15th Ksamil to Drymades via Butrint National Park.

Butrint National Park

Butrint; remains of a roman townhouse and evidence of the rising water table that made them abandon the city

Drymades beach resort

We had been up most of the night using the bathroom so it was touch and go whether we would have to stay in the dump another night but being true fighters ( lol) we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed to Butrint National Park.
The national park houses an acropolis of ancient ruins and is the largest in Albania, the museum was interesting and contained a large amount of relics which had been excavated, some of the large excavated statues had chunks missing, many of these were excavated in the 1930’s so we guessed the shovels used (as photos in the museum also showed) had taken chunks off the excavated pieces.
From Butrint we headed to Drymades beach the drive was extremely hilly which we weren’t expecting so we stopped off for an early dinner before reaching Drymades so we could give Torty a rest. We had spoken about starving ourselves for the day but seeing as we both felt better we thought we would have a lite dinner. The coastal restaurant overlooked a bay and was in a lovely setting, we asked for a menu but the manager said there was no menu (often seems to be the case in Albania) and it was a fish restaurant, we asked how much the fish was and he said 10euros so we said okay. 10 euros is quite expensive for fish by our travelling standards but the location was so nice so we thought we would treat ourselves. When the waiter asked if we wanted potatoes and salad we said yes, the waiter then proceeded to bring out olives, bread, feta, chinese cabbage as well as huge bowl of salad. Cass said maybe the manager misunderstood us but then the waiter brought out chips and a huge fish each. We couldn’t believe the amount of food on the table...so long to starving ourselves! The food was delicious but we got a shock when it came to bill time as every item had been individually charged and even the feta alone was the price of a dinner in our usual restaurants. We handed over 40 euros which seemed a lot but then we thought of the food we had eaten and the location and where we had eaten it and really it was a bargain. Cass joked that Bek had had her birthday dinner three months early.
After driving 3 km’s down a one way dirt track we arrived at Drymades beach, we couldn’t find our proposed campsite and most places were shut. After gazing in each direction Bek entered a brand new complex, the manager told her it would be 40 euros a night (says 50e on the internet) but she haggled over the price and struck a deal at 30 euros a night with breakfast .
The complex had only opened in july so everything was brand new and there were very few others staying. Once we had checked in we went for a walk along the beach and then went for a swim in the sea.

14th Gjirokaster to Ksamil via Blue eye springs

Earthquake? No unauthorised building lol

Blue Eye Spring

Inside the 14th century Citadel

An American spy plane?
When it landed in 1957, the communist regime claimed that the plane was spying on Albania and was forced down, though now it seems that the unlucky pilot simply got lost in bad weather and had to make an emergency landing.

We planned to have breakfast in the hotels restaurant but at 9am they were still shut (Albanians tent to be late risers) so we ventured into Gjiorkaster town instead. When we arrived in the town the place was heaving with people, cars were weaving in and out of traffic and horns were beeping in every direction-the place was crazy. We found parking although the guy charged us 8e for the day which seemed extortionate but with no prices displayed we didn’t know if we were being conned or not, and unfortunately he had the entire parking market tied up...welcome to the Albanian mafia.
The hunt for breakfast was on, many places were open but none were serving food so we had to settle for a liquid breakfast (minus the raki).
We had a walk around Gjirokaster, visited the castle and ate lunch ready for our journey to Blue eye springs. Blue eye springs used to be a favourite holiday spot among the communist elite and we could see the attraction, the spring pumps out 8.3 m3 of water per second, the water is crystal clear with various colours of vegetation and rocks. We had a walk around the spring and had a drink next to the springs which was extremely peaceful and relaxing. Bek wanted to go for a swim though Cass talked her out of putting her bikini on before we saw the spring as Albanians aren’t known for their care of the environment. When we got to the springs dge Bek put her foot in the 10oc water and said “I have swum in the English sea in winter but there is no way I am going in there!”
Later that day we arrived in Ksamil which we thought was going to be a nice seaside resort and where we planned to check into a hotel by the beach (thank god we didn’t book it in advance). Ksamil turned out to be a big dump of a town, numerous buildings had collapsed and many that hadn’t looked like the leaning Tower Of Pisa although people were still living inside. We thought there must have been an earthquake in the town but we used the internet and found out that the government tore down 200 buildings which were illegally erected and then expected the owners to clean the mess away, needless to say that the ruins will still be there in 200 years! We checked into a hotel anyway as we weren’t near to another town and the next day (the plan of laying by the beach for a few days was soon dismissed) we were heading south to a national park where there was no accommodation. At night we went for dinner and had mussels as we had driven past some mussel farms during the day .The food was lovely but we were both unwell afterwards, Bek says it’s put her off mussels for life.

