Damn, it feels like yesterday I was throwing bicycle kicks in the elementary school field or cruising on our bmx bikes at the dirt track we spent years digging out with shovels. You blink and time happens fast. Now you are 41 and roaming around Greece alone.
A Jimmy Carr quote I heard this week hit me hard. I think I listened to it on repeat over 30 times.
He said “You would give me everything you own in 25 years time to be the age you are now and as healthy as you are right now. We suffer from life dysmorphia. A lot of people think their life is terrible because of the hedonic treadmill, you get used to how great your life is. No one had a hot shower 50 years ago. No one you admired from 100 years ago had this simple pleasure in life. There have been 100 billion people …ever. We are in the top percentile in terms of the luck that we have had. We are living like kings and yet life has never been objectively better and subjectively worse.”
I sat on a terrace in Greece today having a beer in 104 degree heat after touring the island by 4-wheeler up and down the rocky seaside coast for a few hours. Conversation came in and out of life stories from the past as we talked about how similar Middlesborrough in the United Kingdom was to the midwest areas like Cleveland, Akron, and Pittsburgh which had boomed with factories at one time. We traded stories of being kids and gone all day without a phone and we knew if we didn’t show up by dark or check in that there would be consequences. The older generations can clearly remember having baths once a week, all in the same water and you didn’t want to be the last one to have a bath.
My friends from Poland were under communist rule until 1989. I never had an understanding of what that meant until we were eating pizza one night at a restaurant and they shared that they were not allowed to have pizza (and didn’t) until they were 30 years old. They were told what they could eat, they had a curfew every night, as the government controlled everything. They are now 11th in the world in education and many of them speak 3 or more languages.
I had been to Cofu, Greece before but only to the Old Town. I landed at 12:30am. after crazy airport delays because of a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers and walked to my hotel. The next morning I walked to the ferry and crossed the Ionian Sea (about 10 miles separates Greece from Albania). I landed in Sarande which is a coastal resort town with a big harbor with all the family amenities and tourist attractions of boat rides to private islands, pirate ships, beaches, restaurants, etc. Immediately outside of the port upon arrival is a line of taxi’s, many money exchange shops, and a little bit of chaos.
I wanted to love Albania as it has been all over Instagram for being such a cheap vacation spot lately. Don’t get me wrong. It has some gorgeous views. I lucked out on the first night, catching a last minute room right on the waterfront away from the busy main boardwalk a few kilometers away. The room was incredible for 50 euros a night. Family owned with a young daughter who hung around to interpret English for her parents as guests arrived. They ran a small bar right underneath where I watched the euro soccer games while watching sunset listening to the waves crash against the rocks. Unfortunately, they did not have any rooms available so I had to book even further from the town center, another 2km walk further away. This was 25 euros a night for my own studio apartment. While walking home after dinner I saw Jeff Bezos super yacht parked in front of me stocking up. All in all, I spent 4 nights in Sarande exploring and the people were fine, the food was okay, and the beach was rocky (still pretty colors) and crowded.
The resorts and bars lined the beaches with sunbeds and umbrellas so you had to pay to put your things down each day to enjoy the beach. Sunbeds were almost the price of what I was paying for a place to stay. The city was dirty. People were digging in the trash daily. It was a ton of traffic and just not really a pleasant experience outside of the first night. Electric wires were hanging down hitting your head on them on main streets, trash was all over, and they wanted cash for everything (hotel, food, etc).
The next day I set out to explore more inland so I jumped on a bus with weak air conditioning for an hour and half ride in about 100 degrees to Gjirokaster. The bus got stuck 2-3 times trying to go up a hill and couldn’t get into gear but eventually we made it. Then I had to walk up the hill to my new accommodation near the castle at the top with my two bags in the midday sun.
The exit from Italy to Greece should have been an easy one but Ryan Air was reporting a huge shortage in Air Traffic Controllers which led to the majority of flights in the Bologna airport to all be delayed. This airport only had 12 gates and with flights backed up there had to have been 20+ flights (roughly 4000 people) in a tiny area. Just sitting on the floor with only 3 small stands to get food. It was a shit show. But I made it out and to Corfu Greece where I landed at 1am and walked to my hotel all good. Not many places I’d land that late and just walk to my hotel but I have been to this area last summer and knew this wouldn’t be a big deal. Corfu in general is a very very safe place that is beautiful and laid back with mountains and gorgeous beaches. But first… explore the unknown in Albania so the next morning I was on to the Ferry to Sarande.
Booked a quick 50 euro place to stay as I was on the hour long ferry in to Sarande. It was away from the main beach so I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be the best choice. Right on the ocean with a balcony and a very friendly family owned spot with a chill bar where we watched the euros about 20 steps from the calm Ionian Sea.
Unfortunately they didn’t have any rooms after the first night so I ended up going further north to a place for 25 euros a night that was not as nice but I did get to see Jeff Bezos’s mega yacht as it docked right in front of me. After 4 days in Sarande I was ready for something different so I headed to Gjirokaster on a bus which turned out to be a nice place with interesting culture and history. I stayed in a hotel with a pool right beneath the famed castle at the top. The food was great, the people were friendly and I met some great fellow travelers from France, Australia, and beyond. Albania was a new country that grew up entirely too fast with tourism but has the potential to be a hidden gem vacation spot.
Somewhere along the line I had picked up a cold that really kicked my ass for the next few weeks to come. I took the long venture back on bus, then ferry, then another bus to get back to Greece and spent a week trying to recover in Greece. I met the most amazing people from the United Kingdom who took me around on 4 wheelers all over the island ( to get cold medicine also). They had been coming to the island for over 20 years and felt like a tour from locals. Unbelievably kind people. I had been to Corfu but never imagined exploring it like that. Beyond that the cool place to be was the grotto watching the locals cliff dive from crazy heights. I also stayed with a lady who had 30 cats.
