Moving Day - From One Lake City to Another

We didn’t manage to see the lake up close in Shkoder, so today we’re relocating to another lake to try our luck there. It could be an episode of Race Across the World today as we attempt to negotiate three buses and an across-city interchange. We’re also changing countries!

The day started easily enough with a short walk to the appropriately named Wanderers Hostel. Reception confirmed we were in the right place for the bus, and our names were even on a TV screen. We had 30 minutes to wait for the 8:30 am departure to Tirana. Our bus pickup spot is shown below.

As we saw during our scouting session yesterday, the bus is a minibus with only a dozen passengers. It leaves very soon after the scheduled time. Progress is slow, with lots of congestion getting out of Shkoder and then a lot of roadworks along the route.

As we mentioned yesterday, we hadn’t booked the next leg of our bus journey because we were unsure about travel times. Arriving almost an hour later than expected into central Tirana confirmed we made the right decision not to book a specific bus out—we might have missed it!

Tirana is the capital of Albania and a reasonably large city, with a metro population of about 800,000. Not huge compared to many other capitals, but the biggest city we’ve been in since Budapest. We’ll likely have to spend a night here on the way back next week, and it doesn’t sound like a city we want to spend too much time in—hence our plan to keep moving today.

The hostel where the bus drops us off is right in the city centre on a very narrow one-way street. The driver does well not to clip the mirrors of any parked vehicles. From there, we have a short 500 m walk to a local bus stop. We need to catch a number 8 bus to the Tirana East Bus Station on the outskirts of town. It’s expected to be a 45-minute bus ride. It’s 11:30 am, and we’re hoping to catch the 1 pm bus out. It’s going to be tight. There’s another bus at 4 pm if we don’t make it, but that would mean a long wait and possibly arriving in the dark.

The local bus, of course, doesn’t care about our need for speed and makes frequent local stops. Slowly we crawl across Tirana. Yes, I was prepared to pay for a taxi, but the traffic coming in was bumper-to-bumper in places, so the bus seemed the better option. As we get closer to the East Station, I ask Sarah if I should take the risk and book the bus ticket online. It looks like we’ll make it there by 12:30 pm. She rightly reminds me we’ll still need to find the right platform etc., so best not to book it just yet.

We jump off the local bus and spot a number of bus ticket offices nearby. A woman approaches us and asks where we’re going and if we have a ticket. She then organises the tickets for us to Ohrid. We might have paid 5 euros more than booking online, but at least we know it’s sorted, and she points us in the direction of the correct platform. It’s 12:30 pm, and the bus pulls up and starts loading passengers. We give the driver our bags and climb onto a nice big bus. It’s only half full by the time we depart just after 1 pm.

We made it through the part that could have gone wrong. In fact, it went so smoothly that we started to worry something bad might still happen—like the ticket being a scam! But no, it was all good, and we were on our way to a new country: North Macedonia. The town we’re heading to is called Ohrid, and it sits on the shore of Lake Ohrid.

The journey goes smoothly, though there’s quite a lot of roadworks. Then we hit the border crossing. Long, long lines of cars and trucks waiting to cross. We crawl slowly ahead for an hour before the bus driver asks for our passports and takes them away to hand to someone at the booth. I’m always nervous about giving up custody of my passport. What if we never see it again?! But it seems to be the standard procedure at some borders, and you’re not given another option.

Interestingly, at this border they’re physically searching some of the cars, which we haven’t seen before. That might be why it’s taking longer. They don’t search the inside of the bus, but they do check the bag storage areas. They don’t even verify that the passengers on the bus match the passports—they just hand them all back to the driver and off we go. It’s taken an hour and a half to get through. We only have one interim bus stop, in a place called Struga, and then we arrive in Ohrid. It’s just after 5 pm—about an hour later than scheduled. Not too bad.

We have spent almost 8 hours sitting on buses today. Not that much fun but it was the right thing to do. We are fairly certain of that. A couple of photos out the window was all we had time for today. 

We start walking to our apartment—Sarah’s idea, not mine. The sun is behind a cloud, and the temperature is a pleasant 29 degrees. It’s a 2 km walk, one of our longest yet with the backpacks on. It’s flat, though, and although the footpaths are uneven and a bit rough, it’s manageable. We’re soon at the apartment and get checked in.

This apartment isn’t very big—it’s more like a hotel room. It has a queen and a single bed, a kitchen along one wall, and two soft seats. It also has a bathroom and a balcony with a table and two chairs. It’s fine, but not brilliant. We picked it because it’s close to the town shops for food and close to the lake. The location looks very good.

We head straight out to get some local Macedonian denars, some supplies from the nearby supermarket, and then a doner kebab each for dinner. Prices here seem quite affordable. A chicken doner is 170 denars, or NZD $5.40.