Another Long Walk: Day 1: I went to Albania?!

May 4, 2025: I was never supposed to walk today, but yet I found myself in a taxi, careening around sharp turns in the road on my way to Dhërmi and mentally preparing to start hiking as soon as I got out.

But before I get to that, let me catch you up on what happened. My friend, Karolina had been invited to a wedding in Albania by a friend of hers, and she very much wanted to go. But not content to fly across Europe just to attend a wedding and fly back, she searched around for trails that she might be able to hike while she was in the area and found one called the Southern Coastal Trail that ran, not surprisingly, along the southern coast of Albania through an area known as the Albanian Riviera. Then she asked if I would be interested in joining for the hike.

The Southern Coastal Trail in Albania was marked with these white-red-white markers. At least some of the time. Other times, it wasn't marked at all!

That sounded like an intriguing idea for me. Albania! I never really even had that country on my radar before, but sure, why not? It might be interesting!

Somehow, I ended up attrnding the wedding as well. Originally, the plan was that I would just "hang around" and do my own thing sightseeing or whatever, but Karolina got me an official invitation so hey, dinner!

It's a little odd when you have to pack a bag to handle both a wedding and a backpacking trip at the same time. My hiking clothes did not seem particularly suitable for a wedding, and wedding clothes didn't seem particular suitable for hiking, and hiking with wedding clothes in one's backpack is just crazy--even if I do know of one person who actually hiked in an actual wedding dress. I would not be wearing any wedding dresses, just to be clear, but looking through my clothes, I didn't really have anything that I thought would be suitable for both hiking and a wedding. What to do, what to do?

I wound up bringing a tie. That's an easy, lightweight way to look a little classier. =)

And then, instead of wearing my own hiking shirt to the wedding, I would up wearing Karolina's. She had bought a new shirt to hike in so it was fresh, clean and spotless--for now and with a tie, it seemed like something that I could get away with wearing to a wedding.

Crashing a wedding with a Wallace and Gromit tie and Karolina's purple hiking shirt. =)

We spent the night in Golem, on the coast of Albania, and woke up the next morning to go to Dhërmi and the start of the Southern Coastal Trail. I expected it to be an all-day thing. In fact, checking buses, I wasn't even sure if we could make it to the trailhead today. The fastest route on public transit according to Google wouldn't get us to the trailhead until about 8:00am the next morning!

But during breakfast, while chatting with one of the other wedding guests (Denim, who comes from South Africa),I learned that he was heading to Himara, the town right next to Dhërmi, and I decided to pool our money into paying for a taxi, which would get us to the trailhead in just a few hours.

I was thrilled about this. Turning a 24-hour trip on public transit into a three-hour taxi ride seemed like a good trade, and split with Denim, it was expected to cost only about 50 euros.

The ride went well. I fell asleep in the back seat for a little bit, but when I woke up, the views around Vlorë were amazing! Giant, towering, snow-covered mountains inland! Beautiful Mediterranean Sea to the coast! This was looking like a great idea!

We arrived at a sharp turn in the road that marked the official start of the Southern Coastal Trail. The taxi pulled over to let us out, and I gave Denim about 70,000 lek (about 70 euros) to cover half of the cost of the taxi plus a tip and "just in case" the driver demanded more than expected. For 70 euros, it still seemed pretty cheap for a three-hour taxi ride.

The cars were being rinsed with water from a creek running down this canyon.

Denim continued onward and we rearranged a few items in our packs and prepared to start hiking. At the trailhead, several cars stopped and sprayed their vehicles with water from a hose that pulled water out from a nearby creek. The free, local car wash, I guess?

The trailhead started at the edge of town, a few hundred feet above sea level, and immediately plunged down a steep canyon toward the Mediterranean Sea. There was no grand monument to mark the location, but rather just a simple sign pointing the direction with destinations and estimated travel times.

After adjusting all of my gear and putting on my hiking shoes, I started down the trail. This section of trail from the trailhead down to Dhërmi Beach was also known as the Mills Trail according to a sign, and had been used for hundreds of years by the locals and would pass by some old mills, a couple of historic churches and even an old, abandoned hydroelectric plant.

Along the way, I passed a herd of sheep and goats being directed by a shepherd. I also lost the trail on one occasion, following a prominent trail to the right over a large, red bridge that crossed over a small creek. It wasn't until I hit a dead end a few minutes later and I checked my GPS that I realized that the bridge lured me into the wrong direction. The trail never crossed the bridge, but rather continued straight on a smaller, slightly overgrown path.

Fortunately, it didn't take me more than a few minutes in the wrong direction and I quickly corrected.

A herd of sheep and goats blocked the path for a minute or so.

After about a half hour or so, I hit a paved road and followed it the rest of the way down to Dhërmi Beach and the Mediterranean Sea.

