Day 60: Librazhd, Albania

Stats... 79.60km in 5hrs 10mins. We set our alarm for 5.30 am and were quick to turn it off as we were sharing in a dorm of 8 beds. After showering to wake ourselves up and a couple of croissants we made it on the road by 6.30am. The road out of the city was fairly narrow but there was far less traffic than our route in. Unfortunately the road started to climb immediately after setting off and stopped climbing after about 25km! The scenary was beautiful and as it was still early the temperature was pleasant. We passed several bunkers that are made from concrete and iron rods to shelter families in the war and are indestructable as tried and tested with a tank. These apparantly are now referred to as love bunkers as the majority of locals like to visit these bunkers for romantic sessions! After a few photo stops at the summit we descended the 1,000m altitude down to Elbasani. This was quite an industrial town on the outskirts but the centre was typically bustling in the heat of the midday. We stopped for pizza lunch and cool beverages. Kris opted for a large beer in the 37 degrees heat where we were already exhausted and dehydrated... not too sensible! After nearly 2 hrs rest we filled up with ice cold water and set off expecting to climb all the way to our destination for the day. However once we set off, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the road actually followed a river through a valley surrounded by extremely high mountains. We sailed through the rest of the journey into Librazhd where we met Amanda, another peace core volunteer that we were in touch with via our 4th July party friends. We chatted in her appartment for a bit then chilled out while she went to her two hour teaching class. We all went to dinner and dined on traditional Albanian dishes and had an early night ready for another early start. We found out today that when Albanians nod they mean no and when they shake their heads they mean yes! This now makes lots of attempted communication over the past few days make much more sense!