#dirt track

There’s something about a dirt track road which never fails to excite us. It holds within it the promise of adventure, a challenge, and no guarantee of if we’ll make it to the end.⁣

Driving around Albania is very much a game of chance; sometimes you’ll find yourself on the smoothest paved road, other times that road will unexpectedly run out and you find yourself bumping down miles of relentless gravel and rock. Sometimes we’re up for the challenge; sometimes it proves too much for our old van and we are forced to backtrack.

We alternate here between the desperate need to escape from civilisation and the sweet relief that tarmac provides.⁣

But the Balkans offer everything we lack back in England; unpaved roads, a slackening of regulations, the freedom to roam. There are rules but nobody pays attention to them. There’s a general lack of fucks given. Nobody’s all up in your business telling you where you can and can’t be or what you can and can’t do. For some the craziness may be overwhelming; to us it’s a breath of fresh air.⁣

We find peace amongst the chaos, freedom weaving through rough dirt roads, and adventure waiting for us around every turn. And that’s just the way we like it.

The sunshine on our skin was a feeling we’d long since forgotten, a sensation buried in the backs of our minds. Yet here it was, an unusually warm, dare I say hot day in the hinterlands of rural Albania.⁣

After many months of winter, of snow in Kosovo, freezing fog in Macedonia and countless icy mornings it was a welcome relief and a boost to our morale.⁣

We’d been craving a cool body of water to plunge into and wash away the driving sweat, but we settled for a bag shower on a dirt track nestled amongst the shrubs and canyons with the scent of wild thyme rising hot and citrussy in the air.⁣

I washed our clothes in the sink and hung them out to dry, and we watched the sun climb out of the sky and brush over the mountaintops turning them hazy purple and red. Sunsets could be a thousand shades of gold and orange, pale pink and even the occasional streak of green, but they were always purple here in Albania. The kind of purple that stained the mountain faces and electrified the lake waters; the kind that demanded you stop and watch.⁣

Late at night two men in a van came and dumped ten neat white bags on the ground in front of our van. We assumed they were fly-tippers, but come morning we awoke to the sound of saddles scraping past our van as two men loaded up their mules with the supplies they’d need to take to their village, a sight that always filled us with wonder and curiosity. ? ?⁣

We said good morning to them, folded up the washing and continued on our journey towards a curious little town named Pukë…⁣

On a particularly frosty Monday morning we rose earlier than the sun did, cameras in hand and blankets around our shoulders to capture the sunrise and encapsulate it in our memories⁣.

The watercolour sky was awash with pale pinks and dusky orange, the jagged mountain peaks shrouding the horizon beyond. Below our camp spot sat the most pristine lake of emerald water, clear as glass, and a thick stream of cloud scooting across its surface before being sucked down into the valley below.⁣

We stood patiently, cameras poised, as the fiery sunlight licked the tops of the mountains and slowly made its way down to their base. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the golden rays filtered through the peaks and burst through the chill in the air. The snaking dirt track beneath us was all of a sudden bathed in gold, the fog clouds set ablaze in the sky, and the warmth of a late winter’s day kissed our cheeks and unfroze our hands.⁣

It felt like an achievement for us, a rare gift of total aloneness after several chaotic days amongst the city folk of Tirana, long before the first commuter minibuses would rumble their way down this track. We retreated to the van to reward ourselves with coffee, watching the sun scatter the orderly clouds into a haze of fog that enveloped the landscape and licked at our van.⁣

An early start and a little less sleep had been a fair trade to enjoy this moment all to ourselves. We cradled our coffee cups and pored over maps, planning the day’s adventure ahead before the rest of the world had even pulled back the covers and risen out of bed.