We had just spent a fabulous few days in Theth and were loving Albania, but BigMog’s clutch/gearbox problems were now getting too serious to ignore. We were going to have to bite the bullet very soon and spend a lot of money sorting him out.
We were resigned to whatever the cost was to put it right, it was the open-ended bill to find the problem in the first place that we were nervous about. Mercedes in the UK had previously quoted us £6,000 just to investigate.
As we drove through the mountains from Theth, I had contacted Mercedes in Tirane, the capital of Albania, and asked whether they had experience with UniMogs. They said that they did. I asked whether they could fit a new clutch. They said that they could. I asked how much their hourly rate was and they said it was 3,000 Lek. Wait, what? Please repeat that – 3,000 Lek per hour madam.
Ok, so Mercedes in the UK charges £135 an hour. Their estimate for the labour to fit a new clutch was £2,100 – two days’ work. Here in Albania, 3,000 Lek is £27 per hour – so the equivalent labour cost for fitting a new clutch would be £420.
We seemed to have got to the crunch point with BigMog in exactly the right country! We just hoped that they really did know UniMogs – unlike the Mercedes team in Montenegro who ran a mile as soon as they saw him.
We agreed that we would take him in whenever we arrived in Tirane and they would start the diagnosis straight away.
So we set off in the general direction of the capital and stopped off at a couple of places on our itinerary along the way, determined to make the most of the time we had left before UniMog mechanics took over our lives once again.
First up was Spac Prison, notorious in its day for housing political prisoners in brutal conditions. It operated from 1968 until 1991 under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.
The first part of the drive from Shkoder was the usual Balkans madness along busy main roads with cars trying to ambush us from all directions. But eventually we turned onto a quiet, dirt road that wound its way up into the mountains towards the remote, abandoned prison
It was a gorgeous drive
There was a huge drop down one side but the road was wide enough not to cause too many heart palpitations
When we arrived at the prison it was stark
The prisoners had been forced to work in the nearby mines and even the housing blocks for the free, paid miners were desolate
We climbed up to the prison itself and wandered around for an hour or so reading about the conditions they were kept in, the number of people who died and the cruelty of the guards
We found a room full of masks taken from the faces of the guards
And another with masks taken from the prisoners
It seemed incongruous that such a grim place so full of suffering was surrounded by so much natural beauty
The next stop was to be the town of Kruja, the stronghold of Skanderbeg, leader of the Albanian resistance and scourge of the Ottoman Empire.
We drove through yet more beautiful roads
And along the way we were promised a statue of none other than George W Bush – who visited Albania when he was the American President and offered them genuine support and solidarity when they most needed it. He remains a hero in Albania to this day.
Sadly, there was nowhere to stop to admire the statue so I only got a quick photo out of the window
We decided to park-up on the outskirts of Kruja in a spot overlooking a quarry rather than going into the town and risk getting stuck in the narrow streets
Apart from the usual rubbish lying around, it was the perfect spot – lovely views and very peaceful
One car and a few goats went passed but other than that we saw no-one all evening
It had been roasting hot all day and even at 5pm it was 31 degrees. So we were pleased when a beautiful sunset cooled the air
We set off into town early the next day and headed straight for the Skanderburg statue
After paying our respects to the great man we wandered towards the castle and stopped off to admire the panoramic views
The three tall buildings you can see in this photo were completely at odds with the rest of the town and blocked the view of everything behind them. We heard that they were intended to be a hotel and had been approved personally by the town’s mayor. He is now in prison for corruption and the buildings are scheduled for demolition!
Closer to the castle, a bizarre filled the streets where traders have sold their wares for as long as the castle has been in existence
The castle felt a little touristy but in a calm and relaxed way. It was almost the start of May so visitors were starting to come but it was far from crowded
Inside the castle walls it was like an oasis of peace
We saw the Sultana Mehmeda II Fatiha mosque, entirely destroyed apart from the minaret
The Gjergi Kastrioti National Museum
Which was beautiful inside
And housed some very interesting exhibitions about the history of the country
Including a very impressive frieze
The Watch Tower starting collapsing some time ago and has been strapped up for years
And the Ottoman hammam was also closed
But the Sanctuary of Hajji Mustafa Baba was open
With his ancient olive tree in the grounds
And his tomb inside
But we are still unsure who he was.
Our final visit was to the ethnographic museum – previously the house of a wealthy Ottoman family dating back to the 18th century
The rooms inside were beautiful
And included a private hammam
But I wasn’t so sure about the dressing up!
We stopped at a lovely restaurant just outside the castle gates for lunch and discussed the idea of visiting the Temple of Sari Salltiku – a 14th-century Alevi Turkish Dervish who fought to end the practice of sacrificing young girls. I really wanted to go but it was high up in the mountains so walking was out of the question and BigMog wouldn’t physically fit down the alleyways through the town.
