07/07 Dubrovnik to Lefkada, Greece. 508 miles, 20 hours
Dunno where to start with this one, bear with me, it’s a big one. We left Dubrovnik, tired from the night before after missing the last bus (whilst blogging in a café) then having to walk some of the way home in the pouring rain and lightning.
We got on the road at a decent time and rode under grey skies, feeling rather grey ourselves, to the Serbian Border high in a mountain pass. We were held in a traffic queue for 30 minutes or so as the stern, hard-looking Border Guards quizzed everyone ahead of us, examining their papers closely and searching vehicles both entering and exiting the country. We crawled to the head of the queue and presented our papers. “Green Card” said the guard. We got out our swathe of documents, and the guard examined them for a while before calling over someone clearly better at reading English than he was.
The second guard read over the Insurance documents and said we didn’t have the neccessary International Insurance. We had, and we do. However, he wouldn’t have it, and said we needed to buy “Border Insurance”, and held onto our passports, sending us down the road to a portacabin. After waiting a while we again presented all our vehicle papers to another official who wrote out some kind of certificate for which we had to pay 10 Euro each. We then showed this document to the original guard who looked us up and down again before stamping our passports and letting us pass.
We rode into Serbia feeling slightly out of sorts. The difference was immediate. Croatia had been a bright place, relatively geared up for tourism, well signposted and had a reasonably good standard of living. Serbia on the other hand looked immediately threatening to us. Whether we were just a little unsure of what to expect after our dressing down at the border or what I don’t know. The grey weather probably didn’t help either. We rode on down the hill and through some plain, unfinished looking villages. People were sitting about, and everyone turned to stare as we passed. Even without number plates on the fronts of our bikes it was very clear we we not locals.
Our first Serbian fuel stop loomed and we pulled into a shabby looking garage. They wouldn’t take my Visa card, but Steve managed to pay for our fuel on his Mastercard. The people looked hard, worn and tired. Nobody smiled. This isn’t Kansas anymore. We pushed on and had to circumnavigate a huge inlet which put 50 or so slow miles on our journey. There was a ferry, but as our plan was simply to pass through the country, neither of us had any local currency and not a word in Serbian. Easier to go around we figured. I settled into it a little and started enjoying the scenery which was quite stunning and reminiscent of Greece. Steve however was totally on edge and desperate to get on and get out. We passed through a large port town, where I spotted a huge yacht, the “Lady Lauren” flying the British Red Ensign. Didn’t expect to see any other Brits here!
We came upon another town, and a Bank. Figuring I’d probably need fuel and we’d be stopping for something to eat somewhere I drew out some Euros for Serbia and, on the Banks advice, some US Dollars for Albania. It was a drab little town. Steve waited outside with the bikes, and said he felt uneasy and threatened by the stares and shouts of passers-by. His mind-monkeys were running rampant today! We pushed on. Another fuel stop and we managed to look at a map in the garage. Maps seem to be few and far between, and this one was very basic. I was prepared to buy it, but the guy in the garage seemed happy enough to let us look over it. I pointed to Albania and tried to ask if we could cross at a point near the coast. He pointed to a larger inland town and I think said we should cross there. When I pointed to the coast border again he nodded and made approving noises. We carried on towards the Coastal Border.
06/07 In to Albania
Passing through a surprisingly touristy and quite busy little town, the road lined with stalls selling touristy beachy tat, we rode out into open countryside again, following signs for the last town before the border. We passed through what was little more than a row of houses and out into open fields. The road stepped down from a wide carriageway into a narrow road, then into a single track road then, passing a sign warning of entering “Border Territory” into nothing more than a wide path. A red Mercedes came hurtling round a blind corner, sending us both almost off in to the verge. Round a couple more bends we came to the Albanian border.
