June 21, 2005: Saranda to Vlore, Albania

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

I am ready to assert that you can measure the efficiency of any country by taking approximately ten pounds of items of various sizes and shapes and attempting to mail them elsewhere in a single package anywhere – in country or out. Once you break down the process you find what steps are necessary. First, you find a box, then tape, possibly scissors, and then you deal with the postal system. Perhaps the country provides boxes and self-ripping tape in the post office itself. Perhaps it does not. Albania does not.

Ready to unburden myself with some weight - I'm motocrossing here and the bike slips and slides and frankly, it's dangerous - so I make a decision to send my camping gear and all the literature, maps, receipts, some gifts, and items of clothing no longer needed (sweaters, tights, layers inappropriate for hot weather), I set aside a pile and proceeded, thinking that I’d be waylaid about an hour. My optimism was buoyed by the presence of an impressively modern looking post office located directly behind the hotel.

Step 1: The Box

No boxes, tape, envelopes for sale at the post office, and the postal clerk didn’t know where to find one, so while she kept my things, I went to seek out boxes in the normal venues – grocery stores, or as there weren’t any grocery stores per se here in the rather large town of Saranda, the little markets scattered in the vicinity. Queries, however, came up negatory. The boxes holding produce and the various and sundry items that markets showcase were apparently not going to be given up lightly. I offered to pay, but was met with bewilderment and, in one case, hostility, a situation likely brought about because I wouldn’t leave when the woman shook her head no – in Albania the back and forth head wag means yes and the up and down means no – culture clash at work.

Back at the hotel the family was of little use. The man of the house was fairly fluent in Italian, of which I know only the basics, and the woman of the house had a few words of English and knew how to shrug and purse her lips out, French style.

Step 2: The Tape

Despite my inability to produce a box, the family sent their daughter to get tape. A teenager, she had at her disposal the family scooter, upon which she roared off before I could stop her. After all, what’s tape without a box?

Step 1, Reprieve: The Box

As we were waiting for the tape, an old friend of Mr Dad entered freshly returned from Germany where he had been working as a Mercedes mechanic for 15 years. Mr. Germany was equipped with curly blond hair, a CK t-shirt, Gucci sunglasses, a gold chain, signet ring, pressed white shorts, designer flip flops, a great tan, white teeth, blue eyes, and a pot belly that could compete with the best of them. Among us we made him understand the situation – Dad and I speaking basic Italian, Mom and I speaking basic English, and Mr Germany and I speaking basic German. He was up to the challenge. “Mine Got!” he swore, and continued in what sounded like, “only in Albania! This would never happen in Germany…a box! Only a box!” We searched high and low, markets and dumpsters and cafes, but no luck. We had offers of boxes that were too small, to long and narrow, but what we needed was a box about the size of a pineapple crate. No problem in America! No problem in Germany! Yes, a little in Italy, Greece. But Albania! Mine Got!

Step 3: A Break

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said to Mr Germany. “No problem,” he replied. “Café?”

Okay…we were both sweating in the hot morning sun, and so we walked back to the hotel, leaving the supplies with Ms Post Office, collecting the hotel family, parents, a teenager, and went to the harbor front to get coffee. Mr Germany bought, smiled, twinkled, and pointed to his house across the bay between two sandy beaches. “Mein hause,” he kept saying. “Deuchmarks,” I kept replying, to his amusement and occasional hand slap.

Step 1 again: The box

2 hours from the beginning of my project and in desperation I picked up a piece of a large box that was lying in the street. Nein, nein, said Mr Germany, but then when I went to put it down, he grabbed it and we dragged it to the postal clerk along with the tape the teenage daughter had provided. A lively conversation ensued, Mr Germany with his twinkle and smile charming the matronly clerk into some sort of understanding.

Step 4: The packaging

On the expansive marble floor of the post office Mr Germany, Hotel Owners 8 year old daughter, and I shape the large flat shard of cardboard into a box-like shape and begin to tape. The tape goes round and round – I tape, Mr Germany presses and shapes, and the kid cuts the tape. The sound is deafening in Sarada’s huge marble post office, the tape ripping from its roll and the cardboard cracking and the two of us laughing and instructing, here, here, stop, okay, here, yah, nein, okay, and rip and clip and squeeze and the package is an almost box, certainly a container in absolutely no danger of breaking open considering the durability of plastic packing tape.