So we decided to see whether we could find a taxi to take us for a reasonable cost. When we found the taxi rank it had one taxi waiting and the driver seemed pleased to have customers. He offered a return trip for 20 Euros. We happily agreed and jumped in.
The drive was spectacular with far reaching views over the hills
And when we arrived, the temple was fascinating
We headed back to our quarry for the night
And contemplated what was on the cards the next day – we were heading to Tirane and Mercedes. We were nervous and excited in equal measure. This was it, whatever we had to do to fix our truck, there was no longer any way to avoid it.
As soon as we arrived at Mercedes they filled us with confidence
They spoke very knowledgably about UniMogs and had someone there with decades of experience. He jumped in the cab and drove BigMog around the car park.
They then had a long discussion with lots of head scratching
Eventually they came to talk to us. They understood that BigMog was our home and we needed to sleep in him overnight, but we would not be allowed to stay in their workshop and they weren’t sure what they could achieve in one day.
They offered to do a few quick checks now and then book him in for two days later in the week, when we could arrange a hotel, so that they could take the clutch out and do a proper investigation.
It seemed like a good solution.
We headed to their reception area to await the results of the quick checks with no expectation that they would find anything – after all Mercedes in the UK, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro had all done ‘quick checks’ and got no closer to a definitive answer.
Two hours later the guys came back with grim looks on their faces. For the first time in all our Mercedes visits they had actually put a camera inside and this is what they saw
For those of you who, like me, are not familiar with clutches, they are not supposed to throw shards of their lining out! This was the conclusive proof we needed – the clutch was disintegrating and had to be replaced.
And far from costing us the earth to find this out, these guys charged us £54 for two hours work! They may have looked grim-faced at delivering us the bad news but for us it was a relief – we finally had an answer and whilst a new clutch would be expensive it wasn’t a whole new gearbox.
We leapt into action. Clutches for our type of UniMog are no longer manufactured but we knew that AC Price, the UniMog specialists in the north of England, had a clutch in their stores that was the next level of rugged up from ours but was likely to fit. James called them – they know us well and had helped us enormously with advice over the last few months. They still had the clutch – we breathed a sigh of relief.
Getting it to us here in Albania was the next challenge and given how big a challenge that would be they offered to get their clutch out of storage and measure it to make 100% sure that it would fit BigMog. They asked us to give them 24 hours.
We spent that time trying to work out how to get an 80kg clutch to Albania. Mercedes in Tirane gave us the mobile number of a courier they knew who transported vehicles back and forth between the UK and Tirane and suggested he might help.
I sent him a message, he thought I was a scammer (who can blame him with a story like this) so I called him and we had a very friendly chat. He was happy to bring our clutch for a very reasonable price that included dealing with customs. He even gave us his Mum’s address in Kent where we could have it delivered.
AC Price called back, yes the clutch would fit and yes they would send it to Kent. It would arrive on Tuesday, after the bank holiday week-end.
Back to the courier – clutch would be there Tuesday. Great timing he said, he was leaving for Albania on Wednesday due to arrive on Friday evening.
Back to AC Price, invoice paid, clutch packed and delivery booked.
Back to Mercedes Tirane – clutch was arriving next Friday, can they start the work on the following Monday? Yes, no problem, all booked in.
And relax.
We had moved mountains in less than 24 hours. Now all we needed to do was let it all happen whilst we found something to take our minds off it.
If only it were that easy!
During all this, we had driven from Mercedes across Tirane to a place to stay for the night that came highly recommended. Driving across Tirane, however, did not come highly recommended and as we did it at rush hour we got the full Tirane experience.
A four-lane dual carriageway with exits that took you off without warning. Bends on the sat nav that looked like exits until the very last moment when you realised that actually you were staying on. All of it so recently built that the road wasn’t even shown on Google maps so you had to make it up as you went along. Cars driving at break-neck speeds in all directions, cutting across lanes, driving three to a lane, queues of traffic that you couldn’t get around.
At one point we came off at the wrong exit and ended up doing a 12km detour down a toll road and had to pay twice – once in each direction.
It was the worst drive we have ever had through a city and that is saying something. By the time we arrived at our park-up place we were literally shaking.
But we pulled in through the gates and found an absolute oasis of peace and calm just minutes from all the madness
It was the front yard of a house belonging to a wonderful family who allowed overlanders to camp there.
The whole family came out to greet us, kissing us on each cheek and welcoming us in. Even Grandma came out to say hello.
