To my surprise I woke up before the alarm clock, I put on 8 a.m. rang. shortly after 8 the three of us were having coffee down in bar.I had no headache, but was only a bit dizzy. It was a bright, beautiful day despite the cloudy, cold past night (the cold did not change much though). After goodbye I was keen to at last, after 5 days idling and going in circles, to make a couple of kilometers eastwards, that actually would bring me closer to Istanbul.
I decided to take the easiest and closest way to Kosovo. Furthermore not having slept into the morning left me plenty of time to directly head for Prizren. My maps for that region are really crap. I just remembered, from google maps, that there should be a direct main road, following a side river of the Drin and only having a smaller pass to cross at the border to Kosovo. The road was well indicated, rather new and had little traffic. The valley was much larger than those I have crossed the last 3 days and harbored a lot of agriculture. It was great riding on asphalt again. I almost forgot how it feels, if you go at an average over 20km/h.
At the border, they asked me for the papers for the bicycle. I must have looked quite perplexed and was not sure if they expected a license plate on my bike or if they wanted to see the receipt. One of the guards spoke perfect German, and waved me through after a somewhat confusing conversation, were I still hadn't figured out what papers they wanted.
after the pass the air looked very misty. The ride to Gjakove was nice. low hills ahead of me and more cows and sheep. arriving in the small town I had a small lunch and pressed on. On the way closer to the Prizren I realized the myst to be smoke and dust. There was quite some trash burning along the road. On the last 16km things got a bit crazy traffic wise and I became really tense. Where before the drivers would pass me leaving space, now, with traffic into the opposite direction, they seemed not to be aware that they can lift their right foot a bit from the gas pedal, not to speak of using the pedal for the break. Their maneuvers got crazier. This was a bit of a shock after north Albania with less cars and where the people (like in Slowakia) did not seem in a hurry and I felt looked out for. The worst was if I was alone into my direction and in the column of cars on the other side of the road, some drivers would try to overpass another. For them I did not seem to exist at all. The trucks would honk 1 second before they would pass, to indicate you will possibly get killed if you don't move aside. The best was an idiot, that wanted to pass a truck, just passing a crete of a hill, in a curve on a narrower bit of the road (he got three of those points, of which one should be enough to come to the decision not trying to overtake). I saw (beeing lower before the crete) a white line underneath the truck, being crossed by another pair of wheels. I thought; "huh, isn't it unlikely trying to overpass here????". Never the less I drove up the small slope beside the street to make as much space as possible. The driver did never show any sign of trying to abort his maneuver, nor was there any sign of apology towards my direction. He stared angry at the road, hitting the gas-pedal harder. I stood there for a couple of seconds, and crossed myself absentmindedly. This reminded me of Serbia, only with more cars. I got so worked up over reckless driving and the thought, that I'm completely disrespected, worse, my life seems to be worth nothing, thinking about the reasons these idiots of drivers could have. So I stopped at one of the many gas stations here and grabbed a soft drink and some sweets.The guy working there started a chat. He was laughing out loud, when I explained, accompanied with some pantomimes, the truck drives behavior and my reaction. "Well that's the people here, they don't want to be delayed." he said, I somehow this took away my anger. After half an hour I tackled the last 10km.
Prizen looked amazing. The big mountains, barely visible in the smoke-dust, standing in the background, the houses lit by the evening sun whose light was altered by these air condition in a weird way. On on the hill close to the center is a castle ruin, several churches and mosques are distributed throughout the city and a small river runs through the center.
After finding a pension, I went looking for a thick wool jumper without success. Then there was a tiny place, with two tables where one can eat burek (only). Another Kosovar was speaking with the older nice owner and helped translating. He turned out to be living in Stein-Saeckingen (10km from where I grew up) for the last 20 years. It was fun talking Swizerduetsch with him. The burek was fantastic, the best so far.
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