Albania and Kosovo

Continued down the coast and started heading inland towards Shkoder, Albania.  Once off the coast, the roads are twisty and turny single carriageways but thinner.  The drivers here, so far, seem to be rather well behaved, which is good considering their width and layout. 

Albania is home to an unusual number of Mercedes Benz vehicles (approximately 80 percent of all registered vehicles) and poverty.  The country is poor and seems to be struggling.  So then, where do all of the Mercedes come from? Well Albania is the primary depository for vehicles stolen out of Europe.  Apparently, many of the stolen vehicles are "voluntarily" stolen, which is to say, an Albanian works with an owner in Western Europe who had over bought, takes the car and papers, and gets it re-registered in their home country; the "victim" in turn reports it as stolen to their insurance company and escapes a crushing month payment. Albania's loose laws (and morals) makes this all possible.  

Albania

The following day I rolled into Kosovo.  The Country, or what I saw of it, was nothing special.  Nice scenery, poverty, and questionable road work ruled the day.  There was one road that was just beautiful, brand new, up to full European standards, and in no way was built by Kosovo.  Many of these poorer countries have other countries build roads for them in exchange for political favors to be called in at a latter time, and roads like this exist in both Albania and Kosovo.

Pritzen, Kosovo

Clearly, Kosovo is in Need of Some Better Project Managers

Stage Distance: 249 mi (402 km)
Total Distance Traveled: 21,279 mi (34,193 km) 
Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo