Out of an instinct that had been growing in the last 30 hours or so, when I woke up I knew that I didn’t want to stay at my hostel. So I fled in a somewhat inglorious manner and not without fighting. I have never done that before and in retrospect I am not sure if the place justified such extreme measures. I could have stayed. But the big question is: Did I leave because I was following my guts and instinct, or am I getting old or becoming more German than I ever wanted to be? These questions have been bothering me ever since and once arrived to an answer, I will react accordingly.
After the pre-adventure and with all my stuff and half an hour late, I have to take a Taxi to reach my real adventure for the day. When I was checking what to do in Peja two days ago, I had seen that this city is, amongst many many outdoor attractions, home to Kosovos biggest cave. And as a little secret cave lover, of course I had to go.
Caves are something that has fascinated me since I did my first speleology excursion in Almeria, about 9 years ago. And by caves I mean the non commercialized ones, the ones with no lights, no stairs, no infrastructure, the unreachable ones that you can only enter with a guide and a key and equipped with helmet, lamps and gloves. The ones you explore climbing, sliding, crawling. The Rugova Grand Cave is one of those and may have been the most beautiful and difficult to access that I’ve done so far (which are not many). Even being a cave fan, not many opportunities for speleology excursions have presented themselves since Almeria.
Joy from Switzerland, whom I know from the trail, joins me for the tour and we start around 10:30 with our guide Fatos. Equipped with lights and helmets we start ascending to the caves entrance that is locked with a door for people not to get lost or hurt inside. Unlike other caves or what one would commonly expect, this is a high cave, so we do not go down but just enter the rock wall through a small opening and then follow this underground canyon, going up and down more or less equally.
The cave is relatively difficult to explore, as there are some climbing parts but not as tight and narrow as others. Our guide calls the activity “dancing on the rocks” or “rock climbing, but under the ground”.
Half an hour deep in the cave, the yellow brown rocks become wetter and we can start seeing some thin stalagmites and stalagtites and after a while we start hearing water flowing softly, almost like a far away street. Moving further and further in, the sound gets closer until we stand over another level of the cave where a violent river with a waterfall flows right under our feet. We also encounter a wonderful underground crystal clear lake. The cave goes on underwater from here and can be explored only by professional cave divers. The deeper we get, there are more and bigger stalagtites and the colors of the rocks change from yellow to white-pink and black-white marvel(?) and there are funny mushroom-like formations of minerals on the walls and floor.
Several times on our way back, we do my favorite thing someone can do in a cave. Switch off all the lights and sit in darkness. This sensorial experiment is what initially won my heart for caving and what every time is a deep connecting experience for me with a high amount of endorphins. I think the kind of darkness you experience in caves is something you can only find there. There is no other place I have ever experienced total darkness other than in deep caves.
The lights are off but I can still see the cave in front of my eyes, imagine stones, when I look down I see my body, my arms. But it’s all fake. It’s my brain trying to fit in something that is missing. Nothing is real. Because there is nothing. The eyes don’t get used to the darkness like they would in a normal environment because there is not even one tiny bit of visible electromagnetic radiation left. It always seems like there is light coming from the back, there is a weird effect of your brain to create something that looks like light at the borders of your eyes, but if you turn, it turns with you. I start seeing all kinds of shapes and light sources but none of it is real.
As we do this on our way back, further away from the waterfall, sound also disappears and silence joins the darkness which makes the experience even more intense. Nevertheless, total silence is much harder to achieve than total darkness, as you can always here yourself breathe or move.
We climb out again and start feeling what we had ignored as a useless comment in the beginning of the tour: caving is very exhausting and you need all the muscles of your body. While in the beginning everything was easy and light and I didn’t feel it to be exhausting at all, on the way back I start feeling my legs and arms to be tired and sore. After almost 4 hours of climbing and artificial spotlight and cold and mental exhaustion and concentration we see the sun again around 4pm. (Right now I i my have photos of the other not of myself, but I might upload some more tomorrow.)
Even though we are covered in dust and mud and tired, we use the opportunity after the caving to visit a nearby UNESCO protected monastery which is one of the main attractions of Peja. It’s a place of peace and with very nice and well preserved orthodox wall paintings from the XIII to XVII century. As it is a Serbian monastery in Kosovo, it is protected by the police and we have to show our passports at the entry. After finding out that we speak German, the policeman is also very nice and even takes care of my big backpack during our visit, even though it’s against the rules.
It seems like everything changes if you speak German. Suddenly people are nice, people stop on the street just to talk to you, people ask you where you are from people help and smile. Most of them work in Switzerland or Germany or at least have a cousin or brother who works there and have been there to visit. Most of the incredible quantity of brand new Mercedes, BMW and VW as well as the nice villas are financed by swiss francs. And as a side effect, everyone speaks German. The Kosovarians that live abroad to earn money are called “Schatzis” and easily recognisable by their bad driving, the fancy cars and the golden necklaces. They work their asses off in Switzerland in the worst jobs and conditions, send all the money to Kosovo, and are not at home in either of both places. At least this is what Joy from Basel tells me. She has many Kosovarian friends and half her classmates in school were Kosovarians so she has more insight than me.
On our way back we get stopped by another guy in a BMW who is proud to tell us that he lives in München and just wants to chat a little (and maybe impress the friend sitting next to him?).
Schatzis or not, the Kosovarians are much friendlier than the Albanians in Albania and especially after this brilliant day, Peja looks like quite a nice city now.
After checking my new hotel and getting cleaned, Joy and I meet up again around 7 to go out for dinner. We find a ridiculously cheap and very good meal at a nice place in the center and have a very good time and talk. At 9:15, the waiters take away all our plates and glasses and places the bill in front of us. A little confused, it occurs to us that there might be a curfew. And in fact: curfew starts at 9:30 and at 10pm everyone has to be at home. These are the new measures for Kosovo since 1st of September. Apparently this is the new Covid hotspot and numbers as well as hospitalizations and deaths are higher than ever before. After ignoring the epidemic during the summer and in favor of tourism income and with a vaccination rate of only 13%, Kosovo is now paying the bill.
P.D: more photos :
2 Comments
Florian
WICKED, looks like Urmel aus dem Eis, hahaha.
I would like to see a picture of the door, seems weird to me to build it in a cave, like in minecraft 😉
journey_annaschimpf
Ich glaube von dem Tor hab ich kein Foto gemacht 😀 haha ich muss mich jetzt erstmal über Urmel aus dem Eis informieren.