May 6 page 29 |
2005 BALKANS TOURBen Oostdam |
Progradec |
| In the middle of the night, I packed, shaved and charged the camera battery. Then I went back to bed and slept till 09:00 breakfast including yoghurt made on the very premises; I also packed a cheese sandwich. It was raining lightly and Vladimir came to collect me. He insisted on hanging my backpack on the back of his bike, and my sidebag on the steering wheel. He gave me one large umbrella and kept another up over his own head while pushing the bike all the way along the seaboard promenade to the center of town.There we parked the bike at a friend's office, much to my relief and undoubtedly even more to his. I admired Vladimir, still proud of having served as an Artillery Officer for 25 year even though he was kicked out and only recently started to get a 100 Euro monthly pension. |
| His friend was the former Ambassador to Cuba and manager of the local hotel which was ravaged a few years ago, so now he headed an Environmental Tourism Consortium, and invited some associates to join us for coffee (right). He gave me a number of brochures summarizing their numerous and fascinating activities, of which I scanned a few excerpts here. |
 Naum Gegprifti between me (red sweater) and Miri (shoulderpads) + friends please click to enlarge | Miri then dragged me along to the Bank, and ran off to get a taxi to race us to the railroad station (below) located well outside Pogradec. Again, a nostalgic farewell to this marvelous friend whom I wish the very best! |
 Miri with 2 umbrellas and my 2 bags |
 Pogradec Water Supply Local Governments BLO fecit 20050717 next page (30) - contents |
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