There was a rusting barricade across the road with a “STOP – POLICE” sign, a camoflaged concrete gun emplacement and a watchtower to the fore of some shabby looking buildings. A burly looking guy in a Police jumpsuit came out and ambled over to us. “Passports” he said. “This is border, you no see signs?” he asked in a mixture of Dutch, German and English. We had seen the signs yes, which is why we were there. We told him we wanted to pass through Albania and into Greece. He told us to wait and wandered off with our passports. A few minutes later he returned and handed them back to us “Good Luck” he said, and turned to walk away without further explanation.
We stopped him and asked if we were indeed at the Albanian border. “Yes” he replied, “but you no come in here”. After much umming and erring and gesticulating from both sides it transpired we’d arrived at what was solely a military border, hence the gun emplacements and the like! Eventually, and in my best schoolboy German we got directions to another border crossing some 50km away. Basically, back to the touristy town and turn right seemed to be the gist of it. We followed the instructions and, passed the same red Mercedes stopped at the side of a middle of nowhere road. We rode on and I was convinced we were not going the right way. There were no signs, there were no other cars save for the odd one hurtling past the opposite way. There were animals wandering all over the road. Cats, dogs, goats, cows, donkeys, flocks of birds and rather oddly a tortoise!
We rounded a bend and there it was, the Albanian border…AGAIN! There were definite signs of life at this one though. In fact they were downright friendly. We passed through relatively swiftly and relatively unhinderted after showing papers, paying “taxes” to un-uniformed “officials” and filling in more forms. Onwards into Albania.
Again the change was immediate. Maybe our moods lifted too. We’d made it across! The sun had come out too which always helps to burn away the mind-monkeys. However, everyone stared. These two fully geared up bikes and riders was clearly something very unusual here. Kids broke into huge smiles and cheered, whistled and waved as we passed. Old guys mimicked taking pictures and waved and shouted (presumably) encouragingly. We waved back, feeling like proper movie stars. The roads were wide and smooth, the country was clearly poor and we passed through little roadside shanties and villages. Steve rode through a flock of birds shortly after clipping one of three chickens, doing what they do best “crossing the road”. Dont ask me why. 😉
I should point out at this point, that our “European Maps” had become redundant some days earlier! Essentially they tailed off at Northern Italy which both of us had failed to notice before departure. This was a time before GPS was prevalent or really affordable to shoestring travellers such as ourselves – a far cry from today where most people have a GPS on their phone. That said, in hindsight, we’d have had it no other way. Our navigation the whole way around was on paper maps, and our overall itinerary was made on a large scale map, literally using my thumb as an approximation of 200 miles!
Many of our favourite spots of the trip were “happy accidents” of discovery where we’d arrive in the vicinity of where we intended to be then set about looking for camp. As great as a GPS is for getting you from A–B, sometimes it’s the bits in between that are the real gems. What we had in terms of maps for Albania itself were a couple of small line drawings in Steve’s Lonely Planet Guide to the Mediterraneran – it showed two places in Albania, one of which we didn’t want to go to, and the other which we were in but didn’t want to be!
We rounded another bend and were directed by some shouty old guys over a narrow bridge over a river. Its deck was loosely placed wooden boards which didn’t look like they’d hold our weighty bikes. The road surface on the other side was not so good. We stopped at an unmarked T junction and some more locals shouted and gesticulated to the right. Before we’d asked anything! We had nothing else to go on so followed their direction, hoping it would take us to our planned overnight stop at Durres on the coast. The roads were long and straight, but it seemed that every 5 miles or so there was a speed trap. Fortunately there was a bit of traffic about and weren’t feeling the need to rush so the ubiquitous Mercedes’ that blatted past us, honking their horns and flashing their lights, ended up getting pulled as we cruised by.
