Rain and wind: these have become constants of life now, their worst nightly excesses dispelling all notion of proper and uninterrupted slumber. The former beats down on the tent fabric with such force that we fear the drops might bore holes through it, whereas the latter like a monstrous hand reaches under the fly, lifting it up and flapping it about while a fine rain mist blows in underneath it to pass unchecked through the mesh siding of the tent itself and splash upon our faces. This is our reality, has been ever since we crossed into Crna Gora - and so it is that this morning, the ferocity of the storm having reached a head overnight, we awaken to the sight of a powerful stream flowing through one corner of the tent. By fortunate and quick action, we have managed to preserve the sleeping bag from this and keep it dry. The alternative would be disastrous - out of our conviction that the tent could be sufficiently well erected each night to protect against rain and damp, we chose down sleeping bags for their superior warmth. At this hour, the rain is still so fierce that we dare not exit the tent; instead, we pass some time in the relative safety inside watching Robot Chicken...
...but the rain eventually abates slightly, so we venture outside to inspect the surroundings. What we see is wholly unlike anything else we have experienced so far this trip: a gushing stream of filth-strewn brown water flows down from the mountains carrying dirt, rock, garbage, and likely not an inconsiderable amount of feces from grazing animals above to wash over the ramp down which we brought our bikes last night, making an impassable mess of it. Meanwhile, the sheer volume of water being discharged into the sea multiplies the force of the waves, causing them to crash well up the beach from where normal tides would carry them. We must move the tent immediately or risk losing it into this watery mess - and it does not escape our notice that, had we pitched the tent a mere two metres south, it would have already been swept out to sea. What to do? The ramp, as noted, is unfit for bringing the bikes back up to the road - and the road itself flows as though it were a river. Here our good luck intercedes once more...
...for the torrential stream of water has thankfully left a small fringe of gravel on the side of the ramp, sufficient to carry the bikes across and up the adjoining stairs into the abandoned carcass of a half-constructed hotel. We pack everything up quickly, hardly noticing the rain when it picks up again - the need to evacuate is acute, for the waves get worse and worse with every minute. We run up the stairs with the bikes; but here I am not quite cautious enough, for the flimsy flip-flops I wear have no traction on the wet tile of the hotel and the site is strewn with leftover construction materials. In my haste I step on a board with exposed nails, and one of the nails punctures the flip-flop to injure my foot slightly; surprised, I stumble and fall with the bike, but fortunately do not discover any more sharp objects in my descent. Cursing and swearing, I right the bike and rush down to grab more of our personal effects...
...and, all our stuff at last in the safety of the abandoned hotel complex, we set to improving our situation. First order of business: food, to which end we eat the last of the nuts in our snack jar - not much, but enough to provide a spot of nutrition until more can be found. This is followed by a quick drink, consuming the little water left in our bottles. Immediate needs taken care of, we fix Handlebar Bag - it came with a bracket system that is sadly incompatible with my thicker handlebars, so that we were forced to MacGyver a method to attach it with any straps and zip-ties at hand; this ad-hoc attachment weakened yesterday so that the bag was no longer kept off the front wheel, and we have been carrying it in our IF Bag (Incidental Food Bag, a drawstring and cloth bag carried on the back) ever since. This is soon taken care of, and we are off; again, our good luck holds and there is a passable stretch of road from the back of the hotel to the main road. This is still too steep and treacherous to bike up, so we must walk back up to the highway...
...and the highway itself immediately starts climbing into the next town, and all the while rain pours down with ever more force. We reach the town drenched, cold, and disheartened from our efforts thus far - if this is what it takes to cover 2 km, how will we ever make it out of Albania? - but at least there is a market to purchase food. The storm has knocked out power all down the coast, and the store is operating on candlelight for now; we resolve to purchase only things that do not require refrigeration, for there is no telling in what stage of rot the rest might be. Our hunger finally satisfied to reasonable degree, we continue on despite the rain; there is no choice, no cover from it, and we must get out of here before we run out of LEK or become so mired in this storm that all our gear is ruined or, in our supreme desperation, decide that the whole thing is no longer worth it. Somehow - and we reflect upon this at length - somehow, despite the extreme hardship we are currently facing, and the remoteness of the possibility that we will manage to extract ourselves from it today, we retain a bit of good humor, and even allow ourselves a sliver of hope...
