Tuzi and Albania
It is hard to believe, but there is no direct public transportation between Podgorica and Albania. I guess this is mostly because of the bad relations between the two countries. There is train track with freight trains that go from Podgorica to Tirana (The capital of Albania), but there are no passenger trains. And there are no busses connecting the two capitals. So the travelers who have stayed at my hostel have found other ways to get to Albania and Tirana. One day I decided to try to cross the border myself to have a look, take some pictures and write about the experience. So here is my little photo journal from that trip.
I later found out that Tuzi is a Sister City with Rochester Hills, Michigan. I saw this on Wikipedia but I wanted to confirm it. So I looked up Rochester Hills and found the Library Website. Then I saw they had a live chat option and I tried it and chatted with someone who works there. She confirmed that Rochester Hills and Tuzi are Sister Cities. Here is the website for the Sister City program. I heard about Sister Cities when I lived in Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne is a Sister City with a city in Germany. Here is a copy of our chat:
My first trip to Tuzi and Albania
Getting on bus 41/42. You find it just outside the bus station in Podgorica, since it is considered a local bus. The bus station is reserved for busses traveling longer distances.
I went with Carissa who was a volunteer with the Teen Suicide Prevention Program. We took this next picture when we reached Tuzi, about 20 minutes after leaving Podgorica. These are some friendly tudents we talked to on the bus who spoke English well. There is more about them later!
This was bus number 45 I think. I am not sure where it came from!
This is a sign saying it is the Bujela river (rijeka means river) It could use just a little cleaning up...
I guess Bozaj (pronounced Bozhai) is the name of the border crossing.
Still in Tuzi...
I noticed these children performing some kind of religious ritual. After having just seen the mosques, this was a bit of a sad reminder of the ethnic conflicts here and of how early young people begin to be divided into separate groups and beliefs. But for now the two groups are living in the same city peacefully. This is one of the reasons it is interesting to visit Tuzi, a city which is mostly Muslim and Albanian.
He is cleaning a can. I am not sure what they are used for.
From these university students we found out that they were practicing for a Carnival competition that night.
If you look carefully you can see a woman dressed as a Catholic nun
I was told this is a Catholic church. I don't remember seeing this kind of symbol on the top before.
Montenegro is a land of contrasts!
We were going to see if this was a real American style Home Depot but then we met some highschool students.
Just now I looked at the Home Depot website to see if it was the same spelling and logo. This is what I found. So I guess it isn't really a Home Depot from the USA!
Here are the students we met. The funniest thing was that one of the students gave me his email address and when I gave him a the bus schedule to write his address on the back, he saw his sister's name and said "That is my sister!" Then I explained that I had talked to her on the bus and I showed him the picture. Then his friend said, "The other girl is my sister!" I think he was telling the truth. Such is life in a small town!
The high school students tried to find us a ride to the border but the driver wanted the same price as everyone else -- 10 euros. So we decided to walk a little further before making a decision. As we were walking a guy drove up to us and said with an American accent that sounded a bit like it came from the Bronx in New York, "You need a ride?" I talked to him and found out his name was also Steve and he had lived about 20 years in the USA. He said he would take us for the same price and I decided to accept his offer since I knew it would be interesting to talk to him.
He said anyone could call him and if he has time he would take them also. His number is 069 206 735
Here are the pictures along the way from the car.
This shows how narrow the highway is. In many places two trucks can't pass each other unless one pulls off to the side like this. Steve's car is parked off to the left.
Back on the road again.
Some trucks full of pigs going to Albania.
Cows on the road. A usual thing in Montenegro, according to Anton!
The border control on the Montenegrin side.
These next pics were taken when we parked the car just before the border control buildings.
After we took a few, a border police guy game over and told us not to take pictures, but he was pretty relaxed about it and didn't make us show him the ones we already took or to delete them or something as I have heard is done at some border crossings. For example, I remember a friend of mine had to turn over his whole roll of film to the police in the USA once evenb before 911.
Next are the pictures from Albania
It was interesting to us to see English on the signs at this gas station in Albania.
We walked a little more and found some kind of war memorial. Then these sheep and a pig came over to join us.
This reminds me that there is a train connection from Podgorica to Tirana, the capital of Albania. But there is no passenger train, only freight. It would be good for both countries if they could cooperate to get a passenger train running.
Around 5 pm we started to walk back to the border. We passed thru border control and then walked for a while. I was trying to call Steve to come pick us up but my calls weren't going thru. It started getting very dark so we decided to turn around and try to get a ride at the border crossing where there was more light. But as we walked we tried to catch a ride hitchhiking and the second or third car stopped and picked us up. They were two nice Albanian guys who were going to the Carnival in Tuzi. Here is their pic.
Now we are back in Tuzi
After watching the Carnival competition for a while we started looking for the bus back to Podgorica. A man helped us by finding a private taxi driver who was going back to Podgorica and charged us just 2 euro, almost the same as the 1.80 we would have paid on the bus. But he got us there a lot faster. I think it was only about 8 minutes!
So that was my first trip to Tuzi and Albania from Podgorica.