A couple of hours later and the sign for Durres came up. Right turn. Off the long straight road. Immediately the road ended. Just like that. It was a main road, to what I think is the countries second city. Now we were on nothing more than a dirt track. Not like you’d find in the countryside though. This was 2 sometimes 3 lanes of motorway traffic. HGV’s, speeding mercs and long Army convoy passing us in the opposite direction, sending huge swirling, blinding clouds of dust up around us. There are potholes, and there are POTHOLES. They ranged from little ones (considered huge at home) to car sized craters some of which , due to oncoming traffic, there was no option but to drop into, hoping that you’d pop back out the other side. There were odd little metres here and there of what might at some point have been a road, but not for a long long time. We were up on the pegs, trying to pick our way through. This was the real stuff.
On and on it went, sometimes you’d get a few hundred metres of tarmac and just begin to relax again then, without warning the tarmac would end and you’d drop off a lip back into deep gravel and dirt. Eventually we made it Durres, having asked for directions several times. There were no roadsigns. The town was chaos. More unpaved roads, unfinished buildings, massive potholes, and hundreds of staring faces! The people looked poor and well worn, many sporting impressive gap-toothed smiles. We spotted a cash point, something of a novelty and a new idea in Albania and withdrew 5000 Lekke each, intending to find food and lodgings somewhere on the seafront. We chatted to 2 taxi drivers, one of who said he had a daughter in London and whipped out his mobile phone to show us her number by way of proof!
We rode through the town, and it was best described as a dive. I don’t really know what we had expected. In truth, I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought. My Dad, infinitely more well-informed than most people as he always was, had asked when I told him our outline plan “What are you going to do about Albania?” Ride through it had been my simple answer. Even his response of “Good luck!” hadn’t really made me think further. However, it was clearly such a poor poor country that neither of us felt comfortable leaving the bikes.There was nowhere to camp – I don’t think there was a campsite in the whole country at that time! We looked for a hotel with secure parking but the best looking one in town (50 Euros pp, pn) had only a little 2ft fence around the open carpark.
We decided then, around 7pm, that we’d push on. We needed to feel secure, and wanted some kind of civilisation again. With the power of hindsight Durres would probably have been OK, I kinda feel bad that we didn’t stop and experience it, I’ll almost certainly never go there again. However, we pushed on and picked up a semi decent road again, no signs, but the sea was as we’d become accustomed to on this leg of the journey comfortingly to our right so we knew we were heading South. An hour or so later, starving hungry we pulled into a roadside bar/cafe. We hadn’t eaten all day and were both ravenous and dehydrated from what was already a long day in the saddle. Immediately everyone in the cafe surrounded us, clamouring to look at the bikes and these two “spacemen” that had just landed. Definitely a novelty for them.
We chatted as best we could, one guy racing back to his car and producing a picture of HIS bike! A Suzuki GSX ’95. He was Greek, but lived in Albania. He warned us that we should not use the roads at night. “Much much danger in Albania” he said “Greece OK, but Albania, much danger”. We sat down and ordered Souvlaki and a plate of chips, washed down with some revitalising Coke. The owner asked if we wanted Ketchup and Mayo for our chips, and by the time he returned we’d polished off the whole plateful. We ordered another, and he came back with those moments later and drowned them in ketchup and Mayo. We sat for 20 minutes or so and gathered our thoughts. We had no map. We had no idea where we could cross into Greece, and after the Albanian incident it was clear that not every border point was crossable. We’d committed to it now however, so pushed on again as dusk fell, with warnings of “much danger” still loud in our ears.
The road was ok to start with, almost motorway if a little lumpy, and pretty quiet. It seemed to be going South too, which was cool. I think I had a Town name in mind to head for, can’t remember it now, my plan being to hop from one point of civilisation to the next, asking directions in each and slowly zig-zag our way to the border. We turned off the motorway, following the signs, and again the road vanished, along with any kind of signs. I could see the glow of the setting sun behind and to my right, so knew we were at least still going in the right direction. We kept going.
