Bicycle touring southern Albania: Gjirokastër to Lake Ohrid

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Bryan Keith

During my first visit to Albania, it was cold and rainy with too much snow in the mountains for fun bicycle touring up high. Those mountains looked great from below. I knew I wanted to get back and check them out. Well, Jeff and I passed through a few mountains in southern Albania, and they certainly did not disappoint. Northern Albania is supposed to be even more spectacular. Another trip?

IMG_20220410_101538 by bryandkeith on flickr

We crossed the border and holed up in a restaurant for a few hours to wait out some fairly heavy rain squalls. Oh no, this seemed familiar! Not to worry. We ended up spending about a week in Albania, and that was the most it rained.

I was still low energy from being sick so I was happy to have Jeff pull me into Gjirokastër against a headwind. We might have beat the next squall had we not stopped to take photos of this bridge:

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Bicycle touring Greece: Corfu and the Zagori villages

Posted on May 19, 2022 by Bryan Keith

After the elephant destroyed my bicycle, I scrambled around a bit to get a new bicycle put together in time for my tour with Jeff. The frame, fork, and rear rack came from Germany (thank you, Seb, for the delivery!). I sourced many parts from Turkey, but the brakes and brake levers came from China (those plus the frame and fork were actually all made in Taiwan). Spokes ended up being the last hold up (half from Germany, half from Turkey). I managed to get out for a very short ride (10km?) before boxing the bike up for my flight to Corfu.

IMG_20220402_165253 by bryandkeith on flickr

Jeff from Boulder flew to Tirana and pedaled south for a couple weeks to meet me in Corfu. It’s the first bicycle tour we’ve done together. We’re about three weeks into it now, and it’s still going well.

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Dubai: Deira, Expo 2020, and the Burj Khalifa

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Bryan Keith

Dubai! After my first visit I might have said I’d never come back. Here I am again only four years later. An incentive to make it happen this year was certainly the Expo. I have been curious about these world fairs my whole life and had read good reviews of this one.

I stayed in the Dubai Marina area four years earlier. This time Ferda and I based ourselves in the fun lively Deira neighborhood. We were in an area of twisty alleys full of traders buying and selling mostly textiles and clothes it appeared. Every evening Nigerians were out boxing and packing goods to ship off to their own country. According to one Nigerian trader we spoke with the goods from Dubai are cheaper and better quality than what’s available in Nigeria. He said they ship stuff to Ghana as well but mostly Nigeria.

IMG_20220323_173656 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Posted in Traveling, United Arab Emirates | Tagged | 2 Comments

Abu Dhabi: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Louvre

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Bryan Keith

How did Ferda and I end up in Abu Dhabi anyway? The idea started because I flew through Dubai on the way back from Sri Lanka. A number of people had chastised me for traveling in the UAE and not visiting Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I figured I could just extend my stay in Dubai a few days and see a couple things that I missed my first time in the country. Well, flight ticket fares being what they are it was actually cheaper to come to the UAE from Turkey rather than extend a stopover. That seems hard to believe — it must have had something to do with the bicycle — but I kind of remember that it cost less to fly from Colombo to Istanbul than Colombo to Dubai.

Anyway, here we are. We left gritty, dusty Cairo in the morning and were walking around sparkling, green Abu Dhabi in the afternoon.

IMG_20220321_143105 by bryandkeith on flickr

From our downtown hotel it was a short walk to the corniche

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The Necropolis at Giza

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Bryan Keith

After snorkeling in Makadi Bay, the plan was to fly from Hurghada to Abu Dhabi. As I recall now, I guess there weren’t direct flights — most itineraries went through Cairo. Rather than fly, I figured, why not take the bus to Giza and visit Egypt’s most famous site?

IMG_20220320_101202_5 by bryandkeith on flickr

I had visited the Giza pyramids on my only other visit to Egypt 24 years ago. It was a foggy November day, and we practically tripped over the corner of the pyramids before we could see them. The poor weather and the constant harassment from camel ride touts made it a very disappointing day of sightseeing. For this visit I had low expectations. I’m glad I went back.

It was after dark by the time we got to our hotel in Giza (after spending perhaps three hours in Cairo’s traffic). Our room wasn’t ready so the man took us up to the rooftop balcony to wait.

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Posted in Egypt, Traveling | Tagged | 1 Comment