After hitchhiking for three days, we took a short break from our spartan adventure in the city of Zagreb. We booked a room with two beds, and could finally sleep without the constant fear of being sent away (Munich Airport at night), robbed (a field in Slovenia), or taken into custody (an unfinished house in a rural German village). We got a much needed shower, went shopping for some food, and enjoyed the many beauties of Zagreb.

So far the trip has been everything I hoped for; we’ve heard an amazingly varied number of stories from the different drivers that took us along, we’ve had a bunch of new experiences, and seen many new things. Stories from a marketing guy for Porsche with a fetish for the fifties (his entire house is fifties style), a Turkish German who gave a whole speech against ‘Das Grosskapital’ after I mentioned Albania’s communist dictator Enver Hoxha, and many more. We’ve attended a Croatian gay parade, were denied shelter from a German Evangelical youth group (even after insisting we were Christians too!), and, again, much more. I’ve written it all down and will probably ‘blog’ about it when there’s more time, and when I don’t pay for internet by the hour.

From here, we haven’t quite figured out yet where to go. We might take the highway through Croatia, Serbia and ‘The Republic Formerly Known as Macedonia’, and enter Albania from the east. We’ve heard stories that this road is called The Most Dangerous Highway in the World’, though, so we’re a bit hesitant to do that. Highways are also rather uninteresting most of the time. Another option is to go through Bosnia, and travel over the many small roads it has, and enter Albania from the North. The final, and most likely option, is to get a ride to Split, go through Montenegro, a bit of Bosnia, and enter Albania from the north through the city of Podgorica. I think that’s what will end up doing.

 The most interesting bit of our trip is probably yet to come. We’ve noticed that it’s much more difficult to hitchhike in this part of the world, and as we go south the people will be progressively poorer, and the weather progressively hotter. It will be worth it though; I can’t wait to finally get to Albania!

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