Step 5: The addressing

The postal clerk peers through her Plexiglas barrier to the package and nods her approval. She slips a sheet of recycled 8 ½ x 11 paper (typed on one side) and instructs Mr Germany and me to put the address of the Moto Guzzi Dealership in the center area and my return address in the upper left. No problem! I think. Ha! The return address has to be in Albania, so daughter is sent to run down to the hotel to get the address.

(Have I mentioned that Saranda is built on the side of a hill and every block from the sea is a staircase up to the mountain?)

A new piece of recycled paper is slipped to us but Mr. Germany just rips off the old return address and writes it, in illegible handwriting (they have a different alphabet) and we put more clear plastic packing tape across it until it is completely covered and in no danger of ripping, getting wet and running, or any other possibly damage.

Step 5: Paying

Since the package is too large to shove through the 12 inch long by 6 inch tall opening in the Plexiglas we have to take the package around the block to the back door where we are interrogated by the guard who is about 80 years old and then allowed to enter the back of the post office where there is still marble floors but no façade. Here we are told to go to one door and when we open one door we are told – by the office worker who sits behind the desk – to go to the next door. Four doors later our postal clerk from downstairs (the building also goes up the hill) arrives to help us through the payment process. The package gets weighed by a device that resembles something I played with in an antique store once, and the woman makes marks on the page and writes out how much Leke I owe. There is a BancoMat just across the street – I can see it out the window up the hill across the street – so I run over there, put my ATM card in it and get the Leke, run back, and pay.

Step 6: Leaving

Not yet. She has to know what is in it. Mr Germany and I, though simpatico, cannot communicate well enough for me to describe the contents, so with the help of another postal clerk who can speak some English and a lot of pantomiming and laughing, we get it done. Basically, I think, she wrote in “clothing.”

Reflections

I have mailed packages in France, Germany, Italy, Amsterdam, India, China, the USA and Canada. In India they make you take the package to get fabric sewn on it, and they inspect the stitching and if it isn’t good enough you have to get it done again. The process can take days so it’s better to take it to a private mailing service equivalent to UPS or FedEx. In Germany they have everything you need right there and it’s done in no time. In Italy I boxed some materials in a carton from a grocery store that was printed with a brand name, say Hawaii Pineapples, and even though it was obvious that the label with the addresses were the destination and return they made me wrap paper all over the box so it was an “unprinted” box. This required paper and tape, of course, so I had to find a Tabacci but it was lunchtime and they were closed so I had to have lunch and wait.

It would be an interesting topic for a book, if anyone cared to travel the world just to mail packages and document the process…

No thank you.

10:30 am, June 21, 2005

Saranda, Albania

Goodbye to Saranda, I stop at the edge of town to buy a liter of water and the cops are there too. They have an enduro Moto Guzzi, which is parked on the roadside, and take much friendly interest in mine. As they are on a break, they have some time to kill so they drink their beers (yes, beers) on the sidewalk and we talk, sort of, in Albanian, Italian, English, I take photos, ask directions to Vlora, even though I’ve already had directions from Mr Hotel. I find that it provides some kind of end understanding to a roadside conversation, a problem is solved, everyone is left happy speaking the various languages – Bye! Ciao! Lamtumire!

I hit bad tarmac in no time, and then the road starts rising. The 22 kilometers to Himare takes over an hour with the stops to photograph and the stops because oncoming traffic is oncoming – maybe 10 cars and trucks, but slow blind curves and beeping is necessary.

The ride takes my breath away. First, the road surface changes from rutted tarmac, potholes and gravel, to rough tarmac made with pebbles, to mostly potholes, to smooth tarmac, and abruptly to rutted again. Combined with the fact that it’ll hold one car and a motorcycle, the west side is a cliff face and the east side is a cliff drop – making it a lose-lose situation for any accident – everyone is slow except for the occasional wild-eyed young man driving hell bent for death. There are shrines to their cohorts who perished doing just this type of driving, I fear, on the side of the road – marble with their photos and fresh flowers. Nice monuments. Nice reminders. Slow down.

