Embraced By Locals In Albania: Our Epic Van Life Adventure

We are headed over to Carnaval. This is pretty exciting. Now it rained all day and so we missed the downtown festivities so we were disappointed in that. But there's supposed to be a cool little party over here. And I have to tell y'all something funny. This is as dressed up and snazzy as I can get living in a van. And I've never wore this dress. I bought it in Brazil specifically for Europe knowing there might be times I had to step it up a notch. So I even pulled out a little bit of my old snazzy jewelry. Kurt tucked his shirt in and put on his vest from Guatemala. This is as fancy as she'll see us guys. So it is Saturday night and when we got here and she told us about this, Saturday night was completely booked up. Now we'll come tomorrow on Sunday night. But Linda, the lady that owns the campground here, her and her husband, she invited us to come over for a sneak peek tonight. And that we could do some filming and kind of see and we'd know what to expect. So we just did our initial walkthrough and the tables are set beautifully. And there's definitely like a little clown theme going on. It is different than the carnival that you might would experience in New Orleans. It doesn't seem to have the crazy party vibe. More of a relaxed adult dinner vibe. But everybody's been very kind so far. We're going to stick around for a little while and just watch a little bit of the people coming and going. Maybe get a shot of what they're eating. But we will be bringing you back tomorrow when we actually get to sit down and try some of the food at this great restaurant. Oh, thank you so much. You're so kind. Thank you. What do you say in Albanian? So we say cheers. All right. Thank you. Cheers. All right. You're supposed to sip this. This is not... I remember. I remember being told that. This is reki. It is a liquor, I believe, mostly made from fruits here in Albania and eastern, in most of Eastern Europe. We've been offered this and Kurt has tried it when we were in Croatia visiting Tim and his friends. And today Linda told us that her and her husband have owned this land and his family has owned this land since the 17 or 1800s. Is that right, Kurt? Yeah. And they had a reki. They used to make reki here. So they processed the reki here for apparently centuries. Now when I believe it happened right after World War II, I do not know the exact year, but this country fell under communist rule and a lot of families had to kind of leave their land behind, almost go into hiding. That is what happened with Linda and her family and probably most of her family. There were some very sad stories shared with us that we'll just leave it that it was a bad time here in Albania. So they left their land. But when communism fell in 1992, they were able to come back and regain ownership of their property. And instead of starting back up the reki manufacturing or processing, they decided to open the hotel. I think the restaurant might have been here. I'm not sure. But they kind of transformed the property and now it's this beautiful campground with a hotel attached. Beautiful cabins back in the back in this restaurant, which is amazing and an extremely welcoming and friendly place to come visit for this part of Albania. So we're really, really loving it here, guys. Oh, hi! Hi, what is this? Like some kind of traditional pancake. It's like fried dough. Oh, okay. But it's traditional. Also for the carnival. All right, what is it called? What's the name? All right, we got the preview and that all of a sudden, like all the people in costume started showing up. The music started playing. They started singing. I mean the energy and the place just absolutely came to life. We did get a little glimpses of the food we're not showing you, but it's authentic food we get tomorrow night and it looked delish. We are excited for the real deal tomorrow. Big party tomorrow. As you know, we've been here for several days and it is an amazing camp. There are over 60 sites all with water and electricity. The showers are hot and the facilities are clean. Now it's winter, but I can imagine that this pool is hopping during the summer. This property is steeped in history. In 1901, it was the home of the first Albanian alcohol factory where they made Reki and it was owned and operated by the grandfather of the family that still runs it today. During the communist regime from the 1940s to the 1990s, this place was abandoned and not in operation, but after communism fell, the family worked to transform this place into what you see here today. An amazing campsite with a hotel attached and a restaurant, which is where we are headed right now. Restaurant Lehenda. Hello. Hi, how are you? Wow, there's food everywhere. Look at this. All right guys, we're here with Fico and he's camping here also, so we're sharing a table with him, but the food has showed up and so we have some kind of salad. I don't even know what's in there. These are sort of a traditional biscuit or a snack. Like a fritter. Meats, cheeses. Oh, that one looks good. Little blue cheese. Look at these wraps and some sort of bread. Little focaccia breads back there and little rolls. I'm afraid we're going to eat way too much. All right, we got something like with phyllo dough, spinach, looks like some cheese in there. We know what the names of these things are, we just can't remember it, but that's that little lasagna pastry. Yeah, that is like lasagna. That's why I got two of them. Well, I think it is safe to say that we are having a great time here with the locals. The atmosphere is festive and the