We slowly felt the stresses and strains of the day melt away and decided to stay for a while to get a bit of life admin done
Two days later we felt much more relaxed and headed out of the city towards Pellumbus cave, just outside a small village. It was only 14km away but we drove very, very carefully – it wasn’t just that we now knew the clutch was falling apart but to test it the guys at Mercedes had had to be very hard on it and that would have speeded up the problem.
The roads were fine though and we pulled into the village without incident. The place was so small, however, that we couldn’t fit into the car park and there seemed nowhere else to go. I jumped out and went to speak to the waiter at a nearby restaurant. He came out to see how big we were and said it was no problem – just pull in close to the side of the road and the other cars would work around us.
There’s close and close…
He nodded his approval – we were really getting into parking Albania style these days
It was a tough walk along steep, uneven and overgrown paths to reach the cave
Most of it was uphill and it was slow going but the views were worth it
After about an hour we finally arrived
This was a small cave with no frills – no tickets, no guides…and no lights
There were a few other people visiting and we followed them in with our torches
It was very dark inside and rather slippery under foot
It was all very eery
Unfortunately, the difficulty in clambering across the rocks combined with my claustrophobia was too much and before long I had to admit defeat. I turned back, calling out to James to carry on without me. But he knew I would struggle to get out on my own and turned back as well. I felt awful, after such a difficult walk to get here I had at least wanted him to see the whole thing.
But the walk back didn’t seem so bad and we stopped at the restaurant for an amazingly good lunch where I discovered Fergese for the first time – a traditional Albanian cheese dish which has now become a firm favourite for both of us.
We had a week before the clutch was due to arrive and were not inclined to sit around waiting, wasting our precious days in Albania. It may not have been the most prudent decision given the state of BigMog’s insides but we figured that he had got this far, we may as well go just a little bit further.
So we headed for the historic town of Berat – the City of a Thousand Windows.
We were relieved to find that the roads to Berat were good
The clutch was playing up badly but we arrived in one piece and found a car park in town where we could stay overnight
As we walked towards the old town the beautiful, Ottoman buildings came into view
They were very impressive, rising up the hillsides on both sides of the river – the Muslim Mangalemi community on one side and the Christian Gorica on the other
With a striking Ottoman bridge between them
We stopped at a lovely restaurant for more Fergese then got lost in the atmospheric streets of Gorica
We found the beautiful Church of St Spiridon
Then carried on back across a suspension bridge to Mangalemi
The Pasha Gate and ruins of the Palace were the oldest buildings we found
Before sitting ourselves down at a wine shop for some wine tasting and nibbles admiring the views
The next day we moved from our car park to an actual campsite – the first we had stayed in since entering Bosnia. We had decided to splash out on it so that we could use their washing machines – our laundry situation had started to get critical.
It was a beautiful, warm day so our washing dried quickly but even so we didn’t make it out into town again until the afternoon. Well, apart from a mad dash 2km up the road back to the restaurant where we’d had lunch the previous day when I realised I’d left my hat there.
When we did finally get going we climbed another 1.8km up a steep, rocky goat track to Berat Castle, built in the 4th century BC
People still live here apparently
We found it all a bit confusing and the narrow streets got a little claustrophobic. But we were pleased to find the Onufri museum was open later than advertised so we could go in and see the spectacular iconostasis
The acropolis was huge with the White Mosque
And beautiful views all round
An impressive 13th century water cistern was full of bats
We also found the pretty Red Holy Trinity church
Perched on the cliff with more fabulous views
And finally wandered past the Red Mosque
Towards a viewpoint over the rolling countryside below
The walk back to the campsite was much easier downhill but we were still exhausted by the time we got back
We had planned to leave Berat the next morning but had not managed to experience one of the highlights of the town – Lili’s Restaurant. Lili and his family run it from their home and Lili is the host and showman, keeping everyone entertained for two hours whilst the food is served, eaten and cleared away. Then off you go before the next sitting starts.
It is generally booked up months in advance, but I had spoken to him a couple of days before and managed to squeeze us in after a cancellation – but it meant staying an extra day. We thought it was worth it to visit this famous place.
So we had a lazy morning on the campsite then checked out and drove back to our friendly car park. We had a wander into town to buy fruit and nuts and sat on a bench in the park eating fresh strawberries.
I had spotted a small church perched on the side of the hill to one side of the town and wanted to take a closer look. It was called St Michael’s Church and it took a little persuasion to get James to agree to do yet more steep uphill climbing to reach it.
When we arrived we found the church gates were closed so I climbed up the wall to get a couple of photos
And we spent the next hour sitting with our legs hanging over the wall, watching the world go by
Our booking at Lili’s wasn’t for another 2 hours so we wandered back into town and had a beer on a rooftop terrace before meandering back across the river to the restaurant.
