The Osumi Canyon is not the deepest canyon in Europe. One day before we leave Greece, we add it to our return journey itinerary. Situated in the very remotest mountainous region of Albania, even the journey to the Osumi Canyon gets off to a bad start.
Google Maps says “five and a half hours from Meteora, including tolls and border control”. Then the landlady messages us: “The route via Përmet is currently only accessible by jeep”. Yet that would have been exactly the route we’d planned to take. The detour adds a whopping 150 km and two and a half hours to the already lengthy journey. Two and a half hours for 150 km?
I love narrow roads. The more winding, the better. But today, on the last 60 km from Berat to Çorovoda, I’ve really met my match. The road is fully tarmacked, but it’s narrow and there isn’t a single stretch of 50 m that’s straight or even slightly level. For over an hour, it’s one long rollercoaster ride.
Google Maps journey times are generally estimated on the ‘brisk’ side. In Albania, they can in principle only be achieved by driving well above the speed limit. For the route to Çorovoda, Google suggests an average speed of 40 km/h. My average of 50 km/h was practically speeding.
We didn’t arrive in Çorovoda until 4.00 pm – despite setting off at eight in the morning and gaining an hour thanks to the new time zone. The flat is top-notch. But Çorovoda is simply the most wretched backwater I’ve ever seen. I like dirt. I like old things. I like things that are falling apart. I always find gold in the dirt, wherever I go. Here, I find absolutely nothing.
A cow is grazing in the ‘town park’ alongside free-range chickens. The petrol station, which has been closed for ages, is rusting away in 37°C heat. The tributary of the Osumi running through the village is full of plastic rubbish. The prefabricated blocks, which probably date back to the days of the dictatorship, aren’t shabby – they’re just pathetic and endlessly filthy. The cultural centre has been closed for half a century. Even the impoverished Czech border region was clearly more presentable than this dump here when the Iron Curtain fell in 1989.
Everyone only takes cash, and the bank charges a 30 per cent withdrawal fee – unique in the world. A little girl asks Steffi, “How do you like our city?”. It’s the first time I’ve heard my wife lie – after a long hesitation. The walk back to the flat has more steps than the highest monastery in Meteora.
We’re enjoying our first proper bed in a good three weeks. A lovely breakfast with treats still warm from the baker next door delights us all. The people are very friendly, especially the parents with their children playing in the street in the evenings. Nevertheless, we unload the car completely for the first time on this trip.
An Ottoman bridge has been bobbing about since 1640 behind a road in the side valley that recently slid halfway down. In the bunker behind it, old wine barrels lie beneath fluttering bats. We can’t reach the nearby Pirogoshi cave because of aggressive sheepdogs. They’re probably ‘a bit’ feisty. Wolves and brown bears still live up here. The little one keeps saying, ‘She likes my bearskin.’ How exactly do Albanian sheepdogs tell the difference? Back to the car. The road immediately turns into a potholed, steep gravel track again. I’ve had enough.
We actually came to Çorovoda solely for the Osumi Canyon. Rafting tours are usually only available until May, when the water level is significantly higher due to the snowmelt. Now, in June, the only option is river tubing in the shallow white water.
The “three to three-and-a-half hours on the water” end after exactly one-and-a-half hours, five kilometres and €38. Yes, the Osumi Canyon is truly beautiful, steep, high and, in some places, barely three metres wide. But I’m from Regensburg. It’s only 30 km from the Bavarian Grand Canyon. It’s hardly any less spectacular.
The tour operator, Albanian Rafting, is a load of rubbish – albeit with very friendly guides. Every participant gets half a litre of bottled water at the start. It’s precisely these bottles that end up littering Osumi Canyon. On its website, Albanian Rafting boasts that it’s “sustainable”. A dirty lie.
Whilst Steffi takes part in the afternoon tour, I spend the whole time writing this travelogue, constantly shooing away an armada of toilet flies from the sleeping little one. In the evening, we meet the first traveller in 36 hours who isn’t just on a “day trip from Berat”. He’s ridden 350 km here today off-road along the Trans-European Trails on his Husqvarna.
Our booking for Dürres is cancelled one day before arrival due to overbooking. The Wi-Fi trickles down from the air at up to 20 kb/s – at least if you’re standing no more than two metres away from the router. Finding new accommodation takes ages.
The next day, we desperately need food in Berat. No restaurant accepts VISA. By the fifth cash machine, I’m already breaking free from the ‘dark patterns’. I spot a small button that reduces the withdrawal fee from 30 to ‘just’ 7.5 per cent. By then, though, I’d already had a public meltdown.
The accommodation in Dürres, which looked acceptable online, turns out on arrival to be the worst dump since Cookook’s Nest in the Philippines 15 years ago. After 45 minutes of heated discussion, the second ‘manager’ to be called in finally seems to realise that we really don’t want the much smaller room for the full price. At least, I hope so for his sake. Otherwise, he’ll have to learn the hard way just how much clout 200 Booking.com bookings carry with customer support.
Perhaps the low point of a road trip should simply be buried in one of Europe’s deepest canyons. We speed on – wherever that may be. A thousand complete idiots parking in the second row or right in the middle of a roundabout, speeders overtaking on the right, or overlooked speed bumps that destroy suspension struts – none of it can stop us now. We really do want to go home…
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.