After living in Albania for nearly two years now, I think that I have become (as much as you can be) somewhat of an expert in Albanian transportation. There are some ways that Albania seems to really be coming along in terms of development and as far as being a PCV here, it is definitely the Posh Corps in many ways, but in terms of transportation, it is clear that Albania still has a long way to go and I'm entirely convinced that this country will not be considered "developed" until major changes are made in many areas of transportation.
For most foreigners, Albania's public transport system is a mystery at best and can be a frustrating experience. First, to be a tourist here, you really have to mean it. It is not that easy to get to Albania. Since it is the one European country not connected to the rest of the continent by rail lines, it is impossible to be sitting in a train station in Vienna wondering where to go and hop on a train to Tirana (like you could with basically every other capital city). This lack of effective train system also makes in country travel more difficult than in the rest of Europe. There are a few train lines going in between a few of the major cities, but the trains are run down and slow and very few people use them. In the summer when I was traveling with a few volunteers from Macedonia (which has an incredibly advanced transportation network compared to Albania) what the Albanian word for "platform" was, I couldn't tell them, because I realized that I had never used that word!
So, without trains, you are left with buses, taxis and mini-buses (furgons). I was contacted a few days ago by a guy that is in the process of updating a guide book for Tirana and is wanting to add in a bus schedule to his guide. He was hoping that he could help with the bus schedule for Peshkopi. The problem with this is of course that a schedule doesn't really exist as far as I have been able to figure out. There are a few buses, I think two that leave at 7 and 8 in the morning, and maybe another one later in the day, but it is not as if they sit at any sort of "station" or that there are "tickets." I have only taken the bus twice in my time here. Usually I take a furgon, which is kind of like a combination of a bus and taxi. Usually a mini-van or mini-bus size (with 8-15 seats), they circle the town until they find enough people and leave when they are full. There is no schedule, but I have been able to figure out that certain drivers like to leave at certain times of the day and that if you can call these drivers and reserve a seat the day before. Even so, if I call a driver and he says he is leaving at 7AM, we will only leave when the furgon is full, so if he doesn't have enough reservations it may still be a while before we are on the road.
Travel is easier for some other parts of the country, particularly the larger cities in the south and close to Tirana. For many sites, there are scheduled buses and there is even a "bus station" that serves many cities in the south (but even this "station" is a challenge to find in Tirana- there is no sign outside, you just have to know it is there . . . ). But for the rest of us, the "stations" are spread out at rather random spots along the side of the road and parking lots of Tirana. I honestly think that a major tourism development priority for the Albanian national government should be a central bus station- how can they expect tourist to find their way to Peshkopi when the "station" is an unmarked strip mall parking lot on the road out of town?!
Once you find your furgon or bus, that is usually not the end of your challenges. On my way to Rreshen last week, we were talking about all of the things that might delay your journey . . .
Top 10 best reasons your trip might be delayed when traveling in Albania-
10. Road Construction
9. Sheep
8. Overloaded Donkey
7. Overloaded gjushe (grandmother)
6. Someone in the furgon wants to buy fruit
5. Pilaf/kafe/cigarette stop
4. Stopped by the police (for a bribe?)
3. Someone in the furgon gets sick (although to be honest, this usually doesn't mean the furgon stops- just throw the bag out the window and keep going!)
2. Driver stops in the middle of the road to say hi to friend in furgon traveling in the other direction.
And the number one best reason that you might be delayed . . .
1. Driver stops to test drive a new truck! (not kidding this happened on our way to Rreshen last week- we stopped for about 15 minutes while the driver negotiated the purchase of a truck.)
Happy travels!
Showing posts with label furgons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label furgons. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Parents in the country
My parents have come to Albania!
Albania was one of the few countries that they missed on their way home from their own Peace Corps service in the Philippines over 30 years ago. At that time, Albania was completely closed to the outside world (they also missed Greece because of a war going on in Cyprus), so they were really excited to be able to come and visit me (oh, and they also maybe wanted to see me a little bit). Being good parents that they are, they brought me lots of presents, including a 5lb block of cheddar cheese and huge jar of peanut butter. Because my mom is currently working for an airline, they were able to fly for very cheap.
After they arrived (only 12 hours later than we had hoped- oh the joys of flying standby), we headed up to Peshkopi to meet my friends and see my place. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a few days with lots of coffees and lots of people. Dylan, my new sitemate came up the next day; Kenji, my current sitemate is still around for a few weeks; and Meredith, our closest neighbor right over the border in Macedonia came for a visit. The three days we spent in Peshkopi would have been perfect if it wasn't for the rain. Now, I have to be careful here, because in general I would say that rain in Albania in the spring and summer is a good thing- it means 24 hour power and cool temperatures that are not unbearable to live in. Unfortunately it also makes it a little hard to really explore town and means that the hike I had planned with the Outdoor Ambassadors kids was not a roaring success (we had 3 kids show up and went out in the rain anyway, by the end of the hike, the weather had cleared up and it was lovely). Even with the rain, we had a good time and my parents got to meet most of my friends and coworkers, if only briefly.
