Road Trip

I was invited by my program manager (Diana) to travel with her to visit other volunteers around central and southern Albania. We left Wednesday morning from Tirana and went to Elbasan, Librazhd, Pogradec, and Korçe. Pogradec is on Lake Ohrid and the lake also shares a border with Macedonia. There weren’t and volunteers there so we stopped for a coffee. The road from Pogradec to Korçe is under construction and not fun. Korçe’s biggest export is beer. We stayed in a hotel there that overlooks the city and one pic is of the city. The next day we traveled to Erseka (it was cold there) and through Permet. We stopped at a restaurant on a river that is famous for their meat. We also turned off the road at an entrance to a canyon with an old bridge at its opening. Pic included. All throughout the canyon are natural hot springs. It looked like a great place to camp. Our next stop was Gjirokaster. Gjirokaster is known to be similar to Berat. It has an old town with a castle. Their castle looks more like a castle than ours but it does not still have anybody living within its walls. Pic incl. It has a beautiful old city. We then made another tourist stop at Syri i Kalter (Blue Eye). It is an underwater spring and the water bubbles up though a deep pool making a circular shape, deep blue at its center and almost electric blue around its edges. The rocks from which the spring rises are over 150 feet below the surface. The water was freezing but still people were swimming in it. Pic included. Our last stop south was Delvine and that’s where we stayed the night. From the road to Delvine I could see Corfu. Delvine is not on the coast but 15 mins from Sarande which is the southernmost town. We then took the coastal road back. We were bummed that we didn’t stop in Sarande to swim so we stopped in a small beach town. Also in Borsh is a fort that Ali Pasha kept. It looks like a mini castle. There is a pic of me and Diana at the fort. I slept for 13 hours after that trip. It was awesome!