13th Lake Ohrid to Gjirokaster via Barmash pass

Some more quality roads, thank god we werent driving on it when it slid!

Cass thought that Albanians spoke Australian (it really means for sale)

Barmash Pass

Highway 1 Albanian style

Bed shop delivery man

In the morning we checked out of the campsite while the locals were sat in the restaurant having their breakfast of Raki, expresso and cigarettes (oh to be a local in my next life).
The drive to Gjirokaster took us over the Barmash pass which is 1759m high, we took the drive easy and stopped for lunch and coffee in various scenic spots. The drivers in Albania are crazy and they don’t even think twice about overtaking on mountainous blind bends where there are no barriers and sheer cliff drops, lets just say we had a few curt words here and there!
It’s also not uncommon to see roads where landslides have occurred and carried the road with it.
There are no campsites in Gjirokaster so we stayed in a hotel next to a lake just out of town, Bek was excited about the prospect of wallowing in a bath and as soon as we had eaten dinner in the hotel she went to run a bath. The water from the bathroom tap came out green and stank of stagnant water so that idea was soon forgotten.

12th September Lake Ohrid

The lake and some of the 60,000 bunkers

We woke up to sun and a bright blue sky ,Lake Ohrid is 34km long so we felt like we had woken up next to the sea. In the morning we tackled a 5kg pumpkin we had purchased from a roadside vendor the day before, this was a hard task with blunt knives and we narrowly avoided injury but it was worth it as the soup we made was delicious.
At one point we went to test the temperature of the clear water as we were contemplating going for a swim, we put our feet in and were sat relaxing on a step admiring the scenery when a snake came heading towards us. Bek who has a phobia of snakes saw it before Cass and jumped up yelling in a panic, Cass thought Bek had been bitten and in true Aussie style was watching the snake to identify it... that was before Bek grabbed her away lol and no we didn’t go swimming after that and the step we were on turned out to be on top of their nest! Apart from the snake incident the day was very relaxing. The campsite is also home to a trout farm (at least the fish isn’t caught from dynamite fishing which they practise in Albania and far north Australia) and at night we had dinner in the restaurant, we declined the endangered lake Ohrid Koran trout and instead opted for the run of the mill trout, the food was nicely washed down with a bottle of local wine.

11th September Sandanski (Bulgaria) to Lake Ohrid (Albania) via Greece

Some of the 60,000 cement bunkers that the nutso's...I mean communist boofheads put all over the countryside ready for war.

Lake Ohrid

We were woken at 7am by the drunken couple arguing again and at 7.30am we were on our way to Albania. Going through the Bulgarian border into Greece was a breeze and the roads were a joy with very few potholes, the only hiccup for the 400km journey was after stopping in Thessalonki to replenish our supply of Euros we got onto the motorway in the wrong direction lol We crossed into Albania at 3pm which again was hassle free, they didn’t even ask to see any vehicle documents and we wished every border crossing could be the same.
Previously we had read on internet forums etc how Albania has such terrible roads so we were bracing ourselves for the worst but we were pleasantly surprised and they were no worse than Serbia , Romania and Bulgaria.
When we arrived at Lake Ohrid campsite it started to rain, so much for sunning ourselves lake side lol instead we watched a few films and read.

