Towards the albanian border the landscape became much flatter as we approached the edge of the skoder lake and the houses and buildings became scruffier. My apprehension was mounting but i tried to shake it off. We stopped for coffee and soon after, suddenly found ourselves at the border point.

At the guichet the guard asked something we didn’t understand. Lou said we were english, sorry. The young man turned quite nasty and told us ‘i speak good english, document car!’. Lou quickly handed the carte grise across and apologised. The guy whacked a stamp into lou’s passport and glowered as he waved us on. Oh, the foreboding feeling as we stopped at his albanian counterpart. Minutes passed as each document was scrutinised and then we were through. I jotted down our arrival in albania and realised my hand was shaking! We drove towards shkoder on a reasonable road surface and got accustomed to the rapid changes in speed limits. But as we tried to drive through shkoder the full albanian driving experience lay in wait for us. Forget potholes, did those in romania. But try coping with murderous overtaking, cyclists and mopeds being ridden towards you on YOUR side of the road, cyclists zipping out of side roads and parked cars and crossing right under your front wheels. A woman walked with her baby in a pram across the middle of a city centre roundabout! Things didn’t improve out of town.

On a supposed autoroute, pedestrians ambled towards you, buses stopped abruptly to pick up passengers and tractors slowly pulled heavily laden trailors. Unseen cars ahead made manoeuvres that caused the cars you could see stop dead so lou was constantly standing on his brakes.

When we arrived at tirana we managed to find the hotel with the aid of my photocopied map, without the useless gps and without shouting at each other. I think we were both too shellshocked. On arrival, a cold beer for ‘just the chauffeur’, my hero! xx