Part 5 - Simply put: Roads

The roads are horrible. There you have it. That question no longer has to burn in your mind as you read these posts about Albania. There are a few nice smooth roads. They are working on installing a four lane, divided highway, between Durres and Vlora. So the parts that are completed are smooth, like any road here in the states. However, the other roads, have large potholes, open manholes, debris scattered across the road, pieces of concrete or brick piled on the road, shrinking the non existent lanes.

Most all of the roads were lined with pile of trash. It was like the trash company collected the refuse form your trash can, and then when their truck was full drove down the road until the they came to the end of the row of heaps, and dumped their truck. Not only was the trash piled all the way down the roads, but they bordered streams, fields, houses, business etc. In a lot of the places, several of the piles of trash were smoldering. They had obviously been set on fire, to be burned, and were now smoldering, sinking down into smaller piles, and turning to a combination of ash, melted plastic, blackened, rusted cans and pieces of fruit rinds that wouldn't burn. I could often see smoke rising in a small column from a distance, and if we were near enough at any point, it usually could be made out as another pile of trash being burned. I could also see where previous piles of trash had been burned, and were now overgrown by tall weeds and grasses.

Fortunately, this was not an issue in the actual cities. the streets were kept clean for the most part. there was always a street sweeper driving around (in Tirana) or in the smaller cities, at night, there were people with large straw or small twig brooms sweeping the streets by hand.