Surprise!
I’m back for a small intermezzo adventure.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to blog again but I got encouraged to write about my current trip by several people, so I decided to do it. I am not completely up to date about who is still subscribed to this, so if you’re not interested, this is your moment to unsubscribe 🙂 I also apologize beforehand for my probably pretty poor writing. I’m not used to it anymore and always tired in the evenings.
This trip and blog entry is going to be a lot shorter than the last one but it is connected to the original version because I revisit one of the places I wrote I wanted to revisit.
Yesterday evening we landed in Albania and today we started the “Peaks of Balkans” trail, which connects different peaks, passes and mountain villages in the northern Albanian Alps throughout Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo. It’s a relatively new long-distance hike that seeks to connect the three countries and bring some tourism to the remotest areas of the region.
Let’s get started:
We, that is my mum and I, land in Tirana yesterday noon, where incredible heat welcomes us to Albania. After organizing some Albanian SIM cards and failing to exchange money (exchange counter currently closed) we easily find a bus to the center. From there, after a while of waiting and, again, failing to exchange any money, we make our way towards Shkoder in the north by another bus. The landscape is not new for me. Flat lands with vegetable, wine and olive plantations, half finished houses, an endless row of furniture shops and the impressive mountains further in the inland are things I had seen when I took the same road two years ago.
So I can concentrate on the intense smells and heat in the bus and on trying to get some sleep. Traffic is more than dense and we move slowly under the burning sun, which the air conditioning has a hard time fighting against.
Once arrived in Shkoder it’s still hot and we still fail to find an exchange office. But we find our hotel and get some pizza for my mum in the fancy and touristic center while the AC is preparing our room for proper sleeping.
We still have some repacking to do before bed time and organize our final packs for the hike.
The next morning, breakfast is served in the yard/parking for us at 7:30. Egg, butter, water melon, cheese. Our driver who will bring us to the mountains shows up half way through breakfast and seems quite friendly. Like most people we met until now, his English is very limited but he is well intentioned and communication with few words, hands and feet works quite decently.
The next two and a half hours take us over dirt roads but also some newly asphalted mountain roads towards Theth.
But not without a coffee break at a bar half way in the mountains. Probably our driver is tired and needs the bathroom and knows Josef, the owner. It turns out to be a huge restaurant, all built by Josef, who is very happy to find out that we are German (“German good!”). In Albanian, and with a few words in English and Italian, he explains that his children live all over Europe instead of being here with him. The mood drops terribly when my mother asks him if he had been okay during the Corona pandemic.
With more sign language than understandable words, we get a short summary of what he thinks of COVID-19: All invented by corrupt politicians. He cannot get sick because he prays regularly. He’s not going to get vaccinated because the vaccine kills you immediately –
A clear view on things, nothing to add here.
Anyhow, Corona? Doesn’t exist in Albania. No masks, no distance, no sign of a pandemic at all since we landed. Fully vaccinated, we’ll just enjoy this moment of normality.
We arrive to Teth around 11:00. Mainly because of the very complicated border permit procedures that are necessary to cross the borders between Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, we had hired an agency to organize some stuff for us beforehand. Transfers and accommodations are booked and we have GPS tracks and short descriptions for each of the 13 days of hiking.
Every day comes with a summary about kilometers and elevation meters and a short description in form of a text as well as the gpx file. Unfortunately, the kilometer information from these three sources, varies vastly. As for today, we were supposed to do a “short and relaxing hike to the waterfalls of Nyderlyse and back to Teth” of 10 km. Fortunately we checked GPS and map first, so we could find out that it was actually 22 km and that we were not able to do it today.
So we decide to take another 45 minutes of dirt road with Rakid to Nyderlyse.
From there we climb along a canyon towards the “Blue Eye”, a crystal clear, deep blue water hole in the mountains with a waterfall. And we are not the only ones to do so. Apparently half Albania is up for a Sunday trip to the Blue hole today. And as Albanian don’t generally like hiking in Nature too much, they need very loud music coming out of huge Ghettoblasters they carry with them, loud cheering and whooing and some beer to do this. So for this part of the trail, we are part of a flow of flip-flopped, Albanian Reggaeton loving, whooing and dancing people, making their way up through the incredible heat. An interesting cultural experience however.
The Blue Eye is not only blue but also cold. Very cold. Cold to the point your legs seem to be falling off after 10 seconds. We’re hot enough to get in anyway, at least for a few seconds.
And then again a few meters lower in a different pool of crystal clear water where we also have our lunch break. Back on the foot of the trail, we meet a few nice Albanian girls and a mother and daughter from England. Inbal (who is originally from Israel) and her 14-year old daughter Gabriella are very talkative and we decide to hike back to Theth together. They are really nice and entertaining; only problem: their guide. A young guy who’s English is okay but who unfortunately knows nothing about the tour. He had taken them to Nyderlyse, convinced and insisting that it was the Blue eye, had recommended them not to bring too much water to drink, not to go take a bath and not to walk on the nice hiking paths but on the dirt road on which all the jeeps and buses drive. Also, the snow patches on the high mountains are chalky rocks in his opinion and he doesn’t know the way. We mainly ignore all of his directions and recommendations on the way up and the poor guy is fired before dinner.
Tired from the extreme heat (even though we had jumped into the river every once in a while with all our clothes) we arrive in Theth around 5.
After some more talking, also with the rest of the English family (the father and two more younger kids) and after my traditional stretching with a view, washing and showering, we get fed salad, cheese, vegetables, potatoes, soup, meat and watermelon for dinner. Food is, as always, my main concern on this trip. It is very hard to communicate due to the language barrier and Albanians are still very uninformed about the gluten free diet, so a certain fear is a loyal companion for me.
With an all in all a successful acclimatization day behind us, we’re looking forward to the first real trekk tomorrow (which, according to our information is either 12, 14, 16 or 19 km long, but for sure comprises around 1000m of elevation)
PD. Images are failing to upload, maybe tomorrow works better. Good night.
