I’m happy today! It’s not that other days i’m not happy, but i’m especially happy now. I’ve found a company to kayak with in Iran! And that has made me happy because Iran has wierd landscapes, mars-like landscapes that I want to see from the kayak.

Continuing with the post of the day… After watching Theth’s video my friend Victor asked me if I had felt like Heidi’s hidden brother. Leaving Theth wasn’t easy, I felt like staying and at the same time I wanted to go and see other things, go to the south, see the coast and do that bus trip over the mountains the book promised was so beautiful. A few days later I regreted, I should have stayed longer. It’s possibly the most genuine place I’ve ever been in my life, an authentic place with simple people and clean looks, a place where the kindness, the simplicity and the hospitality of the people shudder. A genuine place, that there are less every time.
Even though we normally prefer to see and visit new places, I want to to go back to Theth sometime, something of me has been left in Theth and I’ve liked it.

But coming back can be a difficult enterprise as I’ll have to come back soon or it will have “developed”. the roads would become asphalt and instead of minibuses,  buses will come with tourists that will go to inhale pure air and expire stress. An that expired stress will remain there.

Isn’t it a creative way to block a broken window?

These girls are part of one of the families that live in the valley all year. The parents are blonde as well. I was invited to a raki and practiced some Albanian with the father reading the guide book, what a complicated language! During the second world war the Nazis considered Albanians as kind of an Aryan race because of their looks.

For the Grandads in the area, living up to 100 years is not strange. Still far for this one.

Little local beans. It´s funny, in the supposedly advanced world people buy organic food at an extra cost while here organic is the normal thing. By the way who gave that name of “organic”?

The house I was in.

It´s kind of an oven, under the rounded metal thing the rice is cooking, on top the charcoal. In order to maintain the charcoal on top there’s a ring to hold them.

Going to the south this is what I eat, spicy sausages from the east part of the country.

There is a project, the Balkan Peace Park that wants to protect this mountain area plus the continuing area in Kosovo and Montenegro as well, it would be great if it works because as it’s not a globalized place, the habits have not changed much and nearly all they use are local products, the plastic that dirties everything in the country is nearly non-existent here, a happiness for the eyes.

There was a family of photographers, the Marubi that took pictures of this area in at the end of 19 century and the beginning of the 20th century. Check some of the pictures here.

After Theth I went to Berat, an ottoman city, it was recently included in the endless UNESCO list.
We stayed in a traditional ottoman house, you don’t have many opportunities for this! It was the best accommodation option in town and cost 30 euro with eggs for breakfast.

The diriver and it´s car, it may soon become a classic.

When you get into a taxi and the driver offers you raki you hesitate if remaining in the taxi is a good idea but, why not, trying a home made raki?

I kayaked the Osumi canyon, a very easy river but beautiful. I joined a rafting trip from the company Outdoor Albania.

The houses under the castle.

Buying cigaretts.

The river I paddled goes by the village.

There’s a hostel in Berat where the English owners have  produced flavored raki, the lemon one is similar to limocello.

The countriside is more organized and developed than what I expected.

By now I’m skipping Tirana, the capital and engine of the country has not been in the blog yet. I’ve loved it, but wont tell you about it until the next video.

Ah, My friend Aitor has uploaded his Montenegro pictures, if you liked my pictures sure you’ll like his more, he’s a better photographer than me. Here you have them.

See you soon
Fernando