Up at 9. I had breakfast, bought some snacks, (hopefully) fixed my inner tube, said goodbye to the German and was off at 10. That was quite a late start considering I was cycling 160km today. Most of the day was pretty flat, weaving along the bottom of valleys and past coastal plains. Like yesterday every child I passed said hello to me, every 5th car beeped its horn or waved out of the window, and every 10th dog gave me a half-hearted chase.
I passed bunkers, trash fires by the road, through brutalist coastal and inland towns and cycled on varying dirt tracks and very new smooth tarmac roads. I was going at quite a speed to make up the distance. At one point I stopped in a shop and bought some snacks including a whole tube of Jaffa Cakes which i ate on the spot.
The third quarter of the day took me on quiet back roads through a protected estuary area, and the fourth along beautiful roads along the coast. When I got to the city I was happy to once again see bike lanes, though often blocked by stalls or cars or people. They love their cycling here.
I got to the hostel around 7:30, showered, then ate some Doritos with a couple of Australians in front of the TV. At 8:30 I met a Belgian guy from another hostel and we went for traditional Albanian food. We got into a weird buffet place after a couple of failed attempts. I drank a much needed beer and ate, among other things, some kind of rolled up sausage or ham. It was all good.
Afterwards we went for a couple of pints at a seaside bar with very slow service, much to the Belgian's annoyance. The whole city feels like a soviet’s idea of a holiday, complete with Chernobyl style theme parks on the beach etc.
At around 12 I got back to the hostel and went to sleep.
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