nature - benni rosinante blog

New friends and madness at the Schatzi Racing offroad event

They night before the event I spent in a national park right next to Tirana, the capital of Albania.

The next morning hundreds of offroad cars gathered in Tirana. It was super cool to see so many cars and people sharing their excitement about offroading. Right when I got there, I found a really nice group of guys. I don’t know why but it’s always that way in Albania: you just meet nice people and they are immediately interested to getätigt today know you or what you are doing and if you want, you can just have a good time and make new friends. Thanks for the sausages again, btw.

We started our drive to a location in the mountains 50km away from Tirana. Most of the drive was on asphalt and curvy mountain roads. The last part was a proper offroad tour on gravel, stones, mud and snow.

The location was kind of an crater on the top of a mountain and there the madness started. Lots of people shredded through everything they could find, bugged their cars, crashed into trees, crashed into ditches, burst their tires, helped each other, had a barbecue, listened to the music of a DJ and had some beer and a lot of fun. Btw the DJ played some proper eurodance style music. I love it.

Shortly before I started my way back to Tirana, I got interviewed by a Albanian TV station. You can watch the interview on YouTube. After the interview I thought that I have been saying only crazy rubbish but actually it’s as bad, I think.

An abandoned camp site at Lake Orchid

From Albania I made a short trip to North Macedonia and Lake Orchid. In this area there were none of the small mountain roads I use mainly in Albania to go offroading and to find cool spots to stay for a night or two. On the way I took around the lake, all official camp sites were closed because of the winter off season.

But then in the dead end of a small road directly at Lake Orchid, I found this abandoned camp site. It is really crazy because everything is still there. The reception building, the rest rooms, the small bungalows, wrecked caravans etc.

I had a lot of fun just going around and exploring this special place. By the way the lake and my spot were really cool, too. Rosinante parked right on the former volleyball field at the beach. After a morning run I tried to take a swim, but the water was cold like crazy.

At the evening three very friendly police officers knocked at my door, checked my id and we had a short but nice conversation about the Rosinante and the region around Lake Orchid and they had no problem with me staying on the volleyball field.

My offroad overlanding dream became true in Albania

About two years ago I really started to play with the idea of an worldwide offroad overlanding journey with a 4×4. I watched a whole lot of YouTube Videos, read a lot and got really hooked. When I think about the YouTube Videos I watched, GrizzlyNbear Overland always come to my mind. I think their videos are the ones that I enjoyed and I’m still enjoying the most.

In my mind the picture of going offroad with a 4×4 vehicle in an remote area, finding a camp spot on your own and living there as long as you want got created.

And here in beautiful Albania this dream became true.

For me Albania is really different in so much terms. The people are friendliness like crazy, the roads are perfect for offroading and there are very much things that where new and different for my mind. For example: before entering my first offroad tour, I met two Guys from Schatzi Racing Albania and they gave me there phone number, stickers and a beer and said that I can call them anytime if I would have any problem in Albania.

I started a offroad tour, that I got from Pistenkuh, crossed a bridge that was missing a few parts (after I crossed it, I talked to the guy living next to it and he was ashamed of the conditions of these bridge when I took photos of it, I gifted him a bottle of German beer and he was happy), did my first little river crossing because another bridge was not fully constructed and found a super cool spot to stay two nights.