Day 200: Dhermë to Vlorë

Crossing the Cesar Pass

Today was a challenge. 950 metres of climbing over about 15km up to a maximum height of 1,000 metres. The maximum gradient was 14%, way above our comfort zone, fully laden with panniers.

Still, it was the only way to get north, so it had to be done.

The road stretches up the mountainside above you as you approach inscribing an enormous zigzag up the rock face, which is pretty intimidating, especially as some of the steepest pitches were in the village before we got near the climb.

The road, scarrIng across the mountain above us

Once we were on the pass itself, it became a little easier as the engineers had obviously had a gradient they were working too and they’d stuck to it — most of the time.

Getting down to work

We resolved to stop at each hairpin bend — five in total, despite the lack of shade. We needed the recovery time and it gave us something to look forward to.

Blue StrAwberry chilling at the bend

Slowly we climbed higher and gradually the beaches below us receded. We climbed through and arid scrubland of wild sage, camomile and thyme, which at least made the aroma rather pleasant.

I’d planned on getting some water at the last village before the hill started and we were a little upset to discover the village didn’t seem to be inhabited. This meant we were a tiny bit short on water, and when we saw a roadside stall at one of the hairpins we were sure we’d be able to get some bottles. Unfortunately all he had was honey and herbs, not what we were looking for. However, he did tell us we could get water higher up.

Some rather spectacular graffiti at one corner, but now water

On we went, and a new set of roadside stalls looked more promising. We bought one stall’s entire supply of water bottles and set about rehydrating, with Coke and fresh raspberries and blackberries too.

These stalls had water!

The stallholder, a boy of about 15 years old, was very excited and wanted us to come and see his bicycle. It turned out to have had its derailleur ripped off, amongst a fair few other problems. I set to trying to fix it and ended up spending about half an hour stripping things down and trying to bend things back into shape. By the end it was functional, but I’m not sure for how long. He resolved to try to get a replacement derailleur, which would solve the problem much better.

Bike fixing

He gave us some peach drinks too, so we were well hydrated as we left.

One last stretch to the summit, and it was the steepest, but we managed to keep plodding along, and soon we arrived at the cafés at the top. Definitely lunch time.

We’ve made it to the summit

Then we had about 20km of descent to play with. Tiger and I were having fun, Sarina’s still not that happy about descending. We take it nice and slowly to keep everyone happy.

Then we’re down by the sea again, the Cesar Pass conquered.

Seaside again

…and then the bright lights of Vlorë