Great Northen Circle

I started writing this a while ago and never finished it, after this one hopefully I will write another to update everyone with what we have been doing since summer.

In June, the Peace Corps along with the embassy opened the northern sections of Albania to be explored and visited by Peace Corps volunteers, for the past year we had been able to visit that part of the country but only using annual leave, the same type of leave we use to visit places like Italy, Greece, and America.  It attracted a few volunteers, but most of our group explored the Albania that we could access without annual leave days.

We had been in contact with a group that runs a summer camp in Theth for the children that live there all summer while their parents run guesthouses, cafes, or just live in their traditional village (most traditional villagers now live in and around Shkoder all winter and move back to Theth when the pass opens in the spring).  

Tiffany and I started talking about visiting Theth and another small village across the mountain called Valbona in May and hearing different stories about how to best visit the northern expanse of Shkoder.  We had heard about a trail that was hike-able from Valbona to Theth and thought that we could with a group of people see a large chunk of the north in one trip.  We decided our first stop would be the ferry that runs up the artificial Lake Koman, from the village near the hydro power plant of the same name to Fierze, the next hydro dam on the Drin River.  16 people ended up joining us on the adventure, 15 Peace Corps Volunteers and 1 Albanian who wanted to be outdoorsy with us.    

The journey was extremely hot and long but after nearly 3 hours of cruising up Lake Koman we arrived at Fierza, we all loaded into a furgon and were driven to Bajram Curri, the largest city in the north and a place for us to pick up supplies for the trip.  After a great lunch organized for us by two volunteers placed in Bajram Curri, we had some time to relax and gather supplies.  I immediately went for sausage and bread, while Tiffany wandered over to the fruits and vegetables.  Camping isn't as easy in Albania as it is in America, finding foods that are hiking and camping friendly is much more difficult.  We spent the night with the volunteers and much of the next morning hanging around in Bajram Curri, around 1:30 we gathered in the center of town fully stocked up (and weighed down) with supplies.  We made the furgon trip to Valbona in what must have been record time.  I was a little surprised to see a lack of anything in Valbona that you could consider to be a town or village.  Where the furgon let us off was a large hotel/ cafe/ restaurant but nothing else around.  I knew that these places were remote but I expected to see some houses clustered together.  We hiked from Valbona about an hour to another village where we would set up camp for the night.

The next morning we packed up our gear and started the trek towards Thethi.  The lower section of the hike took us slowly around the mountains that surrounded the Valbona River, as we continued to climb the hike got harder and the rewards sweeter.  The views of the mountains and valley below were remarkable and along the trail were patches of wild strawberries.  Sometime you would get into a clearing and the smell of strawberries would flood your nose and everyone immediatly began looking for the little red dots hidden in the green along the trail.  They were so sweet and ripe.  After many hours of climbing, sometimes slowly and sometimes very steep sections, we arrived at the pass between the Valbona and Shala valleys.  We had climbed almost 3000 feet and had almost as much to descend before we could rest and relax in Theth for the next couple of days.  We took the opportunity to snap a few pictures at the top.

The next day we visited with the Balkan Peace Park summer camp project and also had some time to explore Thethi.  Some of us helped make musical instruments with the younger kids while other took a hike with the older ones.  After the camp ended, we took a walk around town to visit the church, and tower as well as a wonderful family who served some of the best food we had ever eaten.  After lunch we went to cool off at the waterfall.

The next day we all got into a furgon and headed back towards Shkoder where we once again drove over the mountains out of the valley only this time to the west of Theth.  It was a remarkable trip and one that we will always remember.  For the rest of the pictures head over to:  Great Northern Circle Pictures

Spring in Albania

Wow! It has been forever since we have posted, partially due to travel outside the country, partially due to work and lack there of with in the country.  I guess there are 4 major events that we will discuss and 1 major event that we will avoid.  The avoided is the disputed election for mayor of Tirana, the capital city.  The original count gave the socialist incumbent a victory by 10 votes but as they have opened the ballot boxes for city council they have discovered that there were votes placed there as well, enough for the Democratic candidate to pull ahead.  The question now is whether to count the "misplaced" votes or to not.  Demonstrations have taken place in Tirana as well as other cities around the country to push for their opinions.  As for the mayoral races in the rest of the country it seems like all the bigger cities in the north (including Shkoder) have gone or stayed Democratic.  The larger cities in the south have remained to changed to Socialist.  The big change in the north was Puka, which was socialist, will have a democratic mayor.

