Naked Female Centaur Tattoos

In my experiences traveling, I have discovered one hard and fast rule. The more difficult a place is to get to, the more beautiful. This is certainly true of the southern coast of Albania. This past week I made the effort to get down to Dhermi, a small beach town between Vlore and Sarande, and it was absolutely amazing, the best beaches I have seen in Albania yet.


Oh, but according to the rule, Dhermi's beauty is dependent on it's remoteness, and I can tell you that getting there and back was not an easy endeavor. Getting there, my friend and I were able to catch a public bus from Fier that would take us down. Once on the bus, I could quickly see that all of the seats were occupied, so a lady with her young son was kind enough to share her seat with me. So I was on my way to Dhermi with at least one butt cheek on the seat. After about 5 minutes of hearing Albanian music mixed with babies crying, I put on my headphones. Unfortunately, headphones do nothing for blocking out smells. The three young kids sitting around me had all promptly started puking, and I can only equate the smell to what Tim Robbins must have experienced in the sewers under Shawshank Prison.

Luckily, it turns out that topless female centaur tattoos are a good diversion for passing a long bus ride. The Greek man across the aisle was sporting what can be mildly referred to as a "bad tattoo", so I spent the remainder of the ride concocting adventures for half-woman, half-horse creature. I finally decided that she had been in love with Pan (the half-man, half-goat), but that her parents would not accept her relationship with another species, so she was riding off to take revenge. Before you put me in a straightjacket, you try riding a bus for 5 hours in Albania.

Eventually we made it, and Dhermi was amazing. The water was clear, clean and just the right temperature.

Finally, a special thanks to Etienne and Laura from Paris for giving a couple of poor Peace Corps Volunteers a ride back to Vlore.

I have put up my pictures from Dhermi and some others I have taken on my Flickr site.