locals are truly welcoming and happy to share their culture. I even joined in with the dancing a bit, but I could not get Kurt to get up and join me, maybe because he was too busy laughing at me. Now, the singer tonight was truly, truly talented, guys. She was amazing. I wish I could let you hear a lot more of her singing, but we have to worry about getting copyright complaints from YouTube, so you're just going to get that short clip. The locals join in singing the traditional Albanian songs, and they were all happy to join in with the dancing, the young and the old alike. Costumes are for sure a part of the carnival celebration here, but the Venetian masks are truly a Škoda tradition. All around you can see the influence of the past here, where many different empires have ruled this area, but the Italian influence is the strongest. The Venetian empire left a mark on this area for sure. In fact, here today there is a large factory where they make handmade Venetian masks. Of course, a lot of those masks are shipped to Venice and all over the world, but you can see that many are kept right here as well. Škoda is the first city in Albania that officially celebrated carnival. It started in 1860. Carnival was banned during the communist regime, but it picked back up in the 1990s and it grows each year. Of course, locals participate, and many Albanians from all over the country come up to join in, but as you can see, it's starting to draw more and more people, international travelers alike. As the festivities start to come to an end here tonight, the echoes of music and laughter and colorful masks linger in the air, leaving behind memories of a vibrant celebration that transcends time. Škoda's carnival is not just an event. It is a testament to the city's rich cultural heritage and its enduring spirit. We can literally feel the deep-rooted tradition as we enjoy our front row seat to all of the fun. Thank you Škoda for an unforgettable night. We have been here for two hours. We have been eating food and food and food, appetizer after appetizer. We have drank a couple of too many drinks. We have danced. We thought dessert was coming, but no. I think we just got the main course. I was telling her it was lasagna. She didn't believe me. We have to eat more. It's all been delicious, but we are stuffed to overstuff. Just so I'm clear, I am not gloating, but I am pretty excited. Now I should probably wait till the job's over, but we're here in Albania. We stopped in at this glass repair store. They said they could change out our windshield and it would only take about an hour to do so. Now if you guys remember, we got this chip in the windshield all the way back in Argentina about four months ago. Now when we went in France to get price checks on replacing the windshield, they wanted 800 euros and above and some of you guys commented that in the UK that was a pretty normal price for a windshield. Guess what guys? Here we're going to get it done for 270 euros. Again, fingers crossed. Sometimes you never know how this stuff's going to work out, so we're optimistic, but they're started and this is going to happen. All right, there goes the windshield. Wow, look at that guys. Out with the old. Look at that. Crystal clear. All right, they're putting the goop around the outside of the new windshield. I think it's going to be going in soon. Look at that guys. Look at that clear, beautiful, brand new windshield. We still got a little bit of tape holding it up that they said we can take off tomorrow. My future's so bright, I got to wear shades. We do need to pull out our sunglasses. All right, the main thing guys is the big chip that we got when we were in Argentina is gone. Also, there was a bunch of scratches on the inside of the windshield. We had a tent on there and well this doesn't, so it's a lot clearer and a lot better. We are excited to have a new windshield. 27,000 lek, which is a little more than 270 dollars. So good. All right, now we had to sit there for a while, so it's getting late in the day. We need to find somewhere to camp for the night. A giant bag full of all kinds of veggies and a little bit of fruit. Look at that. At a roadside vegetable market. What was the grand total? 14 dollars mussel manos. Pretty good price considering all the good stuff we got. So we're heading out towards the east side of town where we hope we can find a campsite along the beautiful Kerr River. K-I-R. But one thing you have to see when you come to Skoda is the bridge. It's Messi Bridge. M-E-S-I. And it translates, it translates to the bridge in the middle. Now it was built in 1770 and it's got lots of cool little archways and it's just a quick little landmark to stop off and take a look at. So let's go see Messi Bridge. So I love how they use these rocks to make the roads, but I would not want to walk on this with fancy shoes. This is an ankle breaker for sure. But look at this. I would say it's probably 10 feet wide, maybe 11. Got the walls on each side constructed out of stones helping to hold everything in place. And they use the long skinny rocks kind of like a center line, but I would imagine that is just to help them you know, keep the rocks in line, so to speak for lack of a better word. But I can just, I can't help it but dork out on how they used to build these things when they didn't have equipment, right Kurt? Yeah. It's fascinating. The stonework in this region is absolutely incredible and the water is crystal clear blue all through here. I don't care if you're in a river or the ocean or a lake. It is just beautiful clear blue and history abounds. So cool guys. Now when