The first real drama of the trip unfolds

 Prizren, Kosovo, and what came next

Prizren was a little bit of a disappointment for me, personally. It is not the fault of the town; rather, it is that of my expectations. I thought I was going to get a museum experience that would give me further insight into the 1999 war between Albania and Serbia over the region. Prizren was the capital of the region for over a century. It is a much bigger town than Peja and in much better shape after the war than Peja. So I thought I was going to get a modern take on the conflict. No such museum exists. It makes sense, now. It would be too political. One side or the other would be against the implied message, no matter how delicately such a museum tried to present the facts. So in order not to create more tension, no museums about the conflict exist.

Prizren as viewed from the fortress.

We did go to an archaeological museum showing artifacts from the town dating back to the Stone Age, and continuing through the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Roman occupation, and the Ottoman occupation up to the start of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. We also went to another museum that was dedicated to preserving the history of the revolution freeing the region from Ottoman rule in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. But there is nothing anywhere about late 20th century history.

Inside the archaeological museum, looking up through one the many domes.

The bell tower and the domes of the museum.

My favorite sculpture in the 19th century history museum.

We also checked out a few churches, including another Serbian landmark church dating to the 13th century. Again, we had to give up our passports in order to enter. Here, a Serbian tour guide gave us a very one-sided account of the Serbian claims on Kosovo. It was nice to hear the other side of the story. But a little scary too. The church had been mostly destroyed by fire, first by the Turks back in the 17th century, and then again by radical Albanians as recently as 2004. But UNESCO stepped in and helped to restore the ancient frescoes and the building as a whole. So now it stands in the middle of enemy territory guarded by police 24/7, and only half as glorious as it once was.

As per usual, we walked the town up and down. There are mosques on seemingly every street corner, surrounded by tourist shops and restaurants. Prices here are whacky. Some things cost next to nothing. Others are outrageously expensive. They tried to charge us four euros for each t-shirt or pair of socks at the laundromat. We decided to do our own laundry in the hotel sink. It is 95 degrees, so drying the laundry on the balcony is pretty quick. Too bad it is windy enough that we occasionally have to scour the block below for stray underwear that keeps blowing off the railings. 

One of the multitude of mosques in town.

The later it gets, the more crowded it gets. The square is absolutely packed with people at 11:00 and even 12:00 at night. Heavy beat rhythms are churning out of the speakers for a kids dance party on a stage by the river after midnight. And this happens on a Monday and Tuesday night here. We wonder what goes on on Saturday nights! Just as in Peja, the ladies are dressed up to the nines and every block is teeming with teens and twenty-somethings with somewhere to be. The happening late night scene is a sharp contrast to the litter strewn streets and dilapidated buildings. The town looks like very few people have any money to spare, but the people look like everyone is rolling in the dough.

Night falls on Prizren.

Just before sunset, we hiked quite a way up the mountain on the east side of town, to the ruined fortress, for excellent views of the city and the surrounding hills, and to see the sun go down over the distant mountains to the west. Then we clambered back down for a late dinner and some people watching. Prizren also grew on me over time, but it is still a bit too dirty and rundown for my tastes. Let’s move on to Macedonia, what do you say?

The fortress walls.

A tunnel built within the fortress walls.

Carol and the famous old bridge in downtown Prizren.

The many crazy electrical wires do not add to the charm of the city.

Having a beer near the old bridge.

The river walk.

Well, I don’t really care what you say, because we moved on in any case. But the problem is that we are not now in Macedonia as planned. We can honestly say that we did spend a fair amount of time in Macedonia, but we did not stay. “Why not?”, you ask. Well, I promised drama a few posts ago. It was simply a matter of time, but drama hit us hard in our collective head today. So buckle up, it is gonna be a bumpy ride.

First, this story works better if you happen to have access to Google Maps. And I know you do, because you are reading this on a device with internet access. So look up the route from the Monarch Boutique Hotel in Prizren, Kosovo to the “info point at Mavrovo National Park in North Macedonia”. If you have the route we took, it should say two hours and forty minutes or so. Add in a border crossing and let’s say three hours. The route we took is pretty direct. If you are routed towards Skopje, then you’ve got the wrong route. In hindsight, maybe you do have the correct route, but not the one we took. I ask you to follow along on the map with us, because it will help with understanding the issues we had. 

