Why I’ll Probably Never Come to Tirana Again
12 miserable hours in Tirana, Albania
As you know, I’ve been travelling through Europe for a few months now. Yesterday, we were in Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia. We loved it.
We caught the 8 am bus to Tirana where we planned to spend the day exploring before heading off to Dubrovnik tonight.
Ohrid has a population of 55,000 and has a small bus terminal with a ticket office and a waiting area. Tirana has a population of approximately 520,000 so you’d expect it to have a bus terminal, right? Wrong!
Our bus pulled into a shopping centre on the eastern outskirts of the city and we found out we had to get on a city bus to get to the centre.
In an attempt to climb on the bus, I somehow fell onto my left knee. The pain was excruciating but I didn’t cry. I felt I would vomit. The 6 km ride into the city felt like 60. The bus filled up and the conductor didn’t charge us. That was good because we had no Albanian cash.
When we reached the centre, we let all of the passengers go first and just as we were getting off, the driver closed the door on us and started driving. Someone yelled, not me, and he stopped and opened the door.
It was pelting rain so we ducked into the first cafe we saw. We were handed a menu but then were told they only accepted cash. We had none.
We dragged our gear to a burger place which accepted card but had no coffee. It was quite small inside so we sat outside under cover but out of the rain.
I put on every item of clothing I had in my backpack and still froze. We ordered food and tried to warm up. Eventually the gas heater behind me was ignited and the warmth was glorious.
But no sooner did I warm up that the same staff member came out and turned it off. Within 5 minutes, I was freezing again. It was still pouring rain with lightning and thunder so I wasn’t walking anywhere especially with my bruised knee.
Erilyn went to an ATM and withdrew some cash because we will need to take a taxi to the place where our bus to Dubrovnik departs – a BOLV OIL service station on the other side of the city. What the?
I had the address of the service station which I showed the taxi driver. I don’t know if he’s illiterate but he rang someone and I told them the address. She understood what I said and repeated it to the driver. I was quite proud of my pronunciation. It was perfect!
Rruga Nëntori 29. He finally put it in his phone and I double-checked it with my phone. Yes! We loaded our bags and were off. After our taxi fiasco in Velika Tarnovo, one of us always has our maps open to make sure they are at least heading in the right direction.
He was doing fine until he decided to do a left-hand turn.
It must have been deliberate because his map clearly showed straight ahead. We remonstrated, “This is not the way. “ Erilyn gave the taxi driver all of her cash so we couldn’t go any further. He wanted to drive another 9 minutes and charge us more. If he had kept driving straight, we would have had enough money to make it to the BOLV OIL.
I was so angry at this so-called driver’s inability to read a map that I instructed Erilyn, “Get out. We’re walking!” My map was telling me it was a 2-minute drive and I could have walked for hours. I was fuming. He took all of our money and didn’t drop us off at the right place.
We grabbed our gear and started walking. Things could have been worse. At least it had stopped raining. Yes, this was the pickup place. There were three buses parked but none was our bus. We went inside the roadside cafe. I was still fuming. I carried on like a pork chop all the way to the BOLV OIL petrol station. I really needed a drink but guess what? They didn’t accept card and we had just given all of our cash to that crooked or stupid (or both) taxi driver.
One of the guys playing cards got up and listened to my ranting about the taxi driver taking all it our cash and leaving us to walk and now you don’t accept card. He gave me a Peroni and Erilyn a chocolate milk.
He didn’t know it but he renewed my faith in humanity with his act of kindness. It was the first and only positive thing that happened to us during the time were we in Tirana.
Our bus was due at 7.30 pm. At 9, the guy who had been so kind had to close the little cafe so we had to sit on the cold metal chairs at the front. We wrapped ourselves in a blanket to try to keep warm. It was at this point we were told the bus was running 5 HOURS LATE!
Is it any wonder I never want to come here again?