The next part of the trip is what I like to call the "Albanian travel experience." Now first, I really wanted to go on this boat trip in the north that goes down a river/lake from the town of Fierza to Koman (or more usually from Koman to Fierza). I tried for weeks with some of the volunteers in that region to figure out a way to do it in two days from Peshkopi. For the life of me, I believe now that it is not possible. Because the ferry leaves at 7am from Fierza and it is not possible to get to Fierza before then without spending the night there and it is also not possible to get from Pehskopi to Fierza in one day . . . Anyway, so we gave up on the boat trip. I guess I will just have to try to do that before I leave when I have more time (3 days instead of 2). Even though we couldn't get on the boat, we went up north anyway, over the mountains to Kukes. The road between Peshkopi and Kukes is only 88 km-about 55 miles- for those of you in CO, think Denver to Fort Collins. Normally the drive from Denver to Fort Collins takes about an hour, maybe and hour and a half if you have traffic leaving town. Ok, now imagine that road is unpaved and goes winding through some crazy mountain peaks and valleys full of switchback turns . . . the drive takes about 4 hours and you get out of the car (or in this case an old van with almost no shocks or suspension). My parents are tough travelers (former PC and all), but I may have overestimated them on this one.
Once we got to Kukes, the plan was to continue on down the road a bit, but the volunteers there convinced us to stay the night there (which I am really happy we did). We got to hang out with the truly cool PCVs of Kukes (who are now my new neighbors) and got to see a children's day festival in the morning. Think combination field day, talent show, dance team performance, and three ring circus . . . it was fun.
We are now in Tirana, staying with Jan. Today we did the grand Tirana tour including the history museum (not bad, but not great- it helps if you speak Albanian because not everything is translated). Tomorrow we are headed up to Kruja to see Skanderbeg's castle. Then it's on to Gjirokaster, Saranda and Burtrint before heading to Corfu and Athens in Greece. Happy travels!
Albania was one of the few countries that they missed on their way home from their own Peace Corps service in the Philippines over 30 years ago. At that time, Albania was completely closed to the outside world (they also missed Greece because of a war going on in Cyprus), so they were really excited to be able to come and visit me (oh, and they also maybe wanted to see me a little bit). Being good parents that they are, they brought me lots of presents, including a 5lb block of cheddar cheese and huge jar of peanut butter. Because my mom is currently working for an airline, they were able to fly for very cheap.
After they arrived (only 12 hours later than we had hoped- oh the joys of flying standby), we headed up to Peshkopi to meet my friends and see my place. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a few days with lots of coffees and lots of people. Dylan, my new sitemate came up the next day; Kenji, my current sitemate is still around for a few weeks; and Meredith, our closest neighbor right over the border in Macedonia came for a visit. The three days we spent in Peshkopi would have been perfect if it wasn't for the rain. Now, I have to be careful here, because in general I would say that rain in Albania in the spring and summer is a good thing- it means 24 hour power and cool temperatures that are not unbearable to live in. Unfortunately it also makes it a little hard to really explore town and means that the hike I had planned with the Outdoor Ambassadors kids was not a roaring success (we had 3 kids show up and went out in the rain anyway, by the end of the hike, the weather had cleared up and it was lovely). Even with the rain, we had a good time and my parents got to meet most of my friends and coworkers, if only briefly.
The next part of the trip is what I like to call the "Albanian travel experience." Now first, I really wanted to go on this boat trip in the north that goes down a river/lake from the town of Fierza to Koman (or more usually from Koman to Fierza). I tried for weeks with some of the volunteers in that region to figure out a way to do it in two days from Peshkopi. For the life of me, I believe now that it is not possible. Because the ferry leaves at 7am from Fierza and it is not possible to get to Fierza before then without spending the night there and it is also not possible to get from Pehskopi to Fierza in one day . . . Anyway, so we gave up on the boat trip. I guess I will just have to try to do that before I leave when I have more time (3 days instead of 2). Even though we couldn't get on the boat, we went up north anyway, over the mountains to Kukes. The road between Peshkopi and Kukes is only 88 km-about 55 miles- for those of you in CO, think Denver to Fort Collins. Normally the drive from Denver to Fort Collins takes about an hour, maybe and hour and a half if you have traffic leaving town. Ok, now imagine that road is unpaved and goes winding through some crazy mountain peaks and valleys full of switchback turns . . . the drive takes about 4 hours and you get out of the car (or in this case an old van with almost no shocks or suspension). My parents are tough travelers (former PC and all), but I may have overestimated them on this one.
Once we got to Kukes, the plan was to continue on down the road a bit, but the volunteers there convinced us to stay the night there (which I am really happy we did). We got to hang out with the truly cool PCVs of Kukes (who are now my new neighbors) and got to see a children's day festival in the morning. Think combination field day, talent show, dance team performance, and three ring circus . . . it was fun.
We are now in Tirana, staying with Jan. Today we did the grand Tirana tour including the history museum (not bad, but not great- it helps if you speak Albanian because not everything is translated). Tomorrow we are headed up to Kruja to see Skanderbeg's castle. Then it's on to Gjirokaster, Saranda and Burtrint before heading to Corfu and Athens in Greece. Happy travels!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Can you pick up my friends?
