Welcome to the Hotel Albania

bikersAlbania, originally uploaded by anasophia.

We would have gotten to Tihrana faster, but we were held up by a bike race. Giro'd'Albania, anyone? Frankly I'm amazed they were able to find enough paved roads to ride on.

Once we finally arrived in Tihrana, we started asking around for where we could get a bus to Macedonia. The lonely planet pointed to a place at the center of the city that was supposed to have busses, but we found only a giant insane roundabout with no lanes. Grady was going to Durres so he went off to see what he could find (good luck in Iraq, Grady!)

After wandering for an hour and getting nowhere, we decided we should get a hotel room. There are lots of expensive hotels there, god knows why. Finally found a room for relatively cheaply. But where were all the busses?! We finally found them at the end of the street in a dirt lot, and learned that there was only one bus a day to Macedonia, in the morning.

Tihrana actually has a very nice downtown. We had a few beers and some excellent schwarma.