...which is expanded significantly when, shortly up the road, three Albanian men in a large van stop just in front of us and inquire as to whether we need help; the answer is emphatically Yes! We load the bikes in the back and kneel there with them, shivering in our damp coldness until finally, with the relative heat of the car, our fingers regain some scant colour. We are happy indeed that these fine men showed up when they did; the stretch we cover in the van is mountainous, so much so that crossing it would easily have taken a couple of hours even in good weather, and we are in no shape to attempt such a feat in the still-torrential rain. Some 15 km up the road, they turn off the road for one of the beachside towns and ask if this is our direction; but it is not, our intended path being instead for Sarandë, and so we load our bikes back out of the van and set to riding again. By this point, it is a short downhill jaunt into the medium-sized town of Himarë - although it is nearing 1000, we are still cold enough that the prospect of continuing immediately in earnest is less than inviting. We seek refuge in a small café, warming up over not exactly satisfying cups of instant tea mix while we marvel at the extent of the storm: here, too, the power is out, and every stretch of sea is streaked with a line of brown filth flowing down from the mountains. These lines snake out into the water for kilometres, and the waves are no less fierce than they were this morning on the beach. Now a bit warmer, we head outside to take advantage of a brief period of sunlight, eating a loaf of bread purchased from the market with some more of our olive oil from Montenegro.
The sunlight does not last long, though - and there is still much distance to cover; we have barely biked 5 km today, disregarding the van ride. We set on our way out of Himarë, willfully ignoring the gathering grey above. It is going to rain again, of that we are certain; there is no avoiding it here. On our way out of town, we are pestered by a woman standing outside her hotel...
"Do you need rooms?" "No. We're going to Sarandë." Actually, we are hoping to go beyond that, but surely admitting that would appear a mark of the deepest insanity... "Sarandë is far. Sleep here!"
We refuse politely, knowing that we have not the cash to pay for it and no hope of finding a functioning ATM in the midst of a coastal blackout, and head out on our long ride to Sarandë. The road is tortuous; whereas the Croatian coastline was characterized by long, gradual hills that despite their length were easy to surmount, the hills here are so steep that we struggle to ride up them even on lowest gear. It is hard going, but we finally get over the first hill out of Himarë and find a relatively flat stretch of coast beyond it. This is good news; perhaps we can make some distance today after all. It doesn't help that we carry the additional weight of our thoroughly waterlogged clothes...
...but the hills return in full force after another 15 km, and the going is once more incredibly slow. To make matters worse, the storm's passage inland drives a wind nearly as fierce as those encountered along the Croatian coastline - except this is a headwind, whereas in Croatia the wind mostly hit us from the side as it swept down off the mountains. It is so fierce that we must occasionally walk, but we are determined to bike as much of it as possible. This is the first time we have had to walk our bikes uphill since the calanques, and in that case we knew exactly what we were getting into; it is a different beast altogether to know that you must keep going despite everything, and to have no idea whatsoever of what awaits your exhausted body around the next corner or over the next hill. Our slow but steady travels take us through Borsh, the road ever climbing so that we are forced to inch past the trucks and vans marooned in the village...
