TALES FROM THE ACCURSED MOUNTAINS
The rugged beauty and warm, welcoming people of Albania provide memories of a lifetime
Halfway through a month of exploring Albania, my husband Paul and I decide to mark this year of our 70th and 65th birthdays by doing our longest hike ever, a day-long hike through the wild Albanian Alps, the ‘Accursed Mountains.’
We start from the lovely beach town of Himara on the ‘Albanian Riviera.’ The bus follows the twisty, winding coastal road, then by sunrise heads north through the spectacular Llogara Pass that snakes ever upward from the sea.
Our destination is Shkodra, where we find a hostel that will keep our big packs while we are gone. At the hostel we book our 90-minute ride to the ferry, the ferry ticket and the drive to Valbone. Each of the three legs of the journey costs a mere 6 euros. Most people do this trip in a twonight, three-day circuit but we like the description of tiny Theth so decide to stay an extra night.
We carry only daypacks and water bottles and will do the hike on our own, without a guide. The drive to the ferry is uneventful; the 2.5 hour ferry ride on manmade Lake Koman, on the other hand, has spectacular vistas. This twisty lake, once a river now dammed, has breathtaking views around each corner.
The country is rugged, with limestone walls rising sharply up from the turquoise water. The ferry makes stops along the way for the ‘mountain people’ who have isolated farms along the way. No buildings can be seen from the boat so people appear by the riverbank as if conjured from air.
The end of the ferry trip at Fierze is dramatic. The ferry drops its ramp onto the dirt bank; deck hands and the captain jump off to madly shovel so that drivers can leave without tearing the bottoms out of their cars. From the moment the tires hit the ground, it’s straight up.
A furgon (minivan) is waiting to take us on the two-hour journey to Valbone; each passenger dropped at their hostel, homestay or hotel.
The Valbone Valley is incredibly beautiful; wide open, surrounded by river, forest and the stunning mountains.
As luck would have it our hotel is near the trailhead. It’s a series of lovely stone buildings set in the woods. A canal runs through the property and serves as cold storage for the kitchen. One section has plump watermelons bobbing along, while another has live fish, ready for the chef when a customer orders one.
The morning dawns bright; another 30 C August day is coming. When we get to the dry riverbed, where we will walk for 12 km to get us to the trailhead at Ragam, we have time to soak in the view and to contemplate the challenge before us. The trail up and over the mountain pass is 23 km; the peak at 1,966 metres. We have an extra four km to get to our accommodation in Theth.
In some places the wellmarked path is through forest, over rock and even through open alpine, In others the trail is steep and quite narrow. We had expected cooling breezes on the mountain but there was none that day.
We come upon a small tour group on the trail that has hired a guide and pack horses to carry their luggage. One of the pack horses has just been rescued from a fall of about 50 metres down the mountain side. It had taken an hour to do the rescue and the guides were busy loading the luggage back on the horse. Miraculously he didn’t break anything.
There is a small cafe partway up the trail and again on the downside. We have a little celebration at the cafe on the way down. A couple we met on the ferry reveal that at the peak of the hike he dropped down on one knee to propose. It was drinks and cheers all around.
We are ready for the welcoming chilled beer that Rita, our lovely host, has waiting for us. Her guesthouse, called Coldspring, is beyond the few homes in Theth and the last one out on a country road. It’s perfect: peaceful, no Wi-fi, TV or radio.
Rita gets lamb and cheese from the local shepherd, pork from a farmer who lives nearby, veggies from a garden that she and her mom share, plus butter and yogurt courtesy of the cow they keep. She’s an excellent cook and feeds us well.
The spring water here is so pure you can drink it straight from the ground.
Rita has two big barrels of plums fermenting in the backyard that at just the right time will be distilled to become raki. It’s the drink of hospitality and can be seen on every kitchen table, at weddings, funerals and even at some religious gatherings.
It’s satisfying sitting on her front porch looking off into the distance at the mountain pass that we just hiked through.
The next day we hike up to a little cafe/bar in the mountains owned by Rita’s brother and run by his teen daughter Denisa, who is on summer vacation from high school. We are the only customers.
On this hike we see one of Enver Hoxha’s bunkers. This rugged area was spared the ‘bunkerization of Albania’ by the iron-fisted communist leader. In other parts of the country every square kilometre has five to seven bunkers, their construction a crippling drain on the economy and most of them never used.
High in the mountains, there is only one road out of Theth to Shkodra and it closes when winter snow falls. Rita arranges a driver to get us back to Shkodra. The driver (non-albanian) picks us, and a young couple from
Israel, up in his truck. They have just spent a week camping and hiking.
The first part of the journey to Boge is a crude, narrow, windy gravel road high in the mountains with sheer drop-offs on the one side and potholes big enough to swallow a large dog. We are relieved when at Boge the road becomes paved but the relief is short-lived. It’s as if the pavement gives the driver permission to push the truck to its limit. The road is still narrow and twisty, with the bottom thousands of metres below us.
The driver loves his gas pedal, plays ‘chicken’ with any oncoming vehicles and seems to delight in terrorizing his passengers. When he is asked to slow down he does so for about a minute then goes again even faster. We are relieved to arrive at Shkodra alive.
This trip was a highlight of a wonderful month in Albania. Everywhere we have travelled in this world, we have been met with kindness, but the people throughout Albania opened their hearts and homes to us, shared raki, friendship and stories, and went out of their way to help us and make us welcome.
This is a great place to visit before too many tourists descend.