encounters with people there. Without knowing, we stood in a meadow of a farm. The place was wonderful. It was situated on a lakeside beside an old stone house ruin under a very old mulberry tree. As we got ready to stay for a couple of days, suddenly a lot of little piglets, two mules, little goats, goose, and a dog came along. Then, a young lady came along afterwards.
With a gobbledygook of English, French, Italian, and hand gestures, we communicated about nearly everything. She told me about the fruits and flowers which are grown around our campsite. After telling me that we can stay as long as we liked she invited me to come to her house.
The house was made out of hollow brick without any plaster and the roof was just made out of corrugated sheet iron. Inside was a bed, a sideboard, and an open fireplace. There was no heater and no running water. The stable was more modern and in a better condition. We guess it’s because the livestock represents the prosperity of these people. She gave us goat cheese and vegetables as presents. In the evening, her husband came home and drove the goats from the surrounding hills. As you can see, the billy goat had a lot of fun with my beer!
The next evening we had guests. The kids from the neighbor’s farm came along, played with our dog, and after asking, inspected all of our stuff. A lot of things such as a spectacle case, street maps, and some of our cooking utensils were new to them. It was amazing for them as I took a photo and it didn’t take a second to see themselves on our laptop.
The next day we left that wonderful place and started out to the ferry boat over the Liqeni Fierzes. The reservoir drowns a valley which had one of the few streets in this part of the country. Because of the steep mountains that surround the valley it wasn’t possible to build a new street, so a ferry boat was created. Once a day the ferry boat goes from Komani to Fierze and back. The boat trip is one of the most spectacular experiences in Albania. For at least three to four hours, you go through rock faces which are up to 1,000 meters high. The valley is sometimes so narrow that you think the lake will end right in front of you. What a pity that it rained all the time we were crossing!
Between Fierze and Kukes there’s a quite acceptable road. Kukes is the frontier town between Albania and the Kosovo. This is the town where all the refugees have been accommodated during the Balkan war. Last fall a new highway between Dures on the coast side and Kukes has been opened. Kukes is one of the typical towns in Albania; old communistic apartment blocks, stores like in the Middle East, and policemen who can’t even read a street map.
In Kukes we did our shopping. In the countryside of Albania, it can be challenging to shop for food. There were the common three stores for food; one with soft drinks, beer, uht-milk, and cigarettes. Because of a chilled showcase, that shop also has butter-bulls in freezer bags and dried sausages. Another store has eggs, flour, sugar, and seasonal vegetables like potatoes, cabbage, and beet roots. It was too early for the rest, so only bought some zucchini and peppers. The third store was the bakery with exactly one kind of bread.
The last episode of our traveling along the Drin led us to the valley of the Black Drin and the landscape was spectacular! There were absolutely pristine and untouched riverbeds that reminded us of the landscapes in Canada and the United States. Because of the intensive agricultural use and the high density of population, there are nearly no more intact stream courses in middle Europe.
Lures National Park
We spent the next three days in Lures National Park. We used our very useless street map, which was the only one to get. After getting lost, an old man, who was very excited to come with us for a little while in our truck camper, and a couple, who were hitch hiking so they didn’t have to walk all the steep way up the mountain in the rain, had shown us the right way.
After the rain, the road was so bad that even with our four wheel drive we had to stop. We looked out for a nice place to be and stayed there for the next few days. The next morning, the sun was coming out and we did some hiking. On the third day in the park, we went on further with the truck and left the camper in the campground. But even by truck we didn’t find the glacier lakes, which are in the park. The landscape, all the butterflies, and flowers made it worth while to stay in the park.
After two days spent sightseeing in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia on the Ohridlake, we went back to Albania. We drove through the corn belt of Albania. In the Devoll there is intensive agriculture and it seemed that it is one of the most modern and rich parts of Albania. From the towns, to the highways, to the stores, everything is very modern.
Grammos
Afterwards we spent two days on the boundary to Greece in the Grammos-Mountains, which was one of the most beautiful campsites during our whole trip. We were all alone in an unbelievable alp meadow high above the valley of Osum with the outlook to the snow covered peaks of the southern Ranges of Nemecke and Dhembelit. In the evening we had another visit. A policeman and two officers from the customs came along with an old Landrover. He even brought his son in the backseat of the car and made him stay there.
Whether they came because of curiosity or to see if we were smugglers from Greece, God knows. But they were very civilized. They looked at our passports and affirmed that there was no problem to camp for two more days. With my bumpy effort to say good night in Albanian, they went away laughing.
The next day while hiking, we found excellent white mushrooms. We were not sure if they were edible, so we asked a stockman if we could eat them. An in the typical Albanian way he showed us that they were good. He said, “Yes, yes” and shook his head as he would like to say no! They do it in the controversial way. If they say yes they shake their head, and if the say no, they are nodding! Anyway the mushrooms with garlic made on the open fire, were one of the best dinners we had in our holiday!
Our journey led us further to the valley of Vjoses. It looked like the Yukon and we spent a couple of wonderful days on a riverbank, reading and fishing. At the end of our traveling we went to the seaside. Even in Albania it’s not that easy to find a beach, which isn’t used in a touristic way. But we found one!
We spent our last week on a lonesome, endless shingle beach with dolphins as guests and sitting at a fire each night. We were doing nothing. It really was a fantastic holiday. And if you come to Europe visit Albania. It’s worth it!
Above: The towns of Fyrom and Vaujes
We would like to thank Judith Reisinger-Waslberger and Viktor Eichler for translating the article for us and Judith and Günter Reisinger-Waslberger for the photographs. You can visit their website at www.permanent-impressions.at.
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