Day 13: Efficient ride to the village of Divjakë

Vlöre – Divjakë 85.68km 🚴‍♀️ 4.35.09 ⏱ 18.7km/hr ⬆️ 255m ⬇️ 260m

Since we were both overwhelmed by the heat, as you happy readers must now by now cause of all our whining about it, we decided to be on the bikes by 6am. We postponed it till 6.30 but still like an hour, hour and a half earlier than normal. Mas didn’t have a good sleep cause of her stupid restless legs. Normally she just does 200 squats and it will pass but somehow that’s just not an option right now 🚲 . 

Anyway, we took off. The road out of Vlöre wasn’t too busy at this hour and it really was a little cooler and strangely foggy 🌁. Out of Vlöre we took a turn, followed by a small climb, onto a bumpy road. We would be facing a lot of bumpy roads today. But it was either bumpy or busy so we voted 🗳 for bumpy. Actually Mas just vetoed busy. 

By the time the clock 🕰 hit eight we had cycled more than twenty kilometres, and had cycled through dog territory to Suuz’s dismay, so it was time for coffee ☕️. We stopped at a random place in a tiny village and had a super cheap but amazingly strong and creamy espresso. Suuz got some kitten 🐱 love as well, a good morning it was. 

The road was mostly flat, so we shared the road with quite some local cyclists as well. And donkeys carrying bales of hay. Or horses 🐎 carrying bales of hay. Or tractors 🚜 pulley carriers with bales of hay. And us greeting a lot of kids, by yelling hey, and hey would yell perfect ‘hello’s back.

Anywhey, the roads were actually kind of boring, we did cycle pretty fast though and sometimes you just need to make the miles to go to a next nice part of a country. Efficiency!

After about 40 kilometres we cycled into Fier. The road was really busy with trucks 🚛, busses 🚌 and cars 🚙 for a little while. Not nice at all and just really different from our experience the past few weeks. This kind of lasted until we cycled into the city centre where traffic came to an abrupt stop cause the main road was closed 🚧 . We carried the bike onto the sidewalk and walked them for a bit. We got our second breakfast at some bakery. Suuz had a hotdog lookalike (more like a pig 🐷 in a blanket), Mas had an ‘appelflap’ with ricotta instead of apple, sadly enough.

We decided to take the secondary road from Fier instead of the highway 🛣 so we went back to big bumps and holes 🕳. The highway, which we are actually allowed to cycle on, had no shoulder and drivers were speeding. At some point we had no choice but to cycle on the highway so Mas got in front and tried to keep up with the cars 🚗. We were definitely not the only cyclists there. Kids 👦🏼 on bikes on the highway. The elderly 👴🏼 on bikes on the highway. People walking. People coming from the opposite direction cycling on our side of the highway. Also, cars did seem to expect us there, but it didn’t really make them slow down. Also Suuz lost her dog chasing stick on the highway, as it had come loose from all the bumping up and down at the previous road. Too bad, but we weren’t going to turn back on such a busy road. 

After a while Mas spotted an exit leading to a tunnel 🚇 and a parallel road we could take. We quickly exited, but as soon as we did a huge guard dog 🐕 started barking his head off at us so we made a run for it and got back on the highway. Instead we took a later exit (without dog), back to a quiet road with pretty good asphalt this time. 

We stopped at a bar for a cold beverage, a melted twix ✌🏾, and a well deserved pee-break 🚽. It was another 22km to the apartment and 11.30 in the morning. Temperature went up again above 30C ☀️ so we just went on. It got a little windy 💨, in tha face, so the last stretch was a little tough.

Upon arrival at local guesthouse Anila in the village Divjakë we were treated with home grown water melon 🍉 and  oranges 🍊 and of course a nice cold shower 🚿. For the first time this trip there is no ocean 🌊 or pool 🏊🏻‍♀️ to cool off in so we spent the afternoon in our air conditioned room reading and posting stories. Just before we went out for dinner three Belgian cyclists 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️🇧🇪 arrived and we shared cycling stories. They started in Split and finish in Särande before taking the boat to Corfu. The guys gave us some valuable advice on how to cycle (ferry) into Dubrovnik to stay on the sane and the safe side, and told us that the border crossing we planned on taking from Montenegro into Croatia is closed, saving us many kilometers and possibly a lot of frustration.

We had dinner at a restaurant that was suggested to us by our host. Sadly enough it wasn’t very good. Mas had her barbecued whole fish 🐟, her seventh in two weeks, and Suuz something unidentified from the ocean as well. After dinner we bought a chocolate bar for dessert and went back and prepared for the next day 😴.