It’s me. I’m the best driver in the world. Or I was, for at least one freezing day in AlbaniaB. It all began when Steve and I set off to drive back up from Greece to Croatia, crossing Albania and Montenegro on the way. Travellers be warned: I have found the original road that is paved with good intentions, and it is the A5 north out of Patras.
It is advertised as having plenty of service stations, but they are actually all still in construction. Ergo, the look of panic on most of the motorists’ faces, as their fuel dials drop precipitously low, is so common here it counts as local colour.
The first place you can get off the motorway and fuel up is at Amfilochia, a little town on the shores of a sheltered inlet. They say that all journeys begin with a single step, but ours frequently seem to start with a handy restaurant, a table of locals taking us under their wing, and some lovely old drunk bloke giving Steve a hug.
This chap was the husband of a friend of Costas’ mother (stay with me here), and all four of them adopt us when we stop at Amfilochia and shuffle off to find somewhere to eat. Costas is an interior designer of the calibre that is required in super-swanky hotels all around the world.
Being a nice Greek boy, he takes his mum on trips all around the world too. He shows me pictures of the two of them everywhere from Bali, to Dubai, to Graceland. The drunk fella chats away to us quite happily, regardless of the fact that we can’t understand each other, and buys us another jug of wine. The mum and her friend just smile and nod and laugh. Good times.
Now, I’ve had a problem with my windscreen wipers, but Steve has bought me a new one, so that should be sorted. And we’ve also discovered that my heating has suddenly stopped working, on the drive up. Steve reckons it needs a new heat sensor, so we keep our eyes open for a likely place to get a new one, fuel up, and head off up to Albania.
ALBANIA
This is a place that even Google Translate can’t cope with: when we stop at a café it tells me I am eating ‘connection specs’.
At this point I’d like to say that I’m sure the coastline is beautiful (we don’t see it), and I’m sure it has lovely cities (again, don’t go near them), and that the people are as nice as it’s possible to be (don’t actually meet any).
But we drive straight up the middle, in winter, in the pouring rain. And it is even more of a grim and unrewarding experience than the first time, because it is now daylight and I can see more.
For a start, they have a significant rubbish problem, as two-fifths of the country’s waste is never collected. And because the land alongside the rivers is free, that is where two-fifths of the population go to get rid of it.
We see them doing it as we drive through, just parking up and lobbing bags of the stuff into the river. Recent flooding has scattered it all, so that the land is covered for about twenty metres on each side, and the trees and bushes that border it are totally festooned with plastic. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I couldn’t stop to take a pic so I’ve borrowed one from the net. It gives you a slight idea of what it was like, just imagine it on a much, MUCH bigger scale.
And I have to mention the potholes. Because you know those holes so deep that Chinamen pop out of them in American cartoons? They are that sort, but full of rain (I’m sure I mentioned the eternal sodding rain), so you can’t see how bad they are until after you’ve lurched to one side with a sickening crunch of your tyres. I spend the whole day apologising to my own car.
And then, of course, there were the drivers themselves, who like to overtake you on single carriageway roads – on both sides at the same time! – horns blaring, and never indicating or using their lights, even (or especially) at night.
In towns, it is just a big free-for-all at any junction, and there are no lights at all in the tunnels.
What with the endless rubbish, the awful weather, and the nightmare drivers, my preferred descriptor – Albania, the armpit of Europe – seems appropriate. When we pass a village called Puke, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.
And of course, there are the technical problems that add to the experience. My windscreen wiper (my DRIVER’S SIDE windscreen wiper) isn’t fixed by getting a new one. So that is … challenging. Georgie keeps losing all power (including the power steering) and grinding to a halt, after being filled with Albanian diesel. And then Steve’s phone cuts out (with the sat-nav on it).
SO, TO RECAP…
It is winter and I am in a soft-top car with no heating. I am wearing woolly tights, jeans and leg-warmers. I have on a vest, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a really thick, hooded sweatshirt and a body-warmer. I have shoved my legs down the sleeves of Steve’s padded coat to simulate salopettes, and have buttoned it up to my waist. I also have on gloves and a scarf, and I can barely move. Next, I add joggers, another jumper, and a hot-water bottle, just to stop me shaking.
ALSO…
It is pouring with rain, and I have to duck down and to the right to see out of my window every time the wiper cuts out. The traffic is coming at me from all sides, and there are no road signs or markings that either make sense or are adhered to. My windows are misted up due to the lack of heating, and the only way to clear them is to open the side window until I turn a fetching shade of lavender.
FURTHERMORE…
I am desperately trying to avoid the potholes, as well as the dogs, children, donkeys, mopeds, and little old ladies that just march in front of me with some kind of mad, Albanian death-wish. And now Steve is several cars in front of me and he’s asking me to give him directions through the town, because his sat-nav has gone bye-bye. WTAF?
My visibility is shit, my life-expectancy – either from hypothermia or multi-car pile up – is on the low side, and I’m having to work out what instructions he needs before it even appears on my phone screen.
Major driving skills and endurance? Yes, I think so.
By the time we reach Montenegro I am long past all rational thought. We get a ferry over the river, and I am halfway across before I notice that Steve and Georgie aren’t even on board. They put him on the next one, thankfully, and I wait in a layby for him to disembark.
But the cold, and the long drive, and thinking I’d lost him freaks me out so much that I forget to turn on my lights, and immediately get stopped by the police. Steve is unaware of this and has already gone ahead. By the time I’ve worked out what the cop is saying, Steve is well out of range of the walkie-talkies.
The fine is thirty euros, but Steve has all the cash, and his phone died in the middle of Albania. I have nothing on me, apart from all the clothes that I own and a rather stupified smile. After a long discussion the cop says I have a week to pay, but I point out that I’ll only be in his country for another half an hour. Eventually he gives up and lets me off with a warning.
So, considering I get pulled over, why do I claim I’m the best driver in the world?
Because I drive like that, from the freezing pre-dawn darkness, through the wet, grey and terrifying day, and back into darkness again, FOR THIRTEEN HOURS!
THIRTEEN HOURS!
Who’s the fucking Man?
I am, that’s who.
I absolutely dare you to disagree.
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