So….where were we in our story?? Oh yes…the part where we stopped the car….………

We stopped the car at the end of the gravel road and standing there was our Albanian language wingman/co pilot. After a few words and hand shakes, we retraced our steps and turned east toward the Albanian border.

Once we got there it was odd, there was Montenegrin passport control/customs but no sign of Albanian customs. We just handed our passports over to what seemed like the Montenegro side, but no trace of Albania…Had we even crossed? I had no idea…….that is until my mobile phone connection went dead about 3km east of passport control.

I eventually figured it was safe to put my passport away, but not before I checked for that brand new minted stamp that said Albania. I eagerly opened my passport searching for a fresh new stamp, but nothing….I looked again, no stamp. I carefully examined each stamp, but still no stamp. After ten minutes of searching for the elusive Albanian passport stamp I gave up…after all I did not need a stupid stamp to show I was in Albania…

Although I had no official stamp, and there were no giant signs welcoming me to Albania, it did feel as if things were different. It is hard to pinpoint why I felt this. I can’t explain it really. Maybe it was the roadside mosque with its flashing green lights which somehow appeared to be rhythmically in sync (like one of those home holiday light shows you see during Christmas) with the call to prayer chant billowing from the top of the minarets? Maybe it was the even more insane driving than what I was used to in Montenegro? Whatever it was, no doubt I was…….in the words of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz “no longer in Kansas”…or Montenegro…..

Ten so minutes into our ride we pulled the car over. It was a bit perplexing…why were we pulling over? Were we picking up someone new? Well…no but that’s for a later part of the story…Co-pilot asked to see my phone so he could check the address of my AirBnB. Luckily, I am not some covid freak who freaks at a person breathing or touching their phone. Actually, once I had a waitress in Las Vegas at The Stratosphere tower restaurant (where I paid $60 for a fancy dinner) who refused to take my picture because restaurant policy “prohibited them from touching people’s phones”. I later learned that was a load of shit when the manager said this policy was phased out months ago. Nonetheless, I had no problem with him taking my phone for a bit. Whatever did the trick…

He looked at my phone and then got out of the car with it asking some random stranger how to find the address. Who needs google maps or navigation when you can just pull over and ask some random person on the side of the road?! They spoke for about two minutes. I had zero knowledge of Albanian but I could obviously tell it was related to directions to my Airbnb. This pattern of stop and ask, continued for another hour at least…..Ok….maybe that is an exaggeration, more like an hour and a half…….In the amount of time it took with our stop and ask stops, we could have easily driven back to Ulcinj and then maybe even to Bar.

I kept wondering why they did not just use google maps or some type of internet…. until it dawned on me that none of us had any internet. Eventually we got near the center and once again co-pilot leapt out of the car with my phone in hand asking for directions. This time he got lucky!! There were several college age girls walking down the street. Unlike most of the passerby’s we asked, they seemed to actually have a clue.

Sensing these girls were a goldmine of information and a ticket to finally offload me at my Airbnb, co-pilot requested one of them to get in the car and guide us. So, in hopped one of the girls. At this point the journey was under new management since co-pilot was literally taking a back seat to college girl. I now would be handing my phone over to her for examination.

She looked at the address and then called the phone number of my host, Nikko. I understood nothing but I did hear the word “tourist” so I knew she was talking about me……Eventually we did find the pedestrian mall and hooked up with my AirBnB host(s), Nikko and his son. Had we not picked up the student, I am convinced we would still be going around Shkroder in circles desperately trying to find my AirBnB.

Many in the US or the west may be reading this and thinking….”how were you not scared”??!! My answer…….is simple……after nearly a year of traveling all The Balkan states and ESPECIALLY in Albania I have come to learn the simple concept and/or mentality that is…. “controlled anarchy”…a term coined by my Albanian tour guide, Genti.

It basically means that however absolutely insanely anarchic things may be, there is some type of logic to it all. In The Balkans, you must throw out all your assumptions about how things work in the west. If you continue to cling to your western rigidity and refuse to accept The Balkans mentality of “controlled anarchy” it will only cause you MASS confusion and distress….

However, I will fully admit and plead guilty to the fact that I often times ignore this rule myself even though I know better.What exactly is this logic and how it is applied? I have yet to really learn! But to say the least I was happy to be at my AirBnB and to have left the controlled anarchy behind for another day.

THANK YOU FOR READING!