Driving in Albania

I assume that the Oldies picked Fushë-Krujë as a base because it is so close to Tirana, only about 25 km away. But first you have to actually get there – and preferably in one piece. Which is not a foregone conclusion in this country.

The death traps start before you even leave Fushë-Krujë. Luckily, His eagle-eyed Lordship was quick enough to spot the dangers. After a couple near misses, he had it down pat. Out of nine manhole covers on the road out of town alone, he’d figured out that number three and five were sunk well below the road surface, number four and nine completely missing. If we’d hit any of them, we’d have been sunk. So, with Himself weaving around like a rally driver, just getting out of town was an endurance test. If I weren’t a seagull I’d have been seasick.

Once we hit the main road to Tirana, I was able to distract myself somewhat from the terrors of driving by counting all the furniture shops. One huge showroom after the other lined both sides of the road. I kept losing count of them – facing certain death every few minutes can be a bit of a distraction – but the first five kilometres out of Fushë-Krujë was Furniture World. Who on earth needs so much furniture?

Other distractions were the massive wedding emporia and grandiose hotels which looked like something straight out of Las Vegas. And of course, petrol stations. At this stage I’ve calculated that on main roads there is an average of one petrol station every two kilometres. Who on earth needs so much fuel? Even allowing for the phenomenal number of fuel-guzzling Mercedes on the road, it’s a mystery.

This is a chain I’d seen before in Durrës, which uses good old Skanderbeg’s helmet as their logo. The name itself is a little scary. In fact, I’ve noticed that His Lordship fills up particularly carefully in this establishment…

All this mad stuff along the road cannot keep my attention for long. The mad stuff on the road wins out every time. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen lunatics in their big fancy cars zooming up to within inches of our back bumper. They are obviously dying to overtake us, but it is as if they wait on purpose until a car is coming the opposite direction before they make their move. This happens so often I am beginning to think it is some kind of national sport. Driving the wrong way is another one. I kid you not. My nerves are shot!

Thank goodness there’s no Montenegrin-style parking here. In Albania however, whenever a parking space is required, it appears at the touch of this button: the hazard light switch. Just stop wherever you want to, press the magic button and hey presto, instant parking space! Her Ladyship actually seemed to be quite impressed with this, reflecting that the ancient art of wholesale double parking had died out in Ireland sometime back in the 1970s.

The closer we got to town, the more roundabouts appeared. Thank goodness His Lordship was starting to expect the unexpected at this stage. A guy who had been trundling along slowly in the inside lane beside us suddenly took it into his head to shoot into the roundabout, practically cutting off our nose. Whilst I was still thinking about ducking under the dashboard, Himself had somehow managed to read the guy’s mind and braked in plenty of time to save our skins.

I was totally puzzled when, time and again, small, ancient vehicles stopped in the middle of roundabouts to allow us to enter. Do they not know the rules of the road? Or is it simply a case of not trusting anyone else to adhere to the rules of the road? 

The scariest thing of all was that His Lordship changed. Changed utterly. Like one of those old horror movies where the meek and mild protagonist transforms into a werewolf or vampire, I watched His Lordship slowly turn into – horror of horrors – an Albanian driver. He was unrecognisable. He actually started beeping his horn, for goodness sake! At first, he was tentative, just sending out the occasional warning. But before long he was beeping just for the hell of it!  I watched aghast as he seamlessly slotted into the ‘every man for himself, take no prisoners’ mindset.

The huge roundabout at the motorway junction just outside Tirana was the turning point. In every sense. It was total chaos. No such thing as lane discipline, that’s for sure. This was what I’ve heard traffic in Asia is like. Only instead of bicycles and mopeds, we had Mercedes and Audis. The law of the concrete jungle applied here: the driving gloves were off and it was every Merc for himself.

And there, in the middle of it all, His Lordship was beeping away with the best of them, cutting in where he would never have cut in before, a manic grin on his face. My god, he was enjoying himself thoroughly!

Scarier still, instead of her usual ‘oh-my-god-we’re-all-going-to-die’ type of freaking out, Her Ladyship started to join in! ‘Back off, big boy, we were here first!’ she yelled. ‘Watch out for that gobshite, he’s trying to cut you out’ … ‘Hah! Your fancy wheels are no good to you now, are they?’ … ’Don’t even think about it you big eejit, we were here first!’

My feathers are still quivering with the shock.

On our third trip to Tirana, His Lordship gave me yet another heart attack by braking very hard and very suddenly. But I can’t blame him. A car driving the wrong way was heading straight for us. The car behind didn’t quite manage to stop in time though, and made contact with our bumper. The whole thing was settled in Albanian style. The Oldies got out. The other driver got out. Together, they surveyed the damage. Shrugged their shoulders. Shook their heads. Shook hands. And drove on.

We have driven into Tirana three times now and have only been hit once. Not a bad record, I suppose. By local standards.