I can’t believe that I have been here a week. Like is often the case when you are in a new situation or a high-stress-do-a-lot-of-stuff-at-once situation, days seem to stretch to weeks and weeks seem to feel like months. I feel like I have learned so much in just a little over a week. It is amazing how much you can pick up with language classes 5 hours a day. After class, I go home and engage in a kind of charades, talk, look-up words game with my host mom. She is very good at speaking slowly, talking with her hands and repeating words for me.
The food so far has been good. My host has been trying to feed me way too much. I basically have toast in the morning (with peach or fig jam) and then have had various things for dinner. We go out for lunch and are lucky to have a few different options in the town. They have fast food which is basically like a gyro and pizza and pasta. I am pretty lucky in that I have had salad almost every day. They eat meat basically every day, but (I think) I told her that I don’t eat pork. Even though this is a “Muslim” country, there seems to be a lot of pork products around. My host is Orthodox and she went to church last week. There is both a mosque and a church in my town. You can here the call to prayer every day, although I have never seen anyone go into the mosque. Most people that you talk to will say, “I am Muslim, but I don’t practice.” I have only seen about 5 covered women.
Today we went to our second “hub” day in Elbasan. On hub days, the whole group (all 37 of us) come from the 8 satellite sites to the PC training office. Today the COD (Community and Organizational Development)- get used to acronyms, the Peace Corps has a lot of them- group met with the mayor of Elbasan. In the afternoon, the whole group had a training on PC approach to development and then talked about group dynamics. During the group dynamics part the trainer asked if anyone had ever heard of a particular theory of group formation. Since we talked extensively about that theory at BBfP last summer, I raised my hand and said that I had. She asked if I would come up and explain it to the group. With the help of a powerpoint, I basically gave the presentation on the theory! Good thing I feel pretty comfortable teaching material that I’ve only seen once (thank you substitute teaching). My other big accomplishment for the day was to actually get our whole group into the town. We have two volunteers that are living outside of town. They live right off of the road and decided that if it was possible it would be nice if the furgon (minibuses that act as most of the public transport between towns) could pick them up near their house instead of walking all the way in to town (about a 20 min walk). So this morning when we got on the furgon, I told the driver that we had two friends that were on the way and it would be great if he would pick them up. After a little bit of miming (and discovering that I have no sense of direction and was pointing in the wrong direction) he understood and kept two seats open. When we got close to their house, I pointed and said “there, there” and he stopped. Total success! It’s really the little things that count.
Albanian language for the day:
“Ne kami dy shok në rruga.” We have two friends on the road/way
P.S. I am having a little bit of troube getting the computer at the internet cafe to let me upload pictures. I will have a few pics as soon as I can figure this out. . .
The food so far has been good. My host has been trying to feed me way too much. I basically have toast in the morning (with peach or fig jam) and then have had various things for dinner. We go out for lunch and are lucky to have a few different options in the town. They have fast food which is basically like a gyro and pizza and pasta. I am pretty lucky in that I have had salad almost every day. They eat meat basically every day, but (I think) I told her that I don’t eat pork. Even though this is a “Muslim” country, there seems to be a lot of pork products around. My host is Orthodox and she went to church last week. There is both a mosque and a church in my town. You can here the call to prayer every day, although I have never seen anyone go into the mosque. Most people that you talk to will say, “I am Muslim, but I don’t practice.” I have only seen about 5 covered women.
Today we went to our second “hub” day in Elbasan. On hub days, the whole group (all 37 of us) come from the 8 satellite sites to the PC training office. Today the COD (Community and Organizational Development)- get used to acronyms, the Peace Corps has a lot of them- group met with the mayor of Elbasan. In the afternoon, the whole group had a training on PC approach to development and then talked about group dynamics. During the group dynamics part the trainer asked if anyone had ever heard of a particular theory of group formation. Since we talked extensively about that theory at BBfP last summer, I raised my hand and said that I had. She asked if I would come up and explain it to the group. With the help of a powerpoint, I basically gave the presentation on the theory! Good thing I feel pretty comfortable teaching material that I’ve only seen once (thank you substitute teaching). My other big accomplishment for the day was to actually get our whole group into the town. We have two volunteers that are living outside of town. They live right off of the road and decided that if it was possible it would be nice if the furgon (minibuses that act as most of the public transport between towns) could pick them up near their house instead of walking all the way in to town (about a 20 min walk). So this morning when we got on the furgon, I told the driver that we had two friends that were on the way and it would be great if he would pick them up. After a little bit of miming (and discovering that I have no sense of direction and was pointing in the wrong direction) he understood and kept two seats open. When we got close to their house, I pointed and said “there, there” and he stopped. Total success! It’s really the little things that count.
Albanian language for the day:
“Ne kami dy shok në rruga.” We have two friends on the road/way
P.S. I am having a little bit of troube getting the computer at the internet cafe to let me upload pictures. I will have a few pics as soon as I can figure this out. . .
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