When in Albania: GCP Albania

When in... Albania

Today on our journey down to the south of Albania, we decided to stop in the city of Durres. This city is a hot spot for the tourists because it’s not only on the coast of the Adriatic Sea but also, contains historical information and plenty of shops. First we went to see the Amphitheater, where our guide Zef taught us the history of the ancient city of Dyrrahu. This is the former name of the city, literally meaning “two hills”. After our brief lesson, we ran in to a few young children who were on the street begging for money. Unfortunately, this is a quite common thing here in Albania; because some are orphans, or even have families that are too poor to take care of them. These children have some type of “tutor” or adult in charge of them that they bring all the money they’ve collected back to. This can display an awful commotion on the streets of Albania, and sadly this is not the only type of begging we’ve witnessed.

I myself saw an elderly woman sitting on the side of the street by our hotel, with clothes that were not in good condition… and no money. I walked over and gave her 100 lek, which is simply 1 dollar in America. After I came back over, our leader Estela told me about these women begging for money. They are all alone, whether that means their husband died, or their family possibly immigrated in the 90’s and never made it back. She also said that even if the woman does receive money, usually people only give them a couple cents or 50 cents at most, so her receiving a dollar meant she would be able to eat good today.

            We made our first stop on the way down and decided to stop for some ice cream. Once we finally made it to the ice cream shop, our guide says is undisputedly the best in all of Albania, we sat and ordered our favorites. A couple minutes after finishing our ice cream we looked over on the sidewalk and saw a man walking a bear down the street on a leash. One of the members of our group, Alex, ran over with his camera to take a picture but when he reached the man he was asked for money. Alex gave the man a couple dollars without any hesitation, because let’s be honest where else will you see a bear walking down the street. Once he handed the man the money, the man took the camera out of his hand and handed Alex the leash to pose with the bear himself.

            We loaded back into the van and continued our journey down south. Our next stop was in the city of Vlore where we witnessed the most breathtaking views of the coastline. We sat in a local coffee shop on the balcony overlooking the clear, bright blue water. As soon as we finished our coffees and tea, we headed up the mountain of Llogara for some more traditional food. Time after time we couldn’t have been happier with the taste of the food, and the hospitality of the workers. Most of the group picked from either pasta or a traditional Albanian meat choice, after having salad, yogurt sauce, and bread. Then we topped it all off with three different kinds of desserts.

            Once we finished our meal we were back to the van and on the road again. Some of the group invested this time into napping, but others stayed up admiring the different atmospheres of all the little villages we were passing through. Finally, we arrived in Saranda and checked into our new hotel for the next couple days. The view of the sea simply can’t be proven justice in the photos we have taken, but the whole group agrees this is a gorgeous country. At night the whole town was lit up with shop lights, and we took this time to walk to a local sports bar and watch the soccer game. Our night ended back in the hotel room where we all spent time together as a group, talking and laughing.

Needless to say, we don’t know what to expect for the rest of our Albanian trip, but we’re just going with the flow.

-Heather Shannon

GCP Albania 2014