Albania

Albania was one of our "maybe" countries heading into this trip. It looked beautiful, and we were interested in going, but we didn't know if we would have time or how difficult it would be getting around by public transit since Albania has less tourist infrastructure than other neighboring countries. But, we kept the option open, and as we traveled, we met more and more backpackers who had been to Albania and loved it, especially a particular hike in the northern Albanian Alps; we became determined to fit it in before we had plans to meet our friend Brad in Greece.

The hike itself, from the small town of Theth to Valbona (or vice versa), can be done in a single day, but since it's a one-way hike in a remote part of the country, you typically need to dedicate 3 days to arrange it all. There are surely people who coordinate all of this themselves, but based on what we heard from others, we opted to find a hostel in Shkoder, Albania (yep, a city on the same lake we visited in Montenegro) that would coordinate all of the transportation and guest houses for us pretty cheaply. All we had to do was show up, go where we were told, and actually do the hike. The main hostel people typical go through for this hike called Wanderer's Hostel was booked, but we found a hostel called Tia's that had openings so we went with them. Typically, Tia's hostel does the route from Theth to Valbona, but due to capacity issues at the guesthouse we had to hike from Valbona to Theth which didn't matter to us, and in the end we think worked out better. This change in the typical itinerary did lead our hostel host to tell us not to pre-book the mini bus back from Theth to Shkoder yet so that we would have time our last morning to hike to the Blue Eye. We were a little skeptical of not having this transportation set up, but he was confident we'd be able to hitch a ride back, so we went with it!

We slept at Tia's in Shkoder for one night before doing the hike, but didn't get to do much exploring of the town. Early the next day, armed with only our day packs, we took a very bumpy mini bus ride to a port and jumped on a ferry. The ferry took us on about a two hour ride over Komani Lake which was beautiful. It sort of reminded us of Oregon with the blue/green water and lush green hills around. The ferry itself was quite full or cars and people, but we still enjoyed it for the views and because we ran into our friend Tom from New Zealand who we'd met in Mostar. The ferry navigated through the mountainous lake to another port where we jumped onto another bus that dropped us off in front of our mountain guesthouse in Valbona. The guesthouse was run by a family and was surrounded by mountains. They had chickens, cats, dogs, including a very cute puppy, and even horses- including a foal! We arrived pretty early in the afternoon and had nothing to do in the very small town except relax and get to know our four fellow backpackers who were doing the same hike through Tia's and its sister hostel. It was a nice change of pace to feel a little chilly, breathe in the fresh mountain air, and get a few home cooked meals.

We got up with our four new friends as early as we could to still get breakfast from the guesthouse and started our trek around 7:30 am. After about one mile of walking on the road, we got to the trailhead and walked on a dried river bed for a while before we started to ascend. As we started to hike up, we saw a couple of refugios and started to see a few friendly trail dogs. We noticed that one of the dogs was one of the small dogs from the guesthouse! This one was very cute, but a little rough around the edges (someone in our group jokingly started calling him Scabbers due to a large scab he had on his forehead) and we couldn't believe his tiny little legs were carrying him up the mountain. The hike up was beautiful with the morning light hitting the mountain peaks. Our group had a great time hiking together and shared a pretty similar pace (except for Ed, who was speedy and sometimes went on ahead and waited for us :)). With the help of a different trail dog leading us, we were at the top before we knew it. We had a great view of the Valbona valley with different peaks that could also be climbed, though that wasn't part of our plan for this trip. We stopped for some snacks and water before starting our descent. As we hiked down into Theth, we started to get engulfed by a forest and it restricted our views of the mountains but provided some much needed shade; the chill of the morning had long since worn off. Since we were making good time, we decided to stop for drinks at a refugio which had a nice view of the Theth valley. When we finally made it to the bottom of the valley, we found out our next guesthouse was about a 40 min walk from the town of Theth which at the time was disheartening, but turned out to be a blessing. The guesthouse was secluded and surrounded by mountains and some farm land with a school nearby. It was very relaxing sitting there after the hike on top of the kitchen roof, swapping card games, drinking beer, and staring up at the mountains and eventual stars.

Our next day we woke up to rain, and were thankful that we had already done the main hike. Our goal today was to get to the Blue Eye which was a cold waterfall pool in a forest. We walked into town with our new friends, and were trailed the whole way by the sweetest puppy that our friend Shauni dubbed Orla. It was actually sad for us to leave Orla behind in town, but we bid her farewell and caught a mini bus to the Blue Eye trailhead. After about 45 minutes of hiking and being led by yet another trail dog (Montenegro had the cats, but Albania really had the dogs), we were treated with a stunning clear blue pool and a beautiful waterfall. We sat and relaxed and then jumped into the frigid water that was about 50 degF. It was very refreshing after the fact but SO cold. We basically jumped in and immediately got out. It reminded Carson of Blue Pool in Oregon and it reminded Melissa why she doesn't believe in Polar Plunges. Blue Eye was relaxing and not very crowded, and there was even a small make shift bar with the drinks floating in the stream to stay cool (though we didn't partake, because it was about 10am). Next came the unknown part of our journey: figuring out how would we get back to Shkoder. We finished our hike and talked with the mini bus drivers that were waiting for hikers at the Blue Eye trailhead. Eventually, one of them agreed to coordinate a drop off for our group of six to get a ride from Theth to Shkoder. The driver only drove us about 5 minutes down the road, and then told us to get into another bus. We hopped in this retro Mercedes Benz bus that had baskets of vegetables occupying the front seats. The bus stopped in Theth to drop off the vegetables, then started the climb over the pass of the Theth valley. The bus ride was beautiful in the valley and took a long time to get over the mountain pass. We eventually made it back to Shkoder and were dropped off at the main bus station. We headed back to our hostel for a much needed beer, said our goodbyes to our new friends, and relaxed before we flew to Athens the next day.

Looking back, we're so glad we got to visit Albania, even though there are many more parts of the country we'd love to explore some day (just Google the Albanian Riviera). The hike and all the logistics were an adventure, but we made some great friends and got to enjoy hiking in the beautiful Accursed Mountains (yep, that's really their name!). The Albanian people we met were very warm and welcoming, and we'd love to spend more time getting to know its history and people. Since it wasn't part of Yugoslavia like many of the other countries we visited, it had a distinct vibe to it that we could sense, but didn't have enough time to really experience.