I stopped at the first restaurant I csne across. Or maybe it was the second restaurant, but basically I hadn't had lunch and I was hungry so I stopped for food more-or-less immediately as a late lunch and/or early dinner. They served Italian food. I guess the fact that Italian food was common was no surprise--Italy was just 50-or-so miles away across the Adriatic Sea--and I didn't realize it at the time, but it often turned out that Italian food outnumbered all the other types of restaurants combined! Good thing I like Italian, but where was all the Albanian food?!

Anyhow, I took a seat at the open-air restaurant and I tried to order the ravioli, but they told me that they were out of ravioli and it was no longer an option. *sigh* So after getting my hopes up, I settled on the risotto instead.

I spent time on my phone trying to figure out where we might be able to spend the night and found a campground a few miles ahead at Gjipe Canyon that seemed to be available and decided to shoot for that.

We ate lunch/dinner at this restaurant on the beach.

Afterwards, we stopped at a nearby market to pick up a few snacks for the trail. To call it a market is a bit of an exaggeration--it was more like a convenience store and a terrible place for hikers to resupply, but it was the best option we had at the time.

I followed Dhërmi Beach to its end, at which point I had to start scrambling over some large boulders where the cliffs plunged into the sea, and it started to become somewhat sketchy. I obviously wasn't the first person to travel this way, but it was clearly not a well-traveled path. I remember reading a description of the trail saying that areas were often overgrown and difficult, but this particular section seemed positively miserable and Karolina demanded that we turn back, convinced it had to be the wrong direction and this direction was too dangerous. I was optimistic the difficult section would soon end just as soon as we got around the headland, but I eventually relented and we eventually turned back to the beach.

We wandered up and down at the end of the beach looking for a trail or junction that we might have missed and, finding nothing, we asked one of the locals for directions. He was uncertain if there was actually any trail at all but suggested looking somewhere near some bunkers at the end of the beach.

The bunkers... indeed! Albania is somewhat famous (or infamous) for their ubiquitous bunkers. Hundreds of thousands of them had been built when the Hoxhaist government ruled from the 1960s to the 1980s--a colossal waste of money and resources. Plus the bunkers were never even used for their intended purposes. On average, the country had about 15 bunkers for every square kilometer in the country, and they would be a daily sight along the trail.

One of the infamous bunkers of Albania.

Anyhow, I found a bunker without any trouble, and found a small trail that led up to the bunker along the steep hillside. I followed it to the bunker where the overgrown trail continued onward and onward. Ah ha! I was on the right track again!

The trail climbed steadily and steeply, eventually reaching a high viewpoint near an old monastery before dropping back down on a gravel road to Gjipe Canyon. By the time I arrived, it was near sunset--quite a bit later than I had expected to stop for the day. I quickly checked in and set up camp for 500 lek each. Albanian lek was the local currency, which converted into about 5 euros (or about $5.50). Practically a bargain for a beach-side resort! ;o)

I walked out to the beach and made myself comfortable on a lounge chair where I watched the sky darken, the stars come out and caught up with email on my phone.

Karolina, I guess, decided to stay in camp and sleep early. I also had plugged in my other devices to charge--the campground was hooked up to solar power panels so we were able to charge devices with a provided outlet.

The solar panels that seem to run the beachside campground, and Gjipe Canyon looming inland.

Back on my phone, I got a message from Denim that the taxi driver shouted at him and tried to rip him off after he got dropped off in Himara. We expected the taxi to cost about 10,000 lek (about 100 euros), but because a tunnel was closed the taxi had to drive around it, it was now 13,000 lek (about 130 euros). Anyhow, it sounded like a lot of drama and while I felt sympathy for Denim, I was kind of glad I had missed the spectacle. =)

Interestingly, when I connected online, my phone gave me a "welcome to Greece!" message. It likes to welcome me whenever I enter a new country, but I had to admit being a little shocked to discover that I had somehow wandered into Greece. Clearly, I was not actually in Greece and had not been in Greece at any point, but I was close enough to Greece that my phone had connected to their network! There were several islands offshore that were visible that, according to Google Maps, actually belonged to Greece and I figured it might be connecting to one of them. I was actually a little surprised that I got any service at all in Gjipe Canyon since it was fairly primitive there (running on solar power and all), but I guess the cell phone signal must have been coming from those islands.

As darkness descended, I was surprised when I saw a few flashes of light nearby. Fireflies! I had no idea that there were fireflies in Albania! They weren't particularly thick or anything, just a few of them flitting around, but I so rarely get to see them, it's always a treat when I do. =)

When I eventually returned to the campsite, I had left the rainfly off my tent thinking it would be nice, but a forecast of rain definitely changed the calculations and I found myself putting the rainfly on at nearly 11:00 at night.

I took this photo of the moon while hanging out on the beach that evening.

And thus ended my first day on the trail..... In all, I completed about 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles). Pretty good for a day in which I had not expected to do any hiking at all!