We left the hotel at 9:30 a.m. The idea was to spend time in the Mavrovo National Park and then drive to our next stopping point in Ohrid, a couple of hours farther south. So we walked the few blocks to where our beloved van, Luka, had been parked for the last forty hours or so. We loaded up, and we drove the crazy, tiny, traffic-packed streets of Prizren, until we got out of town completely by around 10:00 a.m. All was well. But not for long. Deep breaths…

(Switching to present tense to add drama to the narrative. Deal with it.)

The roads are pretty well paved. Nice work, Kosovo! We are heading into the mountains again, so switchbacks and tight curves are to be expected. But Michelle is handling them like a champ. We can do this. Three hours to go 100 km. Slow going to be sure (about 20mph on average, for the metric impaired) but we’ll get there. Stray dogs in the road, but they can dodge easily at this pace. Small towns come and go. One crazy town in particular, called Restelicë (go ahead and find it on the map, I’ll wait) has insanely narrow cobbled roads with ridiculous hairpin turns, and cows blocking the way as we climb higher and higher up the mountain. We avoid the parked cars making the roads seem even more narrow (remember, Luka is a very big boy) and the occasional chicken and the not so occasional cow, and make it to the top. Free sailing to the border. Let’s go!

The cows wander free on the roads in town.

One of many mountain towns in Kosovo.

The roads in Kosovo are great, so long as you aren't winding through a town.

By now it is 11:30. We are making great time. So long Kosovo! Now follow along with us on the windy road to a spot labeled Envorosko Bačilo. At this point we have reached the apex of our journey and are heading down, down, down toward the border crossing, which is plainly labeled by Google Maps. You can’t get any farther south in Kosovo than this border crossing. You will notice that there are five zigzag switchbacks on the way down the hill, but the border is after the third zig but before the third zag. So quite a bit up the mountain. There is flagpole with a Kosovan flag at the exact spot of the border. Also at this exact spot, the road stops being paved. This does not bode well.

Here is the border. Notice the lack of signs anywhere.

But we soldier on. We have been to many places where the roads are unpaved. That is just the way it is in much of Costa Rica, for example, and I drove those roads for months. We have come this far. It is about noon at this point, so that is two hours of the three. We knew it would be slow. Good old Google hasn’t changed its estimate. Luka is up to the task. It hasn’t rained in quite a while. Dirt roads be damned. We are in Macedonia now. We can drive like the Macedonians!

Macedonian roads lack pavement.

And are a bit more treacherous.

So we continue on. No border station yet, but that happens a lot. They don’t always put them right at the border. (Dear reader: please follow our path into the wild. Go past the Fairy’s Waterfall, which we never saw. Continue until you finally hit the spot marked “Border Police Strezimir”.) It took about a half an hour to get here on the rocky dirt road, but we made it! There are five metal 42-gallon oil barrels blocking the path. “Everyone give me your passports!” 

We finally reach the border station.

A man steps out of a dilapidated building and immediately starts yelling at us in one of the local languages to turn around. We cannot pass this way. We try to communicate, but his English is almost as bad as my Albanian. We are losing heart quickly. After a couple of minutes of this, he calls someone with better English skills, though still not good, to let us know that this is not a legal border crossing. If we continue on, we will be arrested and put in prison. We absolutely must go back to Kosovo. It even seems like he is telling us that one cannot cross from Kosovo to Macedonia, period. We are beyond distraught. No amount of begging, asking for mercy or asking for alternate solutions is helping. The guy on the phone tells us in no uncertain terms that this is our problem, not theirs. Then he hangs up on me. The guy standing there starts gesticulating wildly and we get the message. Turn the van around and go back from whence we came, or be prepared to lose our passports and our freedom. We get the message. Thankfully, we still have half a tank of gas, because the nearest gas station on the route is back in Krushevë, about an hour and a half away. More deep breaths.