Total darkness now. No signs, no streetlights. Not even any lights in sight bar the odd car or HGV barrelling past. We pull into some nameless town and ask a guy at a corner bar “Greh-chey?” (we had learned that the locals pronounced Greece as “Greh-chey” after many many blank stares!) He points in the direction we were heading, off we go again. We repeat this process several times, each time getting more and more difficult to find anyone as evening turns into night, night into morning. One such stop, we’re directed up a left turn which takes us through a village with lots of people in the streets, and boy racer types hanging about round cars. We head up in the direction we’re told and the road again turns to single track. We pass a shut-up hotel and come upon two large stone gateposts marked with big red crosses. The only light is that from our headlights. We push on up the road which after a mile or so just stops. This time there’s no track. Just big boulders blocking the way. We had to turn back and retrace our steps back to the original junction. As we pass the guys who gave us direction they laugh and shout something at us, who knows what.
On and on we go, stopping once for fuel quite fortuiitously at pretty much the only place that seemed to be open. We have really no idea where we are now. At this point even a map wouldn’t help. We don’t know where we are, don’t know where we’re going and don’t know where we’ve been. I have an idea that we’re still going South, but the glow from the Sun had disappeared hours ago. In desperation we get out the compass, and sure enough, the road seems to lead South. Difficult to tell though as it winds its way up hills and down valleys, everywhere with a horrible polluted sulphourous smell.
We’re then on a downhill stretch, quite nice smooth road and there’s a couple of trucks taillights way up ahead in the distance. Again, totally without warning the road ends. This time there’s a drop of what feels like a foot or more, into deep gravel. Not good for bikes! We’re knocking along at about 40 at this point and it’s a big wake-up call, the bikes weaving around in the gravel as we fight to keep control. This is not a good place to come off. Eventually the bikes settle and we pop back onto rough tarmac again. We’re totally on edge now. Trucks appear without warning round blind corners. We can see nothing outside the arc of our lights. We’re stopping and changing the lead every half hour to hour. We keep seeing glowing eyes in the night along the roadside. Its dogs. Lots of dogs. There’s strays everywhere. I keep imagining coming off and being eaten by them!
So tired now we’re beginning to halucinate. We see grinning skeletal faces where there are road markers, shadowy figures where there are trees and police speed traps where there’s nothing at all. I’m really struggling. I’m leading and I can feel myself dropping off. I’ve got eh visor up blasting cool air in to my face and I’m trying to sing in my helmet but I cant remember any songs. Nothing seems to exist outside the glow of the lights. I’ve got proper tunnel vision. I’m weaving all over the road, finding myself on the wrong side all too often. Steve pulls alongside and I barely notice, veering towards him. I’m actually asleep riding my bike. We pull over and get off the bikes. Dunno what time it is now. The bulb has blown again on my trip-meter, cant tell how far we’ve come, how much fuel’s left. Doesn’t really matter, we’ve got to keep going.
I feel a little better for the brief stop and Steve leads as we crack on again. Straight away I’m nodding off again. This is madness. We pass through another dark town and I see out of the corner of my eye a sign. It says Greece, I’m sure of it, but there’s no lights and its covered in grafitti. Steve has customarily barreled straight past. I still don’t know what he looks at or thinks about when we’re riding! I pull up sharply and honk my horn to bring Steve to a stop too. We turn around and head back. It does say Greece, to the left! Its a real pick-up and we head out of town and back onto dark winding roads. I’ve got another town name in my head, Gjirokaster I think, and I’ve been following it now for hours, the only familiar thing on the sporadic signage. Signs keep appearing and disappearing. Sometimes its on them, sometimes it’s not. We might have already passed it, its probably not the right place anyway, I have no idea.