I was reading a little bit about this bridge before we got here, they said that it constructed the one big center arch first and then connected it to the riverbank with the smaller arches. That was the technique the guy that built this bridge used. But it's time to head back the short walk to our van. We still got to find somewhere to sleep tonight Kurt. Yeah we do before it gets dark. I say we drive up along this beautiful blue river. See if we can find a spot. So we're gonna follow this river out a little ways and see if we can get outside of town and maybe find a place to camp alongside the river. But on our way out here not only are we passing some farmland and some little houses but we're going over our ricketiest bridge so far in Europe. Now to be completely honest it does not compare to the Pantanal Bridges in Brazil and a few other bridges from Latin America. But that is one that made us stop and think about driving across it because it was thin and it was narrow and it had no walls on the side. Well and it was concrete and it looked old. Yeah. But we've been chomping at the bit to kind of get out of the regions less explored to get off the beaten tourist trail and I think we have succeeded. Now to see if we can find somewhere to sleep out here who knows but we're gonna give it a try. Anytime you're on these narrow roads one lane roads that are meant for two-way traffic and you come up on a particularly tight spot you always hope nothing's coming and luckily there the biggest truck that we were coming up on and we're gonna meet somewhere really narrow he did a little bit at the backup so we didn't have to. We got lucky. I am grinning ear to freaking ear because we just came around a curve and came up on a husband and wife up here in the mountains herd their goats and sheep down the road there were teeny tiny little babies one of the goats was eating grass the the husband and wife were super friendly that's the kind of stuff you don't get to see unless you travel in a van guys on these scary little tiny roads that was awesome wasn't it Kurt? That was incredible and I gotta tell you driving through these old houses some of them are kind of in ruins some of them are still standing but you can see the years and then this tranquil blue river is just a stunning backdrop to this windy road and guess what guys in front of us we have a beautiful mountain range as well so really good call on coming up this road stone. Yeah now we can't go all the way to the end of this road it goes deep up into the tall mountains where everything is still frozen over and the roads are closed but I can give you a sneak peek to somewhere deep in the future we will be back out here because there is a hike at the end of this road literally the end of the road where you hike to the end of another road through some beautiful mountains and valleys it's called the Teff hike and oh this is never good this is what you dread on a road like this all right back to our regularly scheduled programming at the end of this road where we will eventually get to one day is a hike that Kurt will do he has put it on his list of bucket list hikes it's called the Teff hike t-e-t-h and we'll be back but this time we're just about as far as we're going to go because you start to get too far up into the mountains and they close the road for the winter but hopefully we can find a place to park before the road closes we are home before the night and this place is better than I could have imagined holy cow this is an awesome wild spot to camp for the night I had heard that it existed but when we were coming out here on this road I was afraid that it was a figment because there were no wide spots but this is an awesome place and we're fixing to show it to you and this is where we're going to sleep so you'll get to see it even more tomorrow because we are playing on these rocks by the river for sure ah look at this what you do what you do baby doll what you do huh what you do sometimes we act like a fool we're troublemakers sometimes we try to be cool only takers stop for a minute stop and breathe for a minute who you want to be for me feel so moody try to open up your mind sometimes you'll be just fine uh and sometimes we laugh when we're afraid sometimes we smile when we're mad and sometimes we wished we'd never said stop for a minute stop and breathe for a minute it is time to leave our campsite drive back down this windy narrow mountain road with lots of no passing zones I know Kurt's already told you it was a great campsite the kiddies loved walking on all the rocks I loved walking on all the rocks now there's a place about a half a mile down that we hope we can find a place to pull off on the side of the road and walk down to the river because it's supposed to be beautiful uh little slot canyons with little rapids running through them but to be honest I don't know if able to pull it off but if we were able to pull it off you're looking at that footage right now and if not well you're looking at our dash cam as we leave and weren't able to park but this blue river kerr k-i-r that's the name of this thing the blue is stunning and I don't know if it'll come through in the video or not I sure hope it does crystal clear with a turquoise slate shade to it rapids big rocks beautiful mountains Albania is something else and with that guys we're gonna wind this video down we will see you in a few days from somewhere just a little farther south here in the beautiful country of Albania cheers guys if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on Instagram to see what's going on in between videos cheers guys