...and past one tractor. Its driver signals us with a thumbs-up, a reassuring sight even now - it does wonders to know that everyone is so kind, that if we were truly unable to keep on they would help us without hesitation, and that even as we pass through they wish us good luck in our near-impossible endeavour. We keep going through the town, our spirits buoyed ever so slightly by the signal of good faith - and we are soon met further up the hill by the same tractor, the driver making us to understand by his gestures that we may hang on to the trailer out the back for an improvised lift up the hill! This is, hands-down, the most bizarre means of travel we have resorted to in all our five months thus far - here we are, still somewhat cold, every bit of our clothing soaked and filthy beyond wearability, hanging on for dear life to a trailer out the back of a tractor with one hand while with the other we frantically keep balance. Even though we must also pedal to keep balance, it feels just a bit easier to climb the hill with help. At one point there is a sprinkling of rain, and the driver - without stopping on these treacherous and often guardrail-less mountain roads, mind you - removes both hands from the wheel to produce an umbrella. He drops this at one point, but the tractor is moving slowly enough that we are able to detach ourselves, pick it up, and pedal like madpersons back to him. In his gratitude, he offers to help us up subsequent hills if we should need it...
...but we wave our potential goodbyes in the town at the top of the hill, and quickly outdistance him on the downhill ride. The next hill is steep, but we are stubborn, determined beyond belief and sanity, and we power up it so quickly that he is unable to catch up. Every minute spent waiting is wasted, and we must get to safety somehow. The road climbs and drops, climbs and drops, each cycle draining more of our energy, more of the scant energy that we have nothing more than a canister of chocolate-hazelnut-cream-filling cookies from a small market in Himarë to replenish. Although it may seem foolish, this canister is a necessary luxury in this madness, well worth spending the majority of our LEK to procure; every time we stop to eat a few, our spirits lift yet again and we are able to conceive of going forward still. Up, up, up into Përparim and Nivicë, and then...
...yes! It is unthinkable, but we have reached the last valley into Sarandë, a 20 km stretch of less tortuous road into Sarandë. This valley is an astonishing sight: sunlight splayed across the closer hills, dark storms blotting out the other side. By looking ahead, we comprehend that there is no escaping the storm - we are voluntarily biking towards it. Just before the fringe of the storm, we happen upon a fountain which according to the locals is potable. This is fortunate indeed, for we are almost out of water by this point! We fill the bottles, apply our rainjackets, press on through the inevitable rain, and finally reach Sarandë by 1530 - late, it is true, but nearly half an hour before we had projected on our slow way up the hills before the valley.
Once in Sarandë, there is the matter of finding our way to Greece. By our map, it is still some 40 km to either border crossing, and making a mistake in navigation would almost certainly doom our efforts to escape while it is still daylight. We stop at a petrol station, using our map and the names of places to communicate our destination to the attendant. He asks where we are from; upon hearing that we are from America - for Canada is lumped in with the US here under this blanket term - he smiles, says "Obama", and wishes us best of luck on our way. We are soon on the coastal road towards Greece, which quickly takes us to a poorly-signed fork; neither way indicates Greece anywhere on the sign, and the two branches lead around opposite sides of a rather sizeable lake. After some deliberation and eating of cookies, we pick the inland fork...
...which leads us to a flat stretch of road that has fortunately been laid at just the right elevation to avoid the general flooding ensuing from this massive storm. Despite the ever-fierce wind and a smattering of rain, we make decent time across this stretch.
We are greeted by a rainbow on the other side, so bright that its inverted double is also visible. What a magnificent sight - a sign, perhaps, that everything will somehow work out, although we can hardly discern how...
...and up, around, over, down, up, through, along 20 km more of road, past stunning scenery made even more so by the stark contrast between storm and sun, against strong wind and in frequent rain and despite growing exhaustion, powered by a dwindling stash of cookies that is finally extinguished at a petrol station where one more hotel manager, seeing our desperate and despicable state, presses us to take a room - but there is no more Albanian currency in our pockets than there was the last time someone made such an inquiry. We keep on, turning inland at last on the final 20 km to the border. Pavement becomes spotty, pockmarked, rough and, finally dropping all pretense of paving, transforms into gravel road punctuated by puddles, washed over with large rocks brought down in landslides from the surrounding mountains - and, once that is finished, the wind picks up and it starts to get dark. We ride on, up the slow long uphill, cursing in the rain that once more stymies our valiant efforts to retain heat and sanity. In the again-gathering storm, the lights in the village ahead blink out in unison - power was restored, apparently, but not with enough stability to withstand this renewed burst of bad weather...
