Tiff's Travel Tales: Saranda

A travel day heading north up the coast of Albania.

The main tourist season has finished and this means transport schedules have changed and there are more creative ways to make a buck. The bus routes are combined and you get dropped at random corners or exits of the highway and someone else takes you the rest of the way.

On the 3hr bus ride today, we also dropped 5 large cake boxes to a random lady waiting beside the highway, she paid the driver and off we went again. Then a few tubs of feta to another person, picked up a big sack of mandarins from a guy, then we stopped next to a lady and man with a whole rafter of turkeys. The driver spoke to the man and I was engrossed watching the turkeys fanning their feathers out and gobbling.

Then we stopped at the top of the range where it's a natural spring town with some fancy hotels and then the spring water funnelled into pipes and everyone stops their cars and fills up big water containers.

The bus driver got out and filled up lots of containers and loaded them in the back 😂😂. Then myself and 2 American girls dropped off at a highway exit.

When he opened the back to get out our bags there were two bound and muzzled turkeys!! I had missed that transaction and didn't get a photo as too surprised 😂. Then our waiting vehicle was just a guy in a car, with a washing machine in the boot and his son in the backseat. He put our bags in the front seat and then the three of us hopped in with his son in the back 🙄😂🙄😂

All so different to our western structured, predictable experiences, but seems to work and is logical and efficient and must take a lot of logistics planning to get it all to work. All the fun of travels and looking back when the day is done and thinking somehow you managed to wing it 😂

The reviews on the only hostel open were pretty bad and so I've treated myself to a $48 room at a hotel.

A long walk around the wide promenade with a divided cycle lane and exotic palm trees. The water is clear and with visible fish. I watched the ferry to Italy depart into the sunset.