We’d spent an entire afternoon in Gjirokaster trawling our paper map, Komoot and google satellite to trace out our route to Lake Ohrid. Gjirokaster is set steeply on a mountainside with another chain opposite. We could see a tempting track winding up the mountainside opposite so we decided to start from there. But from then on, everything was deeply uncertain. No one map seemed to indicate the same thing. A bridge- was it still there?- we weren’t sure. Oh what happens to that track- it just stops? But here it seems to continue. Is this a track or an un-rideable footpath? Our local hosts were lovely but couldn’t speak any English and weren’t able to help us with our route.

Unlike in France or England, where you have A roads, B roads, tiny lanes, farm tracks, walking trails (something for everyone), it’s hard to trace out an alternative itinerary to the main road in Albania. There tends to be one asphalted main road, and then perpendicular non tarmaced tracks that link the villages on the mountainside to the main road. The problem is, the track stops at the last village and after that it’s unknown. There might be a goat trail that crosses the mountain but there might be nothing at all. Add to that the fact that the maps are often from the soviet era so the tracks may not even exist anymore and we’ve got a headache. But we don’t want to cycle the whole of Albania along a main road being overtaken by lorries so we attempt tracing out an itinerary and decided to go for it and see.

Morning of departure, we had planned to get up early and set off early but by the time we’d had breakfast at the guesthouse, posted some letters, taken out cash at the ATM, stopped at the bakery and then the supermarket for provisions the sun was already blazing down on us.

We climbed away from Gjirokaster sweating under a relentless heat along a shadeless tarmac road. It was beautiful, through a well kempt village with iron gates and vines, past multiple bunkers, dry scrubby outcrops - but far too hot. 

The last few bends we were keen to see what lay ahead of us on the otherside. Over the mountain pass, the environment changed. We arrived onto a high open plain. A single shepherds hut was nestled under a tree. A mounted map announced to us that we were arriving into a national park. And we were leaving the asphalt.

The track was immediately rugged, rocky and furrowed as we slowly clunked downwards on our bikes. The steeper sections wore down our brake pads relentlessly. We crossed paths with a few shepherds with their goat herds (and aggressively protective dogs) and a couple of pick up 4x4s. Arriving into a more verdant valley we crossed a couple of villages, stunning in their remote archaicness.

Eventually we arrived onto a wider track that took us into the village of Sheper. We were surprised to find such pristine houses and a huge very delapidated crumbling church in such a small remote village. We crossed paths with an older woman tending to her cow. Scarf covering her head and lacking most teeth she shook our hands and, if I understood correctly, exclaimed questioningly with delighted wonder what we were doing here and not at the beach?!

We reached our turning point to climb over the next mountain chain to Permet. But our wider rideable track petered out to nothing more than a goat track. We scrambled through for a little while before accepting that it would be impossible to carry on with our bikes. We were forced to reassess our maps and comtemplate our options. We weren’t keen on going back the way we came. We could follow the wider track further south into Greece and then loop back round into Albania but we would be joining the main road. We could head north up the track and try a different passage but there was very little certainty that we would be able to pass over into the next valley where we were heading. Greece or north?

We decided to sleep on it and camped for the night in the valley under a spectacular sky of glittering constellations and the cloudy Milky Way.