Balkans. Day 21: Pejë + Marimangat via ferrata

Today is the second day of outdoor adventure in Peja. I meet up with Joy and Donika, our guide (who had also been one of the guides on the PoB trail) at 12 to do a Via Ferrata. As apparently we only choose the highest peaks and biggest caves and other best-ofs, we are heading off to do the longest and most difficult via Ferrata of Kosovo, which is called Marimangat, about 1km and 3:30h long and very spectacular.

For anyone not familiar with the concept of the via Ferrata: it’s an outdoor mountain activity that is basically half way between climbing and technical hiking. It can be as vertical as climbing but there are always iron stairs or poles to help your steps and an iron cable goes along the whole trail on which you are permanently secured with a harness. As this is a via Ferrata constructed by the Italian style, fixation points of the iron cable are very close to each other and the cable is very tight, which means very frequent and sometimes annoying carabiner changes but also a better feeling of security.

This is my first real via Ferrata and I immediately love it. It unites the parts I like most about the two sports. It’s not as hard and less dangerous and difficult than climbing but it’s more difficult than technical hiking, gives you lots of adrenalin and requires a lot of concentration. It will definitely not be the last one I do (I will actually do another in less than 12 hours from now). In this case, the pictures will tell more than I could describe and as this is a very tiring and exhausting activity I don’t mind writing less today.

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After finishing the via Ferrata, we close the day with another small adventure: zip line. This is an activity that I have seen sometimes but never done and that had never grabbed my attention as much. Attached by a harness to a cable that generally connects two sides of a valley, you “fly” along the cable over the depth of the valley. Although I am initially more nervous about this than about the via Ferrata, it turns out to be quite relaxing and not scary at all, especially because a person of my weight doesn’t slide incredibly fast. It is a nice experience but, for me personally, not comparable with the exciting and demanding via Ferrata where everything lays in your own strength and responsibility.

Exhausted and tired but motivated to spend our last evening together, Joy and I go back to the center for a drink and dinner. We share another very nice evening with good conversation and stories at a beautiful restaurant before we have to say goodbye for now and rush to our hostels for the curfew. As we stand on a big square where our ways part and hurriedly discuss the last topics, we see a spectacular amount of very young people rushing home (or to continue the party inside) and are testimonies of a special atmosphere. Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe, with 53% of people being under the age of 25, and you can really feel and see that, especially in this precise moment where we are surrounded by a stream of dozens (or hundreds?) of people probably 10 to 20 years younger than me. Just in time, and arriving at the hostel at 21:59, our ways part in a warm goodbye, hoping to have our ways cross again, somewhere, sometime.

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These last two days are the first on this journey where I finally connect with the travelling experience how I know it again. It had been relatively hard for me until now to find the good and deep conversations and make real friendships and share intense moments but it has finally, and just before leaving, happened again and I am very thankful for that. In Joy I found a wonderful friend with whom I was happy to share many personal stories and deep thoughts and find my values reflected and confirmed but also learn a lot of new and interesting stuff. Although I have enjoyed very much to be on my own as well and to share the time with my mum, Ana and Pascual and other shorter acquaintances (which I don’t classify as less important or fun), these special and brief encounters are one of the reasons for which I travel and I am going to bed relaxed, tired and content today.