The day began with another enormous albanian breakfast of cheese, eggs, bread and marmalade and a huge glass of warm milk!
Today was to be my first day walking with someone else. I had offered tim a room at the airbnb i had booked at the end of today's walk. An incredibly cheap whole house so he decided he would set out with me. It was pleasant to be walking in company for a change.
The day was gorgeous, with cloudless skies and a lot of walking on clearly roman road. Even though the surface had been covered by crushed rock, the roman stonework reinforcing the way was often visible.
Not long after we left dardhe we came to a little waterfall and a concrete bridge crossing the stream. Oddly, the enormous slab seemed to be held up by nothing more than a few logs. I felt a little uncomfortable crossing it, only to have a better look underneath and see there were two steel girders sitting below the logs. We decided the logs were just to give walkers a little fright.
Along with yesterday this was the best stretch of walking so far, with lovely countryside and lots of roman stone work. Saw another demolished information board and then two more that had been left alone.
Right near the end of the day's walking an odd thing happened to our gpx tracks. Mine said to go along a walking track just above the river while Tim's indicated we should head further up hill on a road. We split up and i reached the bridge over the shkumbini river where i waited for Tim. It turned out that his route had led him right through the property of a family connected to the via egnatia foundation, the kocali's. It's a mystery why our two tracks were slightly different.
Anyway, Tim turned up a few minutes after me and we crossed the bridge and went into a cafe so i could connect to internet and see where the airbnb was. According to the app map, it was just up the road a bit. One of the hash smoking young guys in the cafe dialled the number of the host for me and i tried calling. Guy answers the phone and says yes, he is alfred, but no i don't have a booking. He tells me it is not possible, he is not in the country and then hangs up on me! Never had that on airbnb before. A non existent lodging. I was quite embarrassed that i had offered tim a room in a house that seemingly didn't exist. Luckily, he had been offered room back at the kocali farm so we walked ten minutes back down the path.
As we crossed the bridge we passed a man slaughtering sheep. He was in the process of skinning one carcass hanging from a tree, with three others lying, throats cut, at his feet. It seemed needlessly cruel to be doing his butchering in front of the still living victims to come, in the back of his truck.
We reached the kocali house and were warmly welcomed. Coffee and raki. After one top up i left my glass mostly full to avoid further additions to the glass. It was pretty rough stuff. After a lot of companionable near silence from our hosts i decided to broach the subject of our accommodation and its price. I was led to an enormous room full of four sofa beds. On the way there i saw what is potentially our dinner. A big pan of meat and a bucket with a sheep's skull in it. Join the dots...If i hadn't seen the skull i would probably eat, blissfully unaware, but now, i don't know.
Actually, i do know. I couldn't eat it. In fact i barely ate any of the dinner we got served, except the home made sour dough , which was delicious. The soup with big chunks of bony meat in it, i barely touched. Neither of us touched the home made yoghurt in a cup. Can't say it was the best dinner I've had in Albania.
It was a strange experience to be eating surrounded by the family watching tv, chatting and occassionally interacting with us. Which mostly involved plying us with home made raki. By now there was mother and father, in their seventies (?), two adult sons and their wives and four grandchildren. A guestbook was brought out and we read through it. Across four years or so about twenty different groups of people had stayed, including several Australians. When i picked up the book, a NSW police force shoulder patch fell out! One group from germany included a baby. Only four people had passed by so far this year. One guest had used the opportunity to complain about being ripped off since the price was so high. And to be fair, they do charge too much for what is very basic food and lodging. Nearly twice what i have been paying everywhere except the hotel ballkan.
Tim and i were chatting away and reading the comments when i noticed the mother standing expectantly near the table. I presumed she was keen to clear away our things so she could go to bed. I suggested we should retire to the bedroom. Tim came back from cleaning his teeth to report that actually, she had been keen for us to get up because they had not eaten yet! At ten at night the family was finally getting to eat.
Read a few pages of my third ismael kadare novel and fell asleep.
Photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YPwD4gL8GFd4kbcT6
Walk details here:
https://www.mapmyhike.com/workout/3523605178
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