My "Saharagelber" 300TD

In the morning we departed at approximately 10:00. We first drove through Budva to see if we could get some foord for the Benz: vegetable oil for our route back. We also had to find some food for ourselves too
We found a supermarket and I saw they had vegetable oil too. I walked towards an employee and asked if they had 150 bottles for me? After that awkward look, they told me they had this in stock and they started collecting them from the stockroom. I paid at the cashier and outside they were already waiting with 15 boxes of bottles. I started putting them in the car and drove to a parking lot where I started to fill her up. Melissa checked out the neighbourhood to see if the coast was clear, cause we had no idea what the police had to say about this. An inhabitant from the flat who passed by stopped and stared at what I was throwing in that old yellow Mercedes from the Netherlands.
We started talking. He is perplex about the fact that I am just filling her up with straight vegetable oil. He wanted to know everything about it, and this was easy as he was a good german speaker because he had worked in Germany for a couple of years.
After filling up we started our journey back. We drove along the coastline of Croatia, after the first half we decided to take the tolroute for the second part. We drove through Croatia today and 150km south of Zagreb (Slovenia) we stopped to have a break.
I calculated what we had driven today but that was not much, only 550km. Because of the coastal route, which is in fact very slow. I filled the Benz up again and a bit later we entered Slovenia. Melissa was tired and went to bed (read: pushing the seat backwards). I kept on driving and driving and it all went very well, after another 400kms we were in Stuttgart. It was already 7:15u, I had driven the whole night. I drove another hour and decided to get some sleep, I had done 23 hours of driving today.
We were around Karlsruhe, and drove 1400km today, despite three border crossings and the all the back roads we had and the coastal route in Croatia, not bad at all.

After a great night of sleep we had enough rest, after our great adventure from yesterday. The hotel beds slept perfectly and we slept as long as we could. As I recollect, we drove for 14 hours or yesterday. We ate some breakfast and from the balcony we had a view on a couple of houses and the big street, where our street was a detraction of. Many times we saw and heard honking vehicles driving by, a lot of them fit with decoration, obviously they were part of some wedding. This went on and on, therefor we thought it was some sort of national wedding day or something. After we paid the hotel we walked around a little bit, the city looked much more wealthier and western. We tried to find some bread an fruit. We were stunned by the difference, in Korce, the south of Albania it is so much more different then in this place, where there was no waste lying around, the people look less poor and the cars seemed to be in a better shape too. But still nearly only Mercedes of course
After we cleaned up the car and checked all the fluids we continued in the direction of Shkoder. After 3 kms or something I decided to pull over. I heard the shockers crack and squeak lot, as if we were riding an old horse wagon.
This is probably the result of yesterday. For hours they were loaded and had to shock extremely intense. I took the jack out of the car and lifted it up. I inspected the car for some time and I saw nothing special, only a minor oil sweating close to the oil pump, which is a gasket which need to be replaced in the future, so no problem at all.

With 78645km on the odometer we continue in the direction of Shkoder. The roads are way better around here. Along the way we stopped and made a cup of coffee (cappucino with a little bit of Amaretto). Then with the mugs in our hand, we enjoyed the beautiful landscapes and sights around us. Albania is so beautiful, we can’t say it too often.
All the way to Shkoder, which is 200km up north from where we departed today, we look around us and were amazed all the way. The cities, people, nature, the cars, the mountains etc. It’s all so different.
At the end of the day we left Albania but it will be in our minds forever. It’s definitely one of the most beautiful countries we’ve been to.

At the border it all went easy, there was an english speaking official who was eager to ask us about how we experienced Albania and why we wanted to visit it and of course how Holland is like. He also talked about our famous EK in 88
The friendly man was very interested.
Early in the evening we entered Montenegro (former Yougoslavia). The first area we arrived in looked a bit like asia, stunningly beautiful! Lot’s of lakes, mixed with mongrove trees and mountains with their feet residing in the lakes. with the sun setting the scene was complete.
We stopped in Budva and found a simple hotel, but cheap. We couldn’t eat over there so we took the cooking stuff to our room, as we were already used to.
Our room had a balcony and an old shower, but it was okay, as long as we could sleep well it was fine with us.