The other Albania... on two wheels

We covered 6,000 km, of which over 2,000 were on dirt roads in the mountains of Albania. We set off as three, with our motorbikes. We slept wherever "it happened" and the budget at our disposal, including fuel, was around 1,000 euros. Here is the account: Here we are... Stopped at the last petrol station. The motorbikes, on their side stands, smoke slowly... Heedless of the water falling obstinately, while the radio of the service station broadcasts "war bulletins" about the flood that has hit Liguria, urging people not to set off on a journey. We smoke calmly, losing ourselves in our thoughts... As if that moment, to be savoured to the full, should never end. We know that with this cigarette, our journey ends too. Without saying it, we feel a little melancholy... This experience is coming to an end too: 6,000 km, of which well over 2,000 on dirt roads in the mountains of Albania.

Absolute protagonists are our ever-inseparable companions of always: a BMW 1150GS belonging to Alex and two BMW R1200GS, Damiano's and mine. Inseparable like the motorbikes, the companions of this journey... They couldn't be anyone else! People you can count on, with whom no words are needed because a glance is enough to understand each other. Perfect understanding. We set off from Turin and, almost like a long ride, we arrived as far as Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. A journey is always a new departure... You leave behind your anxieties and daily problems to recharge with oxygen. Only the road racing away beneath your tyres and total immersion in the landscape can give you a true sensation of leaving it all behind. You unload the weight from your shoulders and begin to feel... Free.

You arrive at Koplik, a small Albanian town that brings to mind some Moroccan or Tunisian villages crossed on previous journeys... The road climbs towards the wildest and least known part of Albania... After a few kilometres it turns white and begins to wind its way up, becoming ever narrower. We skirt the precipices precariously, while little by little the sun goes down... We decide to stop for a moment. There are moments you have to savour in solitude, moving away into the dark. You stay alone and listen to the sound of the undergrowth. Emotions that no image will ever capture. You must manage to enjoy them before they dissolve, before they are consumed... So we are already in the saddle, and after the Passo di Burri i Torres the descent towards the valley of Theth begins. We arrive around 8 pm in total darkness.

At last, exhausted, we find a room with four mattresses that aren't too inviting. But tiredness gets the upper hand and, almost without taking off our suits, we throw ourselves onto them. Here we are along the road that leads from Shkodër to Tropic, heading for Fierze. After a few hours of dirt road to the point of not feeling your arms any more, the dust not only covers us, by now it is inside us. At the point where we are supposed to cross a bridge, we discover it no longer exists. It was swept away by a flood and they are rebuilding it... We have no choice but to push them through a narrow gap. So, three times, like a ritual, each motorbike is accompanied to the other bank: one pulls from the handlebar and the forks while another pushes it from behind. There we are, we can carry on! At the service area, along with the rain, evening also falls. "Don't fly but travel...

Yes, travel, avoiding the hardest potholes, without for that reason falling into your fears..." said a song from some time ago... Instead you fly, flying into adventure on white roads, raising behind you a cloud of dust that rises free, free like we could never imagine being! The forecasts, as we head back up, are three hours to the border with Montenegro and thus towards Podgorica. A hot shower and a cold beer await us to wash off the dust... Another constant of this journey... And instead, at the exit of a bend, with no warning, Alex's motorbike stops. We are 15 km from the Montenegrin border, 50 km from the workshop we had come across on the way out, where we were supposed to change the tyres... Finding someone in the Albanian countryside capable of solving the problem is impossible.

At last we manage to load the motorbike onto a little truck which, by the look of it, must have just been carrying some pigs... After carrying out the usual checks, we re-enter Montenegro. We stop at a lay-by together with many lorry drivers waiting to receive their documents and we try to find a lift. A lorry carrying sacks of cement, straight out of a 1950s film, suits us perfectly. Podgorica, here we come... Nobody is left behind! How many lives we met... How can we forget the farmer who, hearing the noise of the motorbikes, comes out to greet us. So we stop and he insists on making us a coffee. When he sees that we pour it into our mess tins, he runs into the house and comes out with the good set offered on a silver tray for us, his guests.

This was our journey, made of moments we will keep with us forever, and nothing will be able to take them away or let us relive them to the same degree. Here it is still raining and the radio says not to set off on a journey. Ok guys, the cigarette is finished, as this journey of ours is finished.