We were still a bit early but Lili greeted us at the gate and welcomed us in. We found ourselves a couple of seats and waited for the show to begin
Just as we had expected, the whole evening was loud, busy and cramped but a lot of fun
We met Peggy from Taiwan who joined our table and said that we exuded a special energy that was very calming – she decided that being nomads must make a person more relaxed and open, I’m not sure relaxed is exactly the word for it!
The food was great, the entertainment was exhausting and the whole thing had indeed very much been worth staying an extra day for.
We wandered back to the truck via a cake shop, tired but happy.
The next morning we pressed onwards to the Osumi Canyon. The roads were a little bit more challenging and BigMog’s clutch was not happy at all. As we tried to pull him uphill around a tight switchback we wondered whether we had made a big mistake trying to drive so far. But he managed to drag himself up and the moment of doubt passed.
We reached a viewpoint over the canyon and it was breathtaking
The river meandered through a deep gorge that seemed to go on forever
We passed by the ‘Bride’s Hole’ where a reluctant bride had apparently jumped down to escape a forced marriage
Further on we found a meadow just below the road and it looked like the perfect place to spend a couple of days whilst we explored
Lush, green hills rose above us in every direction
And a small stream trickled nearby
Whilst James set about cutting wood to make a fire, I went for a walk to try and find a way down to the water’s edge
And nearly stumbled over a tortoise hidden in the long grass
Down at the water, the stream was seething with tadpoles
I made my way over the rocks back towards BigMog
But needed a hand from James to climb back up the steep bank.
We had seen an old bridge marked on the map and went for a walk along the mountain road to find it
Apparently it’s possible to drive over it but we didn’t fancy trying the Mog’s 7 tonnes on those wooden planks
More spectacular views surrounded us
Although the sheer drop down was a bit unnerving
Safely back at the meadow, we lit the fire and had a visitor
He was an impressive looking dog but so thin it was heartbreaking. I dug out our stash of dog food and gave him most of the bag
Unfortunately for us he ate it so quickly that it didn’t stay down very long and he had another go at it as we were trying to eat our dinner! The joys of nature.
And the joys of overland life – maintenance.
James spent the afternoon rotating BigMog’s wheels which meant having the fun of using our crane again
But less fun was finding the toilet backing up again and we couldn’t work out why. James investigated and found that the pipe from the toilet to the tank underneath was completely blocked with crystals
He cleaned it out in the stream, re-fitted it and all was well again. Who knew being an overlander meant so much time dealing with toilets….
Later that evening it dawned on us that it was Wednesday and the courier ought to have left the UK with our clutch by now but we had heard nothing from him. He had promised to send a message when he left and update us regularly as he drove across Europe.
Maybe he was intending to drive overnight to avoid the traffic. We tried to stay positive and hoped that we would have a message from him by morning.
Morning came and went and still nothing. I sent him a message asking whether he had left the UK yet – perhaps he had simply forgotten to let us know.
We hung around by our river hoping to hear from him and tried to enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside – but the uncertainty was weighing on us.
At 2pm we gave up and headed for the Pupa winery – hoping a bit of wine tasting would help to calm our nerves. We had been welcomed to stay overnight in their car park so that we could enjoy ourselves properly.
The winery looked very smart
And the wine and nibbles were good
But we decided to treat ourselves to dinner there and found the food very expensive and barely edible. We felt a little hard done by and our attempt to take our minds off the clutch had simply made our moods worse.
The next day was Friday and the courier was supposed to be arriving that afternoon. We had still heard nothing from him and were beginning to despair. We had no idea whether he had just forgotten to contact us or if something had gone wrong. We couldn’t help a fleeting worry that we would never see our clutch again but tried to push that thought to the back of our minds.
Forever hopeful, we set off back to Tirane just in case. Enroute we took a small detour to see the ‘Fier Ship’ – a house built out of concrete, nowhere near any water
It was very unusual but despite being abandoned for many years it must have been lovely in its day
We arrived back at our park-up place in the front yard of the lovely family
But it was now the middle of the afternoon and we still had no news. I had sent a couple more messages and tried calling but nothing. Just as a cynical test I called the courier again from a different number that he wouldn’t recognise. Strangely, he answered on the first ring.
He sounded stressed and said that one of his trucks had been impounded and he had been trying to get it released for the last two days. He was still in the UK but our clutch was apparently on a different truck with a different driver somewhere across Europe.
He told me that it would arrive on Sunday.
With Mercedes booked for Monday that would still keep our plans on track. But after the last three days of silence from him, and his tone of voice on the phone, we had serious doubts….
One response to “Meandering Across Albania”
Another cliffhanger but I seem to recall this one has a happy ending….!!!!