Finally it was time to pick up our car and begin the next leg of our journey. We were to have the car for four weeks so John had wondered what we would name it. I was thinking something like Priscilla or Penelope to go with Pajero. However as soon as I saw the car again, in my mind she became "The Beast". The old girl (she's old enough to vote!) was huge with scratches and patched body work all over her. We were duly informed that neither the petrol gauge nor the temperature gauge worked and to just refuel it every few hundred kilometres!
We made our way out of town and our first stop was the Mesi Bridge. Built by the Ottomans, this curvy stone bridge was very photogenic.
On a narrow side road we saw some lovely views.
We headed north (passing a horse and cart on the way!) then turned onto a smaller road heading to the mountains. This road proved to be very challenging. Our destination was a small town called Thethi which is quite popular. The drive in takes about 1.5 hours. The road was surprisingly well made but was only single lane and it switched back and forth up the mountain. Many cars, and the occasional bus and truck, also shared the road. Cars often had to completely stop to let someone squeeze past. "The Beast" wasn't a small car but people tended to give her enough space, fortunately. It wasn't a road to get distracted by the scenery on which is a shame because the views became more and more spectacular as we got higher.
There were a few obstacles on the road though.....
There were a few spits of rain so John turned on the wipers. Not surprisingly, The Beast's wipers just smeared water across the windscreen. John turned on the washers to clear the windscreen and water started running over my feet inside the car!
We found our lovely accommodation with great mountain views from our little balcony, then headed out for a short hike to a waterfall. We started by crossing a small wooden bridge over a spectacular gorge.
On the narrow track, a tourist couple approached us coming the other way. Here's how the conversation went:
John: "Hi".
Other guy: "How ya goin'?"
John: "Who's gonna win this weekend?"
Other guy: "The Lions of course!"
The thing was that there wasn't a moment's hesitation between the conversations. John recognised the other guy's Aussie accent immediately and the other guy knew exactly what John was asking. Too funny! And he turned out to be right!
The waterfall was gorgeous. Bizarrely, at the base of the waterfall a young woman posed in a bikini doing all the Instagram-type poses. It was about 15 degrees and everyone else just looked at her. When the photos were done she got dressed without having a swim. Seriously, what's the point of fake photos?
There were plants growing on the rock face and they made cool patterns in the water.
On the trail back we found a tree that had so much sodden moss on it that water was dripping from the moss even though it wasn't raining.
The setting sun left spectacular glows on the misty mountain tops.
Later, I was looking at the view from near our accommodation and a beautiful fox wandered past!
The place we stayed in was out of the village so they provided dinner. It was incredible! For one meal we had delicious vegetable soup, fresh bread, tzatziki, local feta-type cheese, a local sour cheese dip, salad, grilled vegetables, vegetable koftas, amazing scalloped potatoes and pork! Plus there was fruit for dessert. That's 11 courses. We nearly exploded......
We walked early the next day as rain was expected. The walk was really lovely. We started in a village where ramshackle picket fences failed to hold back a jungle of blackberries and herbs. Mint and thyme smelled wonderful. I assume they had escaped old gardens. Some old houses were falling down but others were still being lived in. Cows wandered in paddocks with ropes trailing after them.
A hand-woven wicker fence, the first autumn leaves and the Accursed Mountains.
Beautiful old paths meandered between properties.
Freshly picked spuds.
Leaving the village, the hiking trail followed a river which carved spectacular canyons in places. Most of the rivers here are a stunning aqua colour, an outcome of flowing through limestone hills. We crossed a bridge over the river. The water must have been three metres deep beneath us but it was so clear that only the colour and reflections gave away the fact that there was water there at all.
Along the way we crossed a few rickety bridges. We drew the line at this one. It was much worse than it looks in this photo!
Our destination was "Blue Eye", a stunning swimming hole at the bottom of a small waterfall. Sadly, it was too cold to swim.
We needed to cross planks and horizontal ladders to get to the pool's edge.
We returned via the same track and near the start of the walk we found a place where the river had carved a gorge and amazing shapes out of the limestone.
The reflections were beautiful.
We then explored the village of Thethi which was a short distance away from where we were staying. The old stone houses were so cool!
There is a justifiably famous church in Thethi. It's so beautiful! Its shingled roof forms interesting shapes and it's all set against a background of stunning mountains.
A few horses roam loose and this horse and mule were rummaging through the rubbish, pulling open bags and eating the contents. The rubbish is way too accessible to animals here but hikers seem to be the worst culprits as food wrappers and drink cans lined the busier trails. We soon found rubbish to be a problem, particularly around the public bins as they seemed to be filled to overflowing.
The weather was drizzly and misty but it made for dramatic views! This was taken from the small balcony at our accommodation.
Misty mountains.
Back in our car, it started to rain again so John put the wipers on. One of the blades was really wonky. We stopped and looked at it and the whole blade framework fell off! To our amazement, when we rung the car rental place, they immediately sent someone out from Shkodra, 1.5 hours away, to replace it! The driver had to drive that crazy one-way road in the dark.