The first thing I will discuss in some detail is the Ultimate Frisbee "league" I'm trying to start.  Working with "The Door" again, we had 10 ultimate discs shipped from Disccraft to Albania and I began "coaching" one group of boys in their gym.  The gym is literally a basketball court sized area with little or no out of bounds, so we have adapted the rules for this size of a field.  We don't have pulls, and any disc that touches the wall or ceiling is a turnover.  The boys seem to like the game because of how closely the game resembles soccer.  I have been working to get the game outside, but when the weather turns nice for a few days and before I can schedule a place outside it turns nasty again.  Also I have been helping World Vision take care of their growth and the practice times from 12:20 - 1 Tuesdays and Thursday was interrupted many times by me having to go out and take pictures with World Vision.  So as of now I have 1 possible group of boys and am no further along with anything than I was in February, and I was hoping to be outside playing with 3 or 4 teams by this time, but avash avash (slowly, slowly).

Secondly, Tiffany successfully held a race here in Shkoder.  She worked with Jessi and The Door to hold a 3 kilometer race from the center of town to the top of the castle.  If you remember the pictures of the castle it is quite a hill.  There were over 100 participants that signed up to run and we had over 80 finish the race and turn in the race bibs.  I participated in the race itself along with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers and our Country Director, and finished first out of that group.  I didn't place in the top 3 but ran a personal best of 12:30ish.  which for 1.8 miles up a pretty steep hill isn't too bad.  There were some issues with the race finishing order, but it was all worked out in the end and it is an event that Tiff hopes to hold again next year.  Kastriot wants to hold a race twice a year!  It even inspired some of the Peace Corps volunteers to attempt a half-marathon in September in Ireland.  We are hoping to make it and I would like to run the 13 miles in under 2 hours, considering the winner of the Boston marathon finished his full in under 2, I hope I can run half that in the same amount of time.  

Thirdly, we had an opportunity to take a vacation with Tiff's parents.  They made it out of the US for the first time ever, voluntarily.  The map gives you an idea of where we travelled.  The black lines are by plane, red by train and the blue lines by boat (Royal Caribbean Cruises).   

We met in Milan, travelled to Florence and Rome by train, caught the ship in Rome and sailed to Athens, Kushadasi Turkey, Rhodes Greece, Istanbul, and Naples.  Everyone loved Florence and we would love to go back to see more, specifically the Uffizi Gallery with some of DaVinci's and Rafael's artwork, but we did get to see The David, and it was remarkable.  I wasn't really impressed with Rome although Vatican City was an exception.  The Colosseum and many other fountains and buildings weren't as spectacular as I had built them up to be.  I also really likes Kushadasi, the city was modern and clean but not ultra touristy like Istanbul.  Tiff's parents also came back for a few days to Shkoder where we got to show them around our city a little as well as take them to Kruja (the most touristy place we have in Albania).

Finally, we had an opportunity to meet the new trainees that will be moving in and around the Shkoder area.  We will have a new TEFL teacher coming to Shkoder, there will be a COD in Vau Dejes and Koplik (both are smaller cities about 1/2 hour from town, and a Health Educator in Koplik as well.  We are excited to get to spend more time with the new volunteers and help them adjust to life in the north of Albania.  While we were down at their training in Elbasan we took time to have a "working vacation."  We have never explored the South west coastline and we decided that pre-tourist season would be a good time to do that.  We picked two cities to visit since we had 3 days to explore, Himare and Vlora.  We went to Himare first, and if it wasn't for the 5 and a half hour furgon ride we would be visiting there a lot more.  It had to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.  Crystal blue water, white marble rocks jutting right out into the ocean and in some places forming small tide pools that we could watch small crabs and other creatures scurrying around in.  The volunteer there also had a beautiful apartment.  The downside is she is by herself and about an hour an a half from any other volunteer, but we offered to trade her sites and she said no so she must be happy there.  Vlora was also pretty but it had more of the feel of a big city on the ocean.  Kind of like a Long Beach in LA.  The city was a little more dirty and bigger.  I'm sure I would have liked it more had we not just seen Himare, but I've also been to much worse too.  Here are some pictures of Himare that I took with my little camera.  I packed light for this trip, 6 days with only my book bag and a sleeping bag, plus an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag tied to the outside of my book bag.  Have I mentioned I love spring in Albania, you can pack like this and be totally fine, 6 pairs of underwear, 3 tshirts, a dress outfit and a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts, plus a light jacket for the cool evenings.   Looking forward to seeing more of the country this summer and fall before winter sets back in.  We've decided to explore more this year, helping other volunteers with projects around the country instead of hunkering down in Shkoder waiting on our own projects.  I think that is all for now.  Hope the spring is good for you all and that it stops raining long enough to enjoy some of it outside!