The road widens and smooths out. Its almost a proper road again. There’s that name again on the sign, 58km I think it says. We head for that, we’ve got nothing else to cling to at this stage. The road’s pretty good and we cover the distance quite quickly, though with trepidation in case it abruptly ends again. The name comes up again and there’s two choices turn right or carry on. Must be a biggish place then. We plough on, my thoughts now turning to civilisation of some kind and maybe a hotel we can crash in and ask directions and carry on after some shut-eye. We round a bend and there’s what looks like another petrol station. For the last 5 or 6 hours I’d imagined every canopied petrol station to be the border, but I’d kinda given up on that idea by now. This was no petrol station though. This was it. Somehow we’d made it to the border. Which one was it though? We’d no idea. Albania borders a few countries, it could really have been any of them!
07/07 Greece at last!
“Greh-chey?” we asked the bemused looking official as we woke him from his slumber. He nods. Thank fuck for that!
He doesn’t want to see any papers. The “barrier” is 3 or 4 worn looking road cones strung together with flimsy looking chain which he lazily kicks aside and waves us through. Is that it? We don’t know. Experience has taught us that there’s usually a bit of no-mans land after a border exit and before the border entry to the next country. We pull away, dogs (maybe strays, maybe border guard dogs, who know?) flanking us, sprinting along and snapping at our calves, a mile or so down the road sure enouogh there’s another border. There’s about 8 lanes and they’re all shut. More dogs harrass us as we pull to a stop. Steve wants to squeeze through. I think we’d better not and another dozy guard exits from a building behind us and stands and stares. He calls the hounds off and we walk back to him and present our passports. He’s happy enough with a scant glance at them and waves us back to the bikes.
Another guy turns up, looking equally bemused. It’s probably about 3 or 4 am. He raises the barrier and we pull away into Greece. The dogs are after us again, there’s one inches away from Steves back wheel and he’s doing about 30! We outrun them and head on. The roads are instantly superb. Broken, cratered tarmac and dust tracks have immediately given way to what feels like a racetrack smooth surface to us. There’s a thick white line running down the middle, we haven’t seen one of those all day. It’s easy going, we’ve both perked up a bit. The roads are deserted and we put 20 miles or so down before pulling into a little town.
We’re waved down by an army jeep parked up at the side of the road. There’s 6 or so guys in full kit complete with machine guns. They seem more interested in the bikes than anything else and turn out to be really friendly once they’ve looked over our passports and ascertained we’re not on some night-raid from Albania! They cant believe we’re ridden right through the night right through Albania. We ask them where we can get a hot coffee. Expecting a normal days ride, both of us had left Croatia with just a t shirt under our jacket and now with a combination of tiredness, dehydration and the decidedly cool night air, we were absolutley freezing. They directed us to a coffee stop 10 minutes away along our route (such that it was), but I think it was closed or we simply missed it.
We had no map of Greece either, our “European Road Maps” inexplicably not covering the bits we really needed. However there are loads of signs now we’re in Greece, first in Greek, then in English 50 yards or so later. We head for Ioniania, a name we’d spotted in one of Steves’ guide books that looked like it was in the right direction to where we’re heading. The town is a real surprise, and a real comfort. It’s proper civilisation. We stop and withdraw some Euros, and head towards the centre. Its 4am and its almost busy. There’s people everywhere. We find a cafe and instruct the guy how to make a strong hot coffee. Its quite a struggle for him. Clearly only used to serving the cold Frappe’s the Greeks love. After a few abortive attempts, we finally get something close to what we want, and a bite to eat. Luxury
We’ve no idea how much further Lefkada is, but I recall from my time spent working there that it’s fairly well to the North of Greece so it cant be that far. We get a little lost trying to get out of town and eventually pick up the main road again. There’s signs to Athens which we know to be well to the South so following them seems like a good bet for starters. Just at the edge of town I spot a sign for Preveza, which I recognise as the airport which Sunsail used to fly their guests into when I worked on Lefkada. Sign says 98km I think. We eat up the miles on the smooth road and finally pick up some signs for Lefkada itself.
