Shalë
Albania
Finally, we’ve reached base camp… so to say, this isn’t exactly Mount Everest either, and yet it does feel like it, the beginning of an adventure!
As we’re having a short dinner at the restaurant, right after disembarking, I make an extremely unlikely encounter: a classmate from middle school recognises me, and we catch up on life over a sandwich. She’s also hiking around Theth, but only staying for the day, and leaving in the evening. I knew she was in Albania recently from our chat over Instagram, but definitely did not expect to stumble upon her and her partner randomly.
The chat ends, and time is running out, since we want to clear a couple of kilometres in order to set up camp far enough from Theth. After struggling for a bit to find the start of the trail, we get going.
We find a nice, flat spot where we can finally hang our hammocks, roughly half an hour before sundown. We have some dinner and go to sleep nearly immediately, since we’re planning on waking up around 5:40 in the morning.
The night is quiet and not too cold, with the occasional rustling of leaves caused by a hedgehog or a deer passing by being the only source of disturbance.
After countless struggles, breaks, mental breakdowns, jokes, and moments of amazement, we reach the highest point of the hike!
It is very dusty, and the sun is harsh, but several layers of sunscreen later, we take a couple of pictures. I climb the nearest peak to get a couple of selfies while my travel companion guards our equipment.
The view is truly worth it, but our destination is still so far in the distance! 🤯
We are tired, and every inch of our body feels sore. For obvious reasons, at this point in time, no pictures are being taken at all, so I only uploaded this shot of the valley. Your imagination will have to do the rest: we were making our way through the bed of the dried-up river and ended up reaching a farm, where a taxi was picking up two Italian alpinists.
We decided to ask them for a ride, which they kindly accepted, for about 500 leks per person.
We rejoice at the thought of finally enjoying a warm meal and a bed; the hostel is finally within reach.
A well-deserved rest in this isolated and peaceful settlement, where we finally get to enjoy some nice food and a good bit of rest. My travel companion and I are both feeling a bit sick, though, so we decide to go to bed early and hope for the best.
It may be linked to the water we drank on the way—one of the sources we used looked contaminated, and we only noticed after nearly emptying a full bottle of it. Hopefully, this is a basic bacterial infection and not some sort of parasite.
A quick pit stop while waiting for the boat to Koman. The weather’s great, and there seem to be very few passengers. I’d never mind a private cruise for a thousand lekë.