10th September Rila to Sandanski

Rila Monastery among the Rila Mountains

Painted frescoes

We woke early as we were heading to one of Bulgaria’s most popular tourist attractions Rila Monastery and we wanted to beat the crowds, thankfully it wasn’t too crowded as it was off season. The monastery is set among a large courtyard with 300 monks cells and was originally built in 927. Lonely planet were correct this time when they say the murals are Bulgaria’s finest, the nativity church contains 1,200 murals all brightly coloured , we spent an hour or so just sitting and taking in the various painted scenes. From here we headed to Macedonia we went through passport control and Cass was stamped out of Bulgaria (no need for Bek as EU) we then arrived at the Macedonian border control where we asked to purchase vehicle insurance as ours didn’t cover Macedonia. Bek left Cass with the camper and went to arrange the insurance, Bek was in the insurance office for about 30 minutes while the insurance man made various phone calls (seems they aren’t used to campervans) he then said the insurance would be 120 euros for two weeks. We initially decided to bite the bullet to save hassle even though we only planned to be in Macedonia for 4 days, when we went to pay the insurance with a credit card they said they didn’t accept cards and told Bek to get a taxi to the nearest ATM 8KM away and return. We felt we were open to a robbery by doing this and had a change of heart with paying 120e for 4 days so we decided to drive through Greece and enter Albania. This meant we had to drive back through the Bulgarian passport control who looked at us a bit oddly at first and asked if there was a problem in entering Macedonia, when we explained they were understanding and gave Cass another stamp in her passport.
That night we had dinner in another ‘ Happy’ restaurant which was near the Greek border, we slept in the restaurants car park (another night with a baby wipe wash) near to a very loud drunk couple who spent much of the night arguing and drinking Raki before passing out in their car.

9th September Plovdiv to Rila (via Belitsa Bear Park)

It seemed Bek had been talking about seeing wild bears since leaving the UK so when Dave mentioned about a bear sanctuary near Rila Monastery it was obviously added to our list of places to visit...and not just in the hope of shutting Bek up lol The drive to the sanctuary took us through several mountains with lovely scenic views however one of the roads was so badly damaged we had to go into 1st gear to tackle the huge potholes and at times our bottoms felt like they were leaping off our seats . The road was stained with oil patches as the potholes had damaged the underside of vehicles previously driving by. We kept hearing crashing and clanking noises from the back of the camper and were hoping it was only going to be a broken mug as opposed to a broken axle. However we made it through the road unscathed (apart from a sore bottom) and said there’s no way we could get a worse road; we spoke too soon however as not long after we turned off the main road to drive to the bear sanctuary and were faced with an even worse one. The road to the bear sanctuary would have been perfect for someone with a 4x4 who was after a challenging drive but not us with a 2L engine in a laden down camper. At one point we had to slam the gear knob into 1st gear to scale a hill but the camper started rolling backwards and the wheels started skidding, after a few screeches and skipped heartbeats we finally made it to the top. Neither of us were impressed as there was no signage or information on the sanctuary’s website as to how poor the 11km of road would be (we kept saying it cant be this bad the whole way). We had to remind ourselves that we were in Bulgaria and also if people knew how poor the road was then the number of visitors to the sanctuary would be greatly reduced. Anyhow we survived once again unscathed and arrived at The Dancing Bears Park Belitsa which is the largest bear protection centre of its kind in Europe. All the bears had been kept previously as dancing bears by the gypsies many had old burn injuries to their feet as they were made to step on hot coals to make them dance, also many had disfigured noses where rings were tied. The park covers 120,000 square metres and the enclosures mimic the bears natural habitat, it was pleasing to see they now had a much better life than when they were carted around the countryside by the Romanian gypsies.
Later that night we slept in a restaurants car park which advertised as a campsite, we were surrounded by the Pirin and Rila mountains and the restaurant had a large trout farm although there was no shower which we were looking forward to after a sweaty day. Bek went to the bathroom and while sat on the toilet a scorpion entered, being typical English she kept saying how it could have been deadly (cue cass’s rolling eyes as everything is deadly to David Attenborough junior!). We have since googled the Pirin scorpion and no it isn’t deadly it just gives a nasty bite so that pleased Bek... and Cass as she wouldn’t have heard the end of it if it turned out to be deadly lol