Mark’s House turned out to be a small farm by the vast dried-up river banks next to the main road. The owner, Mark, owned a small field growing peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and corn. They also raised their own chickens, sheep, cows and a rambunctious puppy who tried to steal our cheese. The house itself consisted of two buildings, an old stone farmhouse for the guests and a slightly more modern build for Mark, his wife and his teenage daughter, the one who answered my phone. We had misheard the price on the phone. It was 30 instead of 13 euros per person per night. But we figured with all the meals, we would’ve paid pretty much the same amount at other places. That was, if we had been able to find any with availability.

Besides, the view from this place made it all worthwhile. Does one ever get sick of this landscape if one sees it everyday?

While waiting for dinner, we played cards, hiked around the farm and met other guests who just hiked from Theth – so the same walk we’d be doing tomorrow but in the opposite direction. All of us enjoyed a simple dinner of vegetable salad, bean soup, cheese and bread, and homemade yogurt for dessert. All homemade using ingredients from the farm. Plus excellent companies and conversations. We really lucked out today.

When we first got to the house and were shown the room, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. But I reminded myself to accept things the way they were and just be grateful. It’s temporary, and, we had, and would likely stay in even worse places in the future. Our accommodation on this trip is rarely ever luxurious, occasionally comfortable, but mostly, basic and acceptable. Sometimes the room is damp or cramped. Sometimes the sheet smells or the mosquitoes are especially bad-mannered, or the bathroom isn’t quite clean. Sometimes the location of the place is far from town, or in a questionable neighborhood. It’s never the hotel quality room we were used to, or the comfort of our home. But, whenever I feel this way, I try to break it down, and realize that we have everything we need. A dry bed, a warm room, a safe house. If we think the sheets are not clean, we have the sleeping bag liner and a sleeping bag to lie on, or we can sleep with our clothes on. If we’re not happy with the shower, we have slippers to keep our feet clean and do a quick shower instead of a long one.

I just finished reading Yuval Noal Harari’s book “Homo Deus” and one of the things he wrote that stuck with me was: break things down and see what are the facts / truths and what are the stories we spin in our heads.

For example:
FACT: The bathroom drain is clogged with hair
STORY: This is a dirty bathroom in a dirty house and my feeling of disgust is making me feel like I’m going to contract diseases from just breathing the air in this unhygienic bathroom, and so on, and so forth.

Moral of the story: as long as we don’t find a corpse in our room, we are fine.

Our ride came promptly at 7am, just as we were about to finish our ‘light’ breakfast of byrek (triangular pastry made of filo dough filled with cheese; the whole thing was larger than my face) and chocolate croissant. Altogether there were nine of us from the hostel going to Valbonë; we made friends with a few of them last night and over breakfast this morning. There was no more room in the larger (more comfortable) bus, so we took the smaller van – more a wagon than a van – with two guys from the UK and a girl from Canada.

The driver a.k.a. Albanian Steve (because he looked like Gabriel’s friend, Steve), and his friend talked — or argued, we couldn’t tell — the whole ride, interrupted only when they had to stop and pick up cargo from various shops along the way. They stopped at a seed store, a bakery and a general supply store. Each time they stopped, shifted the gear to neutral, pulled up the parking brake, kept the car running, made a dash to the store to pick up goods and they were back in the car in less than a minute stashing their purchase under the seats or under their legs. Then they raced back on the road to catch up with the other bus, and picked up their conversation (or argument) where they had left it.

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It’s Friday night which meant the square, streets, and parks were full of life. The city was smaller than Tirana and looked more quaint and more affluent. The brick houses looked more maintained and the shops looked more upscale than the ones we saw in Tirana. Everyone of all ages were out and about, walking around, sitting on benches by the park or the main promenade, or sitting in the cafes nursing their drinks as slowly as possible. The ubiquitous cafes and their misting equipment (which I thought was quite pointless) and men and their coffee are what I’d remember from Albania.

It seemed that we just missed the demonstrations in Tirana. At the restaurant the newscaster on TV was reporting on what looked like a large political demonstration in Tirana. We recognized some of the buildings where a large unhappy crowd had gathered with their banners and signs. Our waiter didn’t really want to tell us what it was all about except to say that “It’s normal. Don’t worry.” I wanted to explain that we weren’t worried as much as curious about the esprit du jour of Albania; what caused people to march on the streets? But he just smiled politely and nodded. Maybe he just didn’t want to get into politics at work.

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Yesterday we saw a motorcycle (a Royal Enfield!) with Great Britain plate parked in front of the guesthouse. We were curious about the identity of the rider, and I had assumed the rider would be a man, even though Gabriel had pointed out my sexism and said that the rider could be a “she”. So I was delighted to be proven wrong and see a twenty-something year old woman working on the motorcycle this morning. I said hello and we started chatting. She’s been traveling from London for a few months by land and heading towards Azerbaijan. Her goal is to be in Azerbaijan by September because she could hitch a ride back from there with one of her friends. We wanted to invite her to have dinner with us, hungering for more stories from her travel but she had a tight schedule and was only staying in Tirana for one night. “Besides, it’s expensive to stay in the city,” she said. “It’s cheaper to camp on the countryside.” We nodded in agreement, wished her luck and let her go back to her motorcycle maintenance. I just regretted not getting her contact information; it would have been nice to email her in September to see if she made it.

I always find it funny when we encountered someone on a trip like that and they asked us what we’re doing. Often I admire their goals so much that I felt our aimless walkabout is quite silly. Very unpurposeful and juvenile in comparison. So I would minimize what we’re doing and sheepishly admit that we are traveling for a year and have no planned itinerary. But then I could see their eyes widen —perhaps out of curiosity as to how we manage to take a full year off, or perhaps out of wishful thinking that they can extend their trip longer — and I wonder what they’re thinking.

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