Day 17: Leaving Albania and saving a life in Montenegro

Skhodër – Camping Maslina 62.85km 🚴‍♀️ 3.29.54 ⏱ 18.0km/hr ⬆️ 500m ⬇️ 500m

After yesterday’s heat fest ☀️ we decided to leave early again this morning. After a delicious luke warm yoghurt and cruesli breakfast we hit the road. On our way to leave Albania 🇦🇱 . A country that surprised us with its beauty. Five things we are going to miss about Albania:

1. The beautiful green mountains and valleys 🌳;
2. The perfect Albanian espressos ☕️;
3. The cheap, immaculately clean apartments;
4. The fried egg breakfasts 🍳 ;
5. The locals on the road, waving at us and giving us lots of space 🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏽‍♀️.

We crossed the Montenegro-border 🇲🇪 after about 15 kilometres from Skhodër. But not before we had a go at spending all our Lek on coffee ☕️ and groceries. The remainder we were able to exchange for euros 💶 at the coffee place 100m before the border. Again Mas made us skip the line at the border (making Suuz quite nervous), but this time we were welcomed at a separate gate for walkers and other slow traffic. It went very quickly and the border police 👮🏽 was really friendly. A good start!

And so we cycled into sunny Montenegro and left the clouds ☁️ in Albania. So sad! There were mountains ⛰ all around us, the road wasn’t busy at all and in great shape so we really enjoyed ourselves. Lots of flat hedgehogs 🦔 on the road as well. And some huge bright green grasshoppers 🦗. Really made Mas think back to the same time last year when she found one of those in her neck while sleeping at home when Suuz was away in Geneva. Oh the joy.

Not too long after Suuz tried to make up for her roadkill of yesterday (a baby turtle which Mas was too late warning her about) by saving a big turtle 🐢 slowly crossing the street from being run over by passing cars 🚗 . Mas doesn’t think she made up for killing the baby turtle but at least it was a nice gesture.

The cycling went pretty fast, but we were slow. We stopped a lot for cold drinks 🍹 , pictures 📷 , groceries, food, pee, sun lotion, more pictures, turtles. Since we are on a holiday and leave early in the morning it’s no problem of course, but around ten it does start to get really hot again. 

After a sweet downhill to Bar the road got busy 🚌 🚗 . We didn’t have a lot of space so it was very stressful getting into the city. Other traffic does try to give us space, most of the time, but sometimes the roads are just too narrow. After of few kilometres it got a bit better when roads separated but we really hope it’s not gonna be like this for the rest of Montenegro and Croatia. Busy traffic and bad road quality takes the attention away from simply looking around and enjoying the view. 

We had one more bigger uphill followed by a nice wide downhill almost all the way to campground Maslina by the beach 🏖 close to the city of Petrovac. After putting up the tent ⛺️ we went straight to the beach for a great swim 🏊‍♂️ and chill time.

Soon we got really hungry, again, so we went out for dinner pretty early. Sweating 😓 away at the dinner table it was almost impossible to eat, so after dinner we went back to the beach to hang out with one of our best friends: ocean 🌊 breeze. Just before it became dark we went back to the tent. Tomorrow it’s less then 50 kilometres to Kotor but we do have to climb a little more. Let’s dream of empty, wide roads!