Meanwhile, the rain came in heavier and the power went off in the town. We suddenly had hours of downtime, hence this long blog post, haha! The power soon returned to the town but not to our accommodation. It turned out that a transformer that served only six or eight properties had broken down and our property was one of them. We wouldn't have power for 24 hours or so! We spied this scene at the back of our accommodation. Someone is up on the transformer trying to fix it. There are clearly no safety regulations here!
The village was spread out and pretty lanes meandered between paddocks and houses. Hay was stacked into traditional stacks - with non-traditional plastic to keep the rain out, lol.
At various stages we passed blackberry bushes, plum trees, trees laden with small green apples, fig trees and something that was possibly a crab-apple tree. Vegetable gardens were well-tended and cows and sheep grazed in small paddocks. It was all so idyllic.
We ate lunch at the same restaurant most days as the owner was quite knowledgeable about walks. The setting was lovely.
A stunning old building sat at the back of the restaurant. I suspect this was the original home.
The newer building housed the restaurant and accommodation. I love how they build the newer buildings in the traditional style. In fact, I'm not sure how old or new this one is!
Nearby was a 'kulla". Blood feuds have traditionally been a big problem in Albania. In days gone by, when everyone carried a gun, people would get into an argument then one would shoot the other. It was then the duty of the murdered person's family to kill someone from the first family in return. Then the second murder needed to be avenged and so the killing would continue. In an effort to work out a better solution, the murderer and maybe some of his family members would be locked inside a 'kulla', a tall tower/house designed to be defendable. Meanwhile the head men of both families would get together and try to work out a solution. They had two weeks to do this. If no solution was found, the murderer then had two days to leave the village. If he stayed he would be killed.
Most villages had kullas however many were torn down during the communist era. Most buildings in Thethi survived because Thethi was considered to be a desirable place to holiday during the communist period.
We loved the information board at the kulla! Interestingly, they use both euros and Albanian leki here. Everyone accepts a 1:100 ratio.
We walked every day. One day we were on a trail looking at our phone trying to work out which way to go when a woman's voice called out, "Hello"! Ahead of us was an old lady carrying a bundle of wood on her back. She beckoned us to her. We couldn't get there fast enough, haha. She was really bright and cheery and was in for a chat. The only problem was that she spoke no English. She chatted on for a good five minutes, telling us where the different tracks would take us. We just nodded and pretended to understand. We did understand that it would be raining on the mountain top though. The woman was carrying a bunch of grapes which she insisted we take. She was happy to pose for a photo then she went on her way. Awesome!
We decided afterwards that the "old" lady was probably younger than us! The traditional clothes just made us think she was older.
The views back over Thethi were amazing.
This walk led us through some gorgeous forest. An amazing 33% of Albania is covered in forest.
Moss covered everything that stood still long enough.
We moved to another accommodation further up the valley, simply because we couldn't get enough nights in one place. It was a busy village! We woke on our third day in Thethi to brilliant sunshine! Suddenly the great views from our new room were stupendous!
"The Beast" parked behind our lovely accommodation.
Our best walk happened on this day. We hiked through more forests with glimpses of mountains in-between. We found ourselves scrambling up slopes, one of which was so slippery that some very considerate person had tied some old fire hose to a tree so we had something to hang on to. The best part though was walking along the ridgeline. The hills dropped away on either side making the hike more exciting than average for sure! I couldn't take photos of this section - I had to put the camera away so I could use my hands to climb up and down rocks!
Finally our destination was in sight - a peak called Maja e Zorzit.
The special thing about this hill top is it's a smaller mountain completely surrounded by an amazing number of high peaks. We had 360 degree views of stunning mountains in glorious weather!
There was a huge cross on top of the hill.
Heading back down towards the ridgeline. This was a truly memorable hike.
Another walk started in the rear of the village. There were more gorgeous old buildings there.
We often climbed old stiles to get over fences.
Old houses and barns showed the unique local architecture.
Hand-built wooden bridges were common.
The higher we went, the better the views became.
Mountains were layered like a Sara-Lee cake ;)
Our destination was a cave. It took some scrambling and hunting to find it but we got there.
We walked in through a very arched tunnel-like section for about 70 metres where it suddenly became a lot smaller. We would have had to crawl through it so we turned around. We later learned that if we had crawled in we would have found ourselves in a huge chamber. Arrgghh!
We returned through more stunning forests.
A few times we found clusters of these tiny mushrooms growing on old tree trucks. These are about 1 cm in size.
We had limited time for a walk on our last morning as we were trying to get to our next destination but we squeezed one last walk in. We headed to Peje Pass, knowing it was too far for us to reach in the time we had. We drove as far as we could on a rough 4WD track then hiked. We were much closer to the steeper mountains here.
You'll have to look very closely to find John in this photo. I've drawn an arrow to show you. It gives you some idea of the size of these mountains.
On our way out, we had to top up with fuel because our fuel gauge doesn't work. I'm glad someone told us where the tiny petrol station was because we would never have found it. The fuel pumps were inside a shed!
Our stay in Thethi was truly incredible. The mountains there were so special and so spectacular. We will never forget them!