...and up, past the base of the town, around the next hill...
Against all odds, the border crossing post stands before us, a symbol of our gargantuan efforts to reach this point, a beacon of hope when hope had almost disappeared. We roll up, looking pitiful with our drenched jerseys and, judging by the hair on my arms, more than a little chilled from the constant rain and wind; we extract our passports from their still-dry location in the wallet, protected by the waterproof lining of Handlebar Bag, and hand them over for inspection. The officials look them over, casting a questioning eye at these two haggard travellers showing up in the last shreds of daylight with their ratty-looking bikes and garbage-bag raincoats - but they nevertheless admit us...
...at which point the rain picks up fiercely and we are forced to wait under the awning. One of the officials takes this excuse to step out and take a look at our vehicles, which he quickly notes have no lights to see by. He registers his disapproval, which we take as a sign that we cannot continue - so we duck into a less visible corner, remove our wet clothing, and grab any bits of still-dry clothing that we can find in our panniers. We each have exactly one outfit suitable for wearing, so we put these on and prepare to sleep under the awning. First, however, it would seem prudent to ask of the border guards whether this is permitted...
...which it is not, as they inform us; they are not a hotel, and we will have to ride 10 km to the first town past the border. We have no Euro yet, having spent the last of it in Montenegro to avoid carrying too much cash through Albania. The guards are, however, happy to extend their clemency so far as to permit us to wait out the rain under the awning - so we head back to the bikes, more than a little dejected that we must bike yet again but resolved to finish this by any means possible. We change back into our soaking cycling clothes, shivering a little as the clammy fabric touches skin that had just begun to warm up again in our relatively dry clothing...
...and here we receive a monumental bit of luck: the border guards have conferred amongst themselves. Whether out of pity for our terrible condition or impatience to see us gone from their pristine guard station, they ask the drivers of the first sufficiently large vehicle whether they might be able to load two cold, wet bikes and their cold, wet owners into their pickup truck. The drivers accept, and we are soon passing through Greek customs in the back. They speak only a few words of English, but are pleased indeed to hear that we can passably pronounce the Greek word for beer. We succeed in explaining some details of our journey, and they express astonishment using the only English words they have for it: "Crazy hobby." This they repeat at every opportunity, especially when they learn that two well-educated students of computer science have voluntarily chosen to be out biking in this storm at this hour...
...and they let us off in the first town, which is indeed 10 km away as the border officials had projected - but not before giving us a package of cookies and leading us to the house of their friend who is glad to rent out a room in his house for the night. Unfortunately, we have no money to pay with, so we ask this friend whether there might be a bank or ATM in this town - but there is not. Catastrophe! Have we come this far, only to be thrown out into the cold as vagrants?
No. With a touch of kindly exasperation, he gives us his business card and says that, owing to some business with his family, he will be 20 km down the road in Igoumenitsa tomorrow at 1000 - exactly where we plan to go! We agree to meet him outside one of the banks along the portside strip at 1030; in our exhaustion and hunger, we do not even bother to ask the price. He even offers us the use of the shower in the other room - our room is equipped with a solar shower, but given the recent storms that have been going for some 5-6 days it is low on warm water - before leaving elsewhere. The room is basic, but more than sufficient; the blankets are comfortable, plentiful, and warm. We shower, brush our teeth, take care of any minor bits of personal hygiene that might elevate our state from filthy animals to passably clean ones - and sigh deeply, grinning from ear to ear. We made it - despite nearly insurmountable odds, we extracted ourselves from a flood and are now reasonably clean and dry. This reflection barely has time to form before exhaustion at last catches up with us. With no adrenaline left to keep us going, we sink quickly into one of the best slumbers of our trip...