Was up around 9 but found I had lost my suncream, so had to spend an hour or so wondering around town trying to find an affordable replacement. Eventually I spent 1200 lek on it. I bought some snacks for the ride but ate most of them on the walk. I left Shkodër at 10ish.
Today was another day of weaving either side of the main road. At one point I had to stop because I got a huge puncture from a nail straight through the tire. Luckily my replacement inner tube worked well enough. The nail had punctured several holes in the other side. Should I get a new inner tube?
As I approached Tirana I was stopped by people in a car asking me for directions in German... I cycled on a huge road into the city and thought the police were signalling me to pull over, but they were actually waving to the car behind me.
***
As I was writing that I heard some people on the other side of the room talking about cycling. At the hostel in Tirana there are about 4 bikes, all plainly doing cycle touring. I went over and said hi. One was a german cycle tourist heading to Istanbul. The other was a 5 time Kosovo cycling champion. We chatted for a while and I got their instas. Then the german went to get food at the hostel and I wondered into town by myself.
I went to a traditional Albanian place and got stuffed aubergine and some kind of lamb meatloaf thingy. They were pretty nice. After that I wondered Tirana for a while. It’s a cool city; half brutalist architecture and half new modern art – sometimes combined. I ran up the Tirana pyramid which used to be a monument to Enver Hoxha, then wondered into a Turkish café. There I got some really good Turkish tea and kenefe – a dessert consisting of sugar soaked dough “hairs” around mozzarella. It was super, super good.
I returned to the hostel, sat with some guys who were playing instruments for a while (including a long term traveller who had everyone who played his ukulele sign it), then went to bed.
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