Tirana, a storm & the rats
I wasn’t making plans too far in advance…I was working off of feelings, but when booking flights, last minute means a price gouge. I booked a one way flight to Bucharest Romania & another flight out four days later to Barcelona. I couldn’t like Bucharest so much that I’d want to stay…I committed to the next flight & I was determined to get to Spain.
Once the bus took me back up to Tirana from my visit with the “K’s”, I walked the 1.5 hours back to my apartment, showered, changed & went straight back out to finish off my time in Tirana with a another long walk up to Dajti Ekspres, with a gondola ride up to the top of a small mountain for a view of the city. Getting there is no easy feat & speaking of which, mine are starting to kill me. I walk through neighborhoods that house the absolute worst infrastructure I’ve seen yet. Cement buildings built in the communist era that have no windows & the buildings are crumbling into ruins. The people I pass look desperate & miserable.
When I finally make it to the gondola & learn that the damn thing has been closed as they are expecting inclement weather. FUCK. Every single day the weather forecast has predicted rain & it hasn’t rained, so I didn’t believe it when I saw rain on the horizon. Argh! I turn around & start to walk back into the heart of the city.
I felt a few rain drops, look up & all hell breaks loose on top of me. You can’t even call the amount of water flowing from the skies rain…it’s an entire lake coming straight down & my eyes immediately fill with icy liquid! I’m instantly drenched & I don’t mean a little bit. The sky turns so dark it’s midnight within five minutes. I have to find shelter, but luck-of-the-draw, this all happens in a residential neighborhood & I’ve got slog for a ways to find a restaurant to hunker down in. When I finally get to a street with some stores, I find respite under an overhang on the front step of a fabric store & try to wipe the water off my face so I can see…I take my glasses off, but I can’t find anything remotely dry enough to polish them with. I see through the store window there is a woman sitting there & she doesn’t invite me in, instead sticking an umbrella through the door, she says abruptly, “GO!”, giving me the umbrella. I thank her, pop the rickety thing up, & continue on in search of a restaurant to wait this bitch of a storm out in.
When I finally find a place, they aren’t too eager for me to slop myself in, but I smile & they usher me to a seat. It’s a fish restaurant & a pretty nice one, so I order a beer, a greek style salad & a pasta dish with shrimp & some kind of white fish…basically paying them for the privilege of sitting for a while. The staff all stand at the window & watch whats going on outside & what’s going on is that the streets are flooding.
Do you know what happens when the drainage system cannot handle the hard-fast rain? It backs up. Do you know what is down in the those drainage ditches & sewer systems in third world countries? Rats. When I finally finish dinner & the rain is coming half as hard, I make a break for it & the water is ankle deep everywhere. Cars have been abandoned in the streets. It’s mayhem. I’m in mayhem. I’m in rat mayhem. OMG they are everywhere. The rats are swimming like champions in the filthy water & jumping onto anything high enough to be dry. Mildly losing my mind, I start running…water splashing up to my chin as I lift my feet up hoping I don’t step on a critter. A Landrover drives by & sends water cascading like a tsunami over a lady pushing a baby stroller. I wince & go over & ask if she’s ok, but she is crying & frantically keeps on going.
When I finally make it back to my apartment & hike the 6 flights of stone steps up, I take my clothes off immediately, shaking & shivering my way into a warm shower. I guess everyone else must of thought of doing the same thing because the water is stone cold. I’m so nonplussed by this that I just laugh. I’m leaving tomorrow & I really can’t wait.
Smell ya later Albania!
