Chapter Six – Around the Balkans in 30 days

Riding high in the cabin of a truck, driving 110 km/h on snaky roads through deep valleys, hugging the edge of turquoise, crystal clear rivers and straight through the guts of the Slavic Alps, my hitch-hiking dream was coming true. I smoked a cigarette offered to me by the driver, listening to piercing Bosnian, Croatian and Albanian music he blasted through the speakers. He frequently checked his phone and showed photos of his grandchildren, much to the horror of my Italian travel buddy who was not accustomed to people driving with their knees.  When I asked for an ashtray he laughed, rolled down his window and let my cigarette butt fly into the distance, then he looked at me and said “Balkans!” and laughed like a madman. This was my introduction to the Balkans, and what a fitting way to start the incredible adventure that awaited me.

Europe’s Hidden Gem

Techno and psych-trans music mix with the evening call to prayer of a mosque in the distance. Dazzling snow-capped mountains and man-made beaches packed with bulldozers preparing for the tourist season. Abandoned mansions, stray dogs, and hundreds of thousands of communist-style bunkers amongst the delicious aroma of grilled meat and shisha. This was my experience of Albania, a land full of beautiful and at times illogical contradictions.

Most travellers seem to come to Albania to take a break from the Shingan area, not for the love of the country itself. A majority Muslim country, Albania is considered by many to be dangerous. It seems that most of western Europe consider Albanians to be bandits and thieves. The reality could not be further from this baseless assumption. My experience of this place has been wonderful. People are extremely hospitable and will go out of their way to help you. More than 80% of the land is covered by mountains and the Albanian Alps and Rivera are breathtaking. 

Here’s a little video of an incredible hike I did in the Albanian Alps, and you can find more visual content on my Instagram page.

A quick succession of events

I could write for hours and hours about my time in the Balkans. The intricacies of hundreds of unique and memorable moments, how the food tasted, how the air smelled, how the water felt against my skin, and how everything slowly changed as I edged further and further up north. I think the best way to express the enormity and chaos of everything that happened is to give you a rapid-fire succession of events in the hope of conveying a small amount of what it felt like to live through this journey.

After Greece I hitched to Ksamil, Albania, camped on red soil in excruciating heat, woke up to the sound of goats that were surrounded the camp, while their Sheppard relaxed with a cigarette and an orange surprisingly close to my tent. I then hitchhiked to Sarande and bussed it to Tirana, the capital city. A ginormous town square, buzzing streets and barbequed everything on the sidewalks, bunker museums, neat shopping strips built upon the ruins of an old town completely destroyed by war, a moving, changing place filled with life and possibilities.

I met up with a very old friend in Tirana who came from Switzerland to galivant with me and we bussed it to Shkoder, a few hours north of Tirana. There we rode bikes around old streets, swam in lakes, explored abandoned mansions as we munched on ice-cream and picked fresh mulberries, got our asses kicked by a chess grand master and missed our bus following the unfortunately wrong advice of an older woman who really really wanted to help us.  

I bid farewell to my friend and hitch-hiked to Theth by myself, I got a ride with quite possibly the two most beautiful men in Albania. They bought me cherries, tea and sweets, insisted on stopping to take photos of me, collected wildflowers for me and drove an hour out of their way to get me to my destination. I thought I must be the luckiest traveller in the world. In Theth I spent a couple days trekking the incredible Albanian Alps, and on my last night I hitched with a German guy and decided to camp together for the night, we met an Italian woman and an Albanian guy, who pretty much met the exact way we did (she was hitch-hiking), and then we played poker using tent pegs, earrings and whatever we could find around.

A new travel buddy, a new destination and we were off again. Our first ride was with a couple of German women, we pretty much laughed the whole way down the mountain, through villages and until we reached a town and said our goodbyes. Here we got a few scattered rides till we reached the border to Montenegro, crossed on foot and got a ride with two much older men who chatted amongst themselves and left us to our own devices. Got dropped off in the capital city, which was anticlimactic at best, we couldn’t find a decent place to eat so ate at the mall, and hitched to Budva where we slept a couple nights. After Budva we hitched to Kotor where it stormed for 4 hours straight and we decided to hit the road again to Niksic, got picked up by a truck so big it was carrying another truck (same guy who laughed at me when I asked for an ashtray), he had a heart of gold, bought us tea and chocolate and called his son in advance to drop us off at the hotel because “two beautiful girls like you shouldn’t have to walk”.

Then came the monastery and a gross man and that awesome older woman who gave us a tour of the monastery, shared her life story with us and insisted on driving us to the Croatian border. At the border she pointed to a woman driving alone and said that she’d our best bet, and sure enough, after we crossed by foot that same woman picked us up, the first time she’d stopped for hitch-hikers, and we got along like wild fire. Together we drove to a town near Split, danced in the full moon and drank Albanian Raki, woke up and got dropped off in Split after some coffee at a local joint. A bitter-sweet goodbye to my new friends, I was alone again, and I spent the day in Split in the rain with my backpack and rain jacket, then bussed it to Mostar, met a French man and ended up travelling together the next day.

The path I took over the course of my trip

Sarajevo, My Love

That’s the name of the documentary I saw after spending the day walking around the city of Sarajevo and learning its rich history. World War One started here, preceded and followed by endless battles and wars, genocide, crimes against humanity and a siege that last 4 full years. The city is scarred by the many years of horror that was inflicted onto this place, and evidence of its extent are abound. It’s quite difficult to find a building that doesn’t isn’t scarred by bullets holes and grenades, and through the newer parts of the city, you can be sure that those modern-looking buildings were built upon the ruins of another.

Sarajevo felt strangely familiar, comfortable, friendly. It reminded me of Dimashq. Is my sense of home and belonging so distorted that I can only feel safe in war-torn places? As ironic and as illogical that sounds, there might be some bitter truth in it. Modern European cities felt empty to me, sterile, clean and soulless. I visited many “modern” cities after Sarajevo in Austria, Slovenia and Hungary and I found that none attracted me as much. Here there is solidarity, the kind you only get when people have gone through horrendous crises and have had to depend on each other. Here I could safely say I’m Syrian, because they understood, and I felt their solidarity with every word they said. Here there is goodness, not the kind you get from NGOs and charities, think of a reassuring smile of an old woman walking by, the kindness of a shopkeeper when you really need a toilet, the love that radiates from the faces of strangers.

Where to next?

After two full months on the road, 8 different countries, a few dozen new friends, very sore feet and more memorable experiences than I could possibly count, I’ve decided to put my backpack down for a little while and to find a new home for my toothbrush, who’s grown very tired of sleeping in a different place every night. And in no surprise to anyone, my heart has led me back to Dimashq to celebrate my birth date and slow down for a little while.  

love and solidarity, 

Nathalie 

Written from: Budapest, Hungary

Next stop: Damascus, Syria