I have to look at a calendar to see that it is 2 weeks since I flew from Birmingham to Dubrovnik. I am now in Mavrobi Park in N Macedonia just across the border from Albania. Such a friendly hotel I stayed 3 nights!

Apple thinks I write too much as copy/paste stopped working, so I'll split this into 2 letters.

I knew more than 10 words of Serbo-Croat & these work adequately in Montenegro and N Macedonia, but Albanian relates to nothing I know. (Thank you = faleminderit). If I spoke Italian I could find the odd person to talk to but English is only in tourist areas, and French and Spanish hardly exist.

Montenegro was friendly and easy, but bad for cycling as the roads are busy & narrow without paved shoulders.

I entered Albania with an Italian cyclist whom I met on the road. He was celebrating "getting old" at 40. We had lunch together in Shkodra then he headed for a ferry to Italy for bicycle repairs. My night in Shkodra turned into 2 since next day it rained. My friendly Airbnb host had a wealth of knowledge. Shkodra has a modern centre but I felt only partly impressed. I got money at a bank, and a SIM card for my phone.

My host studied for a year in USA, has a girlfriend in U.K. and relatives across the Balkans. Albanians travel and are spread over much of the world.

They had a communist government for nearly 50 years followed by 5 years of violent unrest. Albania did not stay in the Soviet block, and as I cycled I saw many overgrown concrete bunkers "to protect against invasion from Tito's Jugoslavia".

20 years of rebuilding have been assisted by aid from both east & west.

Leaving Shkodra behind, I cycled through farmland into the mountains & left my bike by the Koman dam (Albania exports electricity), took a short boat trip and was left on my own on a shore with a barely-discernible steep track behind it.

I carried my bicycle pannier bags for 45 minutes up narrow donkey tracks following paint splotches until I lost these. At 1 of the few stone farm houses hidden across the mountainside, I mymed to a man to ask if this was the farm-stay I had booked. He thought, threw a couple of rocks to move his goat into the bushes, sat on a rock, & lit a cigarette. Then he stood up gestured "No", and waved his hand in a generally upward direction. Choosing one of many goat tracks at random I arrived at a second building where some younger people had a laugh at my appearance carrying bicycle panniers from below and led me up & across to the right place: an old stone farm on a terrace with pigs & chickens and a gorgeous view of the lake 400 metres below & a limestone ridge above.

Grand mum, mum, and boys of 5 & 3 pressed me with raki, & wine but I pleaded hunger and was presented with big welcome plates of soup, bread, butter, cheese, & fig jam.

The boys were delightful pests wanting to examine all my possessions, while snuffling their runny noses. Later we found common ground playing dominos, or me starting & finishing races down the only bit of grass which was level enough that it didn't need terracing.

Next morning was cloud & light rain but I managed a short scramble to a pass with a great view over the dam.

After another lunch which might have been designed for 2, the sky cleared enough for me to follow donkey tracks up to the ridge with more gorgeous views & lovely pastures wherever the ground was flat enough. The sounds of chickens, pigs, cows, goats, and dogs lead me from habitation to habitation. I found signs of old water-courses and a cistern.

I stayed 2 nights up the mountain, but had a ferry ticket for the following day down Koman Lake to Fierze. Thunder rolled throughout the night. After a good 7 am breakfast of more cheese, pancakes, eggs, coffee, & jam the grand mum & 5 year old led me the first 15 minutes through drizzle to ensure I took the right trail down. Goodbye to that lovely experience!

Albania 3 to follow.....