We get really close and turn off the motorway and get immediately lost again. The signs don’t seem to make sense to our cloudy minds and we somehow end up on a pedestrian footpath and through an underpass under the road we need to be on. We turn round and think we’re retracing our steps. Steve’s just behind me as we pull back onto the main road and put the hammer down again. I just hear him shout something (comms are still down) just as I see a big white arrow pass below the bike. We’re heading the wrong way up a dual carriageway! I slam on the brakes and U-turn around to see Steve’s bike lying on its side right in the middle of the road!
I’m worried as we’d both dropped the bikes before and each time it had taken 3 of us to pick them up. I park up and somehow the bike lifts straight up, adrenalin probably. Steve had been so busy shouting at me and trying to turn quickly that he’d lost his footing. Easily done, and once the bike is past a few degrees over there really is no stopping it!
We gather ourselves and pick up another sign for Lefkada. Somehow we’re still heading the wrong way, so perfom a very illegal U turn across the empty motorway and head back through a tunnel, not sure under what! There’s a toll at the end and as I struggle to get to my change I drop a few Euros on the ground. The guy at the booth leans out, counts the money on the floor, smiles and gives me change! I feel better! The sky’s been lightening for an hour or so and as we ride onto the causeway over to Lefkada there’s a full on pastel-pink and blue Greek Island sunrise going on. It’s beautiful. I feel like crying. We’ve made it.
We pick up signs for Nidri, and ride through a deserted Nikiana (where I used to work) spotting out a campsite as we pass and stopping for a quick look at the harbour where I used to live on the company yacht. Not much has changed. There’s a few more Tavernas around the little harbour, but none are open. It is 6.30am I suppose. We head into Nidri, where I am sure we can find a coffee. Some of the roads look familiar and I smile as I recognise names of hotels and bars.
We pull up outside a cafe and step off the bikes. We’re filthy and dusty, and probably stink. There’s a guy with a big grey moustache sitting out the front of the cafe sipping out of a can of Heineken. I presume he’s the owner and as we step onto the patio he smiles and beckons us over, kicking out a chair for us both. We sit down and he helps us order a coffee. A hot one, again, confusing for the lad operating the machine. It arrives milky and sweet, rather than strong and black but I don’t care. Vassilis (the moustachioed one) it turns out had lived in Blackburn and so speaks decent enough English.
He tells us proudly that he has a Honda Super-Dream 400 1983 with Sidecar parked up along the road a few miles. He also tells us that he’s had his licence revoked for 6 months for drink driving, which means that he has to drive his car instead! Over the course of a coffee, it becomes clear that Vassilis is not the Cafe owner at all but seemingly the local drunk. He thinks I should remember him when I talk about Sunsail as he says he used to supply the ingredients for the Punch that the Flotilla guys used to make. He mentions a couple of names that sound familiar.
We’re directed by Vassilis to another campsite on the far side of Nidri towards the souther end of the island, but even from the gates it looks like a bit of a dive so we turn and head back to Nikiana where the site is a stroll away from the village and literally across the road from the beach. We wait an hour outside the closed-up reception for the campsite owner to turn up at 9am, whereby he casually waves us in and says just pitch anywhere. We throw the tents up in total autopilot and fall into our beds and instantly asleep.
I wake at 2.30pm. There’s a curt text from my Mum and Dad “Matt okay in London”. Makes no sense. Why wouldn’t he be? Got another text “Several big explosions in London, still going on, 20 dead so far”. Wow. I get up and tell Steve, we start texting and calling home. Networks are jammed, cant get through. We feel helpless and a million miles from home. Manage to get a glimpse of a dodgy black and white telly at reception. Cant make much out, but it doesn’t look good. The image that jumps out at us is the semi-destroyed double decker bus with its roof peeled back by an explosion. Over the course of the afternoon everyone we’d been texting slowly checks in and gets back to us. Feels weird being here, while all that’s going on at home. Doesn’t seem real. Hope everyones ok. In our state of bewilderment from the epic day before it makes for an emotional day.