(Here is where you begin to feel sorry for us, but you think to yourself, it could be worse. It is just lost time. But as you can probably tell by the size of this post, more is yet come.) We are all despondent. How could this have happened? We had no idea that what seemed like a legit border crossing could be nothing of the sort. Apparently the Google didn’t either. Back we trudged, at about 10 km/hr along the rocky road. After about twenty minutes of dead silence in the car, a Kosovo police car passes us going in the opposite direction. They stop, open their window, and ask us what the heck we are doing there. We tell them. They agree with the border guard. They drive on with very little conversation. So we do too. Well, until about five minutes later when a dashboard light goes off letting us know that a tire puncture has been detected and that we must stop the car immediately. Really?

Sure enough, the left front tire is completely flat. Fun times. We pull all of the luggage out of the back expecting to find the spare in a compartment beneath the “trunk”. Nothing. Okay. Don’t panic. It has to be here somewhere, right? Sure enough, the tire is firmly bolted to the bottom of the van. How do we get this thing out of here? There has got to be a wrench. Michelle and the girls each go for a walk in a different direction, to give themselves some space and to process. Carol and Mark and I desperately search the van for a lug wrench and a jack. I am crawling all around the van looking under all the seats, peeling back interior plastics panels, even unzipping the fabric from the seats. I spend some time trying to get the hood open, grasping for any idea. It is not in there. If there is a spare tire, there has got to be a way to get the tire changed, doesn’t there?

Ouch.

With passports, cash, and photos of the gimpy tire in hand, Mark and Carol start the long walk (we are guessing two or three miles) back to the non-border station to get help. (Did I mention that it was well over 90degrees?) After close to half an hour of scouring the van, I finally give up and plop down next to our luggage on the incredibly dusty road. Eventually Michelle joins me. We discuss our options, which are few. I am feeling guilty for not having done the appropriate amount of research to avoid the entire predicament. We all agreed to take this path, but I am the one who suggested it. I am the one who spent months researching our agenda, typing things into Google such as : Are Americans welcome in North Macedonia? Do you need a Visa to travel in North Macedonia? Can foreigners drive in North Macedonia? Do we need special insurance or other documentation to travel in North Macedonia? I did this for every country that we wanted to visit. I thought I was being thorough. I guess I neglected to ask if it is allowed to go into North Macedonia when coming from Kosovo. But I couldn’t look it up now, sitting in the dirt, waiting for a miracle, because none of us had even emergency level cell service, and hadn’t had it for a good two hours or so. 

It was about 1:00, maybe half an hour after they left, when Carol and Mark returned in a dinky car driven by an older gentleman who had picked them up on his way north. Where had he come from? Maybe the locals are allowed to use the border crossing? His was the first face we had seen, other than the three officials who had no sympathy for us, since we were on top of the mountain back in Kosovo. Was he to be our savior? As he pulled his car around ours, to park in the shade, his own tire pops. Now he too has a flat. Not a good sign. But he is cheerful despite the setback and pulls out a tiny pneumatic jack and a lug wrench in the shape of a plus sign with one of four different size sockets on each end. We find the correct size wrench and I am able to remove the tire from beneath the car after much effort. But we cannot loosen any of the five lug nuts on the wheel. We try hitting the wrench with a hammer. We try stepping on the wrench and kicking at with our heels. We even try loosening the nuts by pouring motor oil over them and greasing them up as best we can. The man doesn’t speak a word of English, but he is trying his hardest for us. It just is not happening.

Here is the spare tightly bolted underneath the van.

The old man and his jack. He sure did his best.

So we remove the jack from under our van and set about changing the tire under his car. This also is not remotely easy due to the fact that his jack does not fit under his car. But we eventually persevere after digging the hard packed rocky ground out from under the car with our bare hands, and with the hammer that was not designed for this type of work, to get the jack to fit. With much effort, his lug nuts do budge. When we finally succeed in changing his tire, he uses charades to explain to us that he will drive back into Kosovo and call for help for us. We thank him profusely and sit back down not much better off than before, watching him slowly drive off around the bend. He is gone, and he has taken his tools with him.

We are contemplating having to sleep in the van, rationing our snacks and