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We left the comfortable appartment, which is located in a new building complex near the beach, and where we were probably almost the only tennants for the last two nights, to walk back to Lezha [Lezhë] city center. Again, we tried to hitchhike, and again, it worked wonders.

The guy who took us was super friendly, and we had the whole conversation in French even! He is working for the local government, in the forest domain. Albania has a long, very long way to go in the environmental protection matters…

Once in Lezha, we tried to take a bus to Laçi [Laç], but only minibuses were going. The one we found was already full, but who cares? He took us anyway. And that’s how we ended up doing the first 15 min of the journey, standing up inside the minibus, between seated people and the door. And I’m already scared when I have a seatbelt, and a seat for that matter.

After a while we got some seats, and we somehow arrived alive. The way of doing things in Albania and in the Balkans in general is just so relaxed. No rules needed, just trust and a bit of blind innocence.

In Laçi, we first headed to the train station. Yes! We are taking the ONE OTHER train in Albania, this one running only on Tuesdays! At the station we talked with a local for a bit, and then went for a coffee that extended into lunch.

Back to the station, it was now full of people! The weekly train is quite an event, it seems. We got our tickets (one euro each) and waited. We were very quickly spotted as the only tourists there, but people were friendly. But we saw many people just putting all their garbages in plastic bags that they simply threw away in the bush behind the rail tracks… It’s so a disheartening to see how common place and normal and accepted this act is. Albania is being ravaged by litter. It will take decades, after the ecology consciousness starts to grow.

The train entered the station, and it’s a very similar affair to the one I took on Friday. We somehow managed to get a window through which we could see the countryside. Then began the slow stroll to Shkodra [Shkodër]. A wonderful mountainy scenery in the distance, and a littered countryside foreground.

Once arrived in Shkodra, we headed to the bus station, hoping to get to Podgorica or maybe Kotor, but a taxi guy said the last had gone. Oh well, we’ll stay here for the night. Just after booking our airbnb, we walk by the tourism office, and apparently there was still one bus left today. Grrrr… Too bad, we’ll go tomorrow.

But in the evening we walked in Shkodra, and it’s actually a very pleasant city. A good restaurant, and to bed!

However, I can’t let you go that easily: it’s the end of the month.

And that means that today, it has been three months that I’ve left home, to go galivanting around our old continent’s railway (and roads). Wow…

Three months, more precisely 89 d, 26 countries visited, 203 trains taken. I’m still 2 countries ahead of « schedule », then. At the start of April, on that failureof a day from Bratislava to Poprad in Slovakia, where I almost lost my small bag, I’ve crossed Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia to end up here, in Albania, a few hours short of entering Montenegro. April started rather slow, with seven nights spent each in Hungary and Romania, and got faster (well, in a way), when I reached the Balkans and was forced to accelerate the visits because of the uncertainty of transports and the fear to miss the Albanian train.

I’ve seen many beautiful places this month again, and also this time a couple cities that I won’t visit again. I got in and out of Schengen, the EuroZone, the EU and the CET zone, and changed script four times between latin, cyrillic and greek.

But mostly, it was the month of loneliness, until Kamel’s arrival a few days ago. I didn’t see any friends from before, nor met any TM players for the first time, although I did make a few friends on the road.

It was the month were I was hiding the truth for myself, the unnamed feeling growing in me, until I accepted it: Doubt started to creep in, if I getting tired, if I still was having fun… But of course I do! It was only a temporary low, and I feel ready to keep going again.

Especially with the crazy month of May ahead: leaving Kamel in Montenegro on the 6th, I’ll try to meet a friend in Slovenia on the 16th, after visiting Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Then I’ll cross Austria to meet with my old friend Nicolas in Liechtenstein around the 20th-ish, then we’ll have a week together in Switzerland, before I meet with Duha a second time on this trip in Italy. And on the 31st, I should arrive in San Marino…

Stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s video of week 12: