Old stone house
Valbonë
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.
Ferry ride from Koman to Fierza
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.
Walking around Shkodër
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.
Continue reading →Furgon to Shkoder
We packed our bags and headed to the bus station to take a furgon (minibus) to Shkoder (pronounced shko-draaah in Albanian), our gateway to the Albanian Alps. As soon as we approached the terminal, which was nothing but a small dusty parking lot behind a storefront and a tiny shelter for waiting area, a man asked, “Shkodra?” I didn’t even think he waited for us to answer and quickly ushered us towards one of the vans.
The driver, a man in his fifties, took our bags and informed us in Albanian that the van would leave at 11am and it would cost us 400 lek (USD 4) each. We paid him and took our seats in the cramped van. We quickly learned that much like the bus from Athens, people used these vans and buses to transport goods from city to city. I could see how the postal service was probably unreliable and slow, whereas DHL/UPS/Fedex was too expensive, so here’s a reliable and fast courier service. The driver took a shipment of three air conditioners, which he piled up high next to us, leaving almost no room for our legs. “Let’s hope he’s a good driver,” I mumbled to myself, not wanting to imagine what would happen if these heavy boxes tumble over during a hard brake.
The van finally left after twenty minutes or so past the hour with a somewhat full van. The driver left the back door open and drove slowly for the next kilometer, trying to get a few more passengers on board. He had somehow produced two stools out of thin air that could serve as extra seats in the van.
Outside the city limits the landscape turned into farm lands: corns, peppers, olive groves. Large new mansion-like houses, some bearing American flags. These are new developments most likely built after 1991.
Somewhere along the way, the driver had just let a passenger out without pulling over and suddenly he’s getting pulled over by the police. I thought I caught him cursing under his breath in Albanian but I couldn’t be sure. It’s that kind of short burst of exasperated cursing we’re all familiar with when life caught us in our most unfortunate moments. After getting his papers, the police ordered the driver to follow behind. It seemed that instead of sitting idle while processing his citation, here the police completed the paperwork while driving and made the driver followed them around. I wasn’t sure if tickets here also meant financial penalty but I could sense that the driver became even more aggressive and motivated to collect passengers along the way. He took out a plate from the glove compartment with “Shkoder” on one side and “Tirana” on the other and asked the passenger sitting next to him to fix it on the window. His effort was somewhat successful. At some point there were more passengers than there were seats but people didn’t seem to care. They were either going a short distance or they thought it was better to be uncomfortable than to wait on the side of the road for a ride that might never come under the scorching sun.
The rest of the trip to Shkoder was uneventful. The driver dropped us off at the main roundabout and we walked ten minutes to the hostel. The girl at the reception told us that they could help arrange transport to Valbone for 2200 lek per person. That seemed like a fair price for a journey that involved a 2-hour bus ride, a 3-hour ferry, and another hour of bus ride. Another good news: we could store our bags at the hostel for free in case we’re not taking everything with us to the Alps.