June 21

Borsh

4.80 liters

6000 Leke

2277 km

In Borsh I stop for gas in the most picturesque gas station I’ve ever visited. The toothless old guy who comes out to pump it has no idea. A couple of pre-teen boys I passed a couple of minutes ago arrive as I emerge from the toilet. One smiles and responds to my “hello,” with “Hello. Where do you coming from?”

I tell him “Milano, Brindisi, Corfu, Saranda, Vlore, Croatia, Venetzio, Milano,” describing my circle, and he replies that he’s going to school in Tirano, Albania’s capital, and that he has an English friend. Despite syntax errors he is fairly fluent and we have a good conversation about the area, good enough to know that he has no idea how beautiful his country is. I have already seen that Albania is so rich in natural beauty that anyone who immigrates must inevitably be disappointed in other landscapes. Or maybe the drama of mountains plunging into sea makes huge expanses of desert exotic and appealing.

June 21

Vlore 6:30

2.5 liters

200 Leke

2362 km

About 7 km later I come to a tiny mountain village called VUNO and while I am riding and paying attention to the road I want to remember where I am so I equate it to “View No” which is a joke because it has spectacular views but the road is so narrow and bad that I don’t dare stop and take a photo.

Dhermi is another 10 kilometers and another hour. The village is by the sea, hundreds of feet below, but on the road is a cliffside bar restaurant with a big parking lot that has a panoramic view. I’m exhausted, but they are playing such loud electronic music that I can’t stand to sit down and have a drink, even though two young men are gawking and smiling at the bike and me, our collective foreigness. They come question me about the cc’s (500? No, 750, I say, and they are astounded), and offer a drink, a cigarette, but I say I have to be in Vlore before dark. They tell me in Albanian and sign language, “Go slowly, slowly, the road is bad, but soon, it’s good, like ‘autostrada.’”

I despair because Vlore is 90 km away, but in about 5 km the road IS autostrada. It’s big enough for two cars to cross paths without hitting each other head on, and there’s even a white line down the middle, oh joy! It’s got no potholes, either – but I remember my experiences in China when the road was so good and then suddenly I’d be flying off a 10 inch precipice where they hadn’t laid down asphalt and there were no warning signs, either.

In a moment I look up at the mountain ahead of me and realize that I’m going to ride up that mountain, seven long switchbacks zigzagging up the mountain. The road is perfect and I fly, going over 20km per hour for the first time all day, and there are no barriers to falling 1000 meters to my death and when I am riding straight I’m either heading out to sky or sea or into a higher mountain – if I were a plane I’d crash into it but I am a motorcycle and I am going to shift into second and take the hairpin curve and accelerate again toward the blue sky and the sea and then in a while curve and into the cold gray stone mountain all the way to the top to Lubijana pass.

I overtake one vehicle and two pass me going the other direction. Albania is in no danger of suffering traffic jams anytime soon.

Then down, down, down into a different landscape, pine forests and ferns, waterfalls, and then into a fluvial plain fertile with farms and more good roads until 10 km from Vlora where “it is under renovation” one of the guys in Dhermi said. I’ll say…it’s back to 5 or 10 im/hr, gravel and potholes, and since it’s the end of the day and people are coming home for the evening they’re washing their cars and the road is full of mud, slippery, and downhill in slippery mud and gravel on a motorcycle is no fun and I chant to myself, don’t brake don’t brake don’t brake as I pick up speed, eyeing the dry spot where I can lightly touch them and get ready for the pothole that lies beyond.

Vlora is a beach and a big busy town at the end of the day. I find an internet café, can’t upload via my machine, but quickly enter a weblog then find a hotel at the beach, 25 euro with big comfy bed, hot water, air condish, quiet garden room, tv (like I can watch Albanian tv). In the morning is Apollonia.

I ride into the back parking of the hotel and a man is sweeping sand in between bricks, “ah, mortar,” I say and he says, “si si, mortar,” and in an instant we are having a conversation, determining that I can speak English, French, pocito Italino (capito though), and he can speak Albanian, Italian, Chinese. Ha! “Chinese?” I say, and test him with “nee how ma! He says’ “ah! Nee how ma…” and then more, much more than I can follow, and I say “Shay shay,” and he laughs and puts up his hand, we high five and that’s the only interaction we will have because I’m exhausted and he’s the cook and later I wonder about this man, about 65, I guess, maybe a sailor, I saw ships in the Vlora harbor, why not?

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