We went to the Rodonit peninsula, which was about 100 km away from where we were. It might seem close, but not in Albania. Here, traffic follows its own rules. Overcoming this distance took us 3h 15m, which gives an average of about 30km/h. And such a cruising speed must be taken as the norm in Albania.
In this country, traffic rules are rather not respected. For a person who is used to regulated traffic in other European countries, this is a kind of shock.
The most difficult are roundabouts and various types of intersections where there are no traffic lights or road signs. The traffic is chaotic, whoever is first and braver has priority. It took us a while to figure out how to drive here and when we discovered that one rule applies – the bigger one has priority, driving became easier. And since we were traveling by bus, we had priority over passenger cars, and allowed vehicles larger than us to pass. Simple, right? The only thing you have to change in your head is that giving way is something that you cannot expect from other traffic participants. And you have to watch out for lunatics who probably bought their driving license in chips and drive centrally against the flow, or cross intersections along the shortest possible line. Traffic lanes, what for, if you can turn where there is room.
We drove part of the route on the highway, and it might seem that the pace of driving should be faster. But none of that, not in Albania. There, the motorway, despite its name, has nothing to do with what we know from other European countries. We were not surprised that the exits on the highway are in the form of a roundabout, that there is no fence along the route, and there are fruit stalls on the side of the road. The only thing that this route differed from the others was the fact that it had two lanes in each direction.
Access to the Rodonit peninsula was via local roads of poorer quality. You could expect potholes, gravel roads and even cows walking along the road. At the very end of the road leading to the destination there was a barrier that was opened for a fee. We found a place to park in a clearing and went for a walk along the ridge of the peninsula.
The views were nice, in the distance you could see that people were taking a bath in the sea. After a while we reached the ruins of the castle. We walked for a while in the shadow of the old walls and went out to the beach. Everything would be fine, but suddenly the spell was broken by garbage, even a landfill. We looked for crabs for a while, but you could forget about the bath.
Yes, it must be openly admitted that the ubiquitous garbage is a problem in Albania. The inability to deal with waste is visible at every step. In places like the beach, it’s especially sad. There is a lack of education and habits among the inhabitants. We saw people throwing food packaging out of the window while driving a car, there are no waste bins, no organization for recycling and garbage collection.
After returning home, we found out that the problem in Rodonit Bay is with the garbage that gets there from the Lumi and Matit river and settles from the side of the castle through water currents. Apparently, on the other side of the peninsula, the beaches look much better.
On our way back, to improve our mood, we shopped for fruit at a roadside stall.
We end the day in Durres at the Mali and Robot campsite. Durres is a fairly large tourist city with port. The seafront is lined with hotels that have private beaches. We went to one of the beaches for an evening swim. Thanks to the fact that the beaches are under the care of hotels, they are cleaned and there is no garbage here. However, there are crowds of tourists, beach umbrellas and deckchairs.
