Challenges, beauty and sincere concern.

Day 2 (29/3-2013) in Albania had me get up at 5 AM since I wanted to break camp early to avoid getting spotted by people.

Screen capture from my video diary so its not my best side...

It continued on the same road as before, it kept going for 80% of the day and it managed to see to it that all four of my brake pads was worn out.

Shortly after the pictures below a shepard with lots of goats comes by and once his goats have passed he stops and we have a short discussion in sign language and I show him where I am headed and ask if he want's peanuts. He declines and at that point another shepard with goats comes along and he has five dogs with him that actually has spiked collars and behave extremely aggressive towards me.
This guy puts himself between me and the dogs, using his stick and picks up stones whilst yelling at the dogs to deter them from attacking me - once the dogs loose interest he turns around, smiles and heads on.

Had to change all four brake pads and it took some time. 

Smooth as a baby's bottom!

Amazing scenery from my ride along the Road. 

I was truly grateful for his help and continued, the real dangers on this road was mostly the shepards dogs since I passed a lot of those most was calm tho and since it was raining and together with the thawing snow it created a lot of water going across the road on many places and you could see landslides was a real risk. Despite this I met cars several times on this road, not often but at one point a couple of young guys drive up to me in their big 4x4 SUV and ask where I am from and if I wan't help.  I politely decline and get some info about the route that's left, I started this day by planning to reach Berat, and when I finally hit asphalt I realized that was never gonna happen, my hands hurt from all the shaking and gripping the brakes so once I reached Gramshi I got in touch with a women sitting on some stairs with her mother. As she had been to Norway she spoke excellent English and helped me found an ATM.

I was thinking of taking the bus to Berat since I had booked hotel nights there for two days but was told by her that no buses or cabs would take me at that time - it was too late so she suggested I stay at a hotel and asked me out for coffee later in the evening. I thought that was a good idea so I did just that.

It was nice to speak with locals and actually have contact with people even if I have had phone conversations with my dad and brother. So the day turned out well, today I got a 70 kilometer day to Berat where my brother helped me postpone my hotel booking for one day.

I will upload what was recorded from this day by the GPS once I reach Berat.