Day 14: Our first vlog on Abania’s ‘casco fiasco’

Divjakë – Durrës 53.65km cycling 🚴‍♀️ 2.52.25 ⏱ 18.7km/hr ⬆️ 115m ⬇️ 95m

We left a little later this morning since we had to cycle 30km less than yesterday. Also, our host had prepared this huge breakfast 🍳🥛🍞🥒🍅🍒🍑🍊☕️ for us so it took us some time to eat it all (mission failed). Suuz got eggs, yay! Despite the good breakfast we kind of left our cycling mood on the pillow this morning 😑 which made the first 10-12 kilometres tough. What didn’t really help either was the road being extremely bumpy again. Temperature was already around 28 degrees at 8 o’clock in the morning so the normal ingredients of sweat 💦, sun lotion and salt made us great flypaper again 🐜. 

The road became much better a little further on as we circled back onto the busy highway 🛣 again. Luckily it wasn’t too far and the road stayed in good shape once we took an exit.

A quick snapshot of the highway

Not long after we had to take this dirt road, it wasn’t planned, to get through a patch of farm land. It started okay with just loose gravel but quickly it turned into this obstacle course with high dried up mud bumps, huge rocks and everything that’s bad for your bike (and mood). But yeah, if the donkeys can do it, so can we. And Mas always refuses to turn back so the only option was to buckle up and keep going. 

Rocky roads through farmland
The locals don’t seem to mind the roads

When we entered a small village called Luz I Madh it was time for our morning coffee ☕️ which we enjoyed at what happened to be the town’s wedding location right next to the town mosque 🕌. The lady brought us cookies 🍪 and candy 🍬 as a welcome. In these cases Mas always has to eat the stuff, to be polite, since Suuz plays her peanutcard 🥜. And Mas is just a very polite person (meaning she can’t say no). 

The town mosque at Luz I Madh

Anyway, since the road was really well paved after our coffee break and there was no one around we made a great vlog to tell you something about Albania, it’s very well made and highly informative 🤓. Go watch! It’s so much worth three minutes of your time.

Find out about Albania’s ‘casco fiasco’ and some other road rambling

After this little treat we had the cycle on a very busy, and narrow, secondary road. The highway looked much emptier but yeah, if there’s a secondary road we should take it.

The secondary road into Durres

From here it was only a few more kilometres to the city of Durres and the hotel with pool 🏊🏻‍♀️ we had booked. We did know it probably involved a steep hill to get there and it did. So no disappointment there. We cycled up the hill (worse than some climbs in Limburg) and arrived at the hotel 🏨 before noon. We fixed the airco, put on our bikinis 👙 and the rest was history. Chilling at the pool 🏊‍♀️ and enjoying our view of Durres. Although this time our chill time was heavily disturbed by a bunch of awkward and annoying teenage boys 👦🏻 hitting puberty, but still. There is a pool. 

After a nice cold shower 🚿 we took a taxi 🚕 into the city for a feeble attempt at being a tourist (although it was mainly because we had run out of our favorite P20 sun lotion and had to restock). We had a quick peek at the 1st century AC Roman amphitheater in the old part of Durres that used to hold about 15.000 people to watch gladiators fight.

Amphitheater of Durres

We found our sun lotion (and a Magnum double chocolate) and decided to take advantage of being in Albania’s second biggest city and go for Asian food (which we miss dearly). We had something resembling Japanese food 🍣🍤🍜 at the Durres beach 🏖 boulevard before we took a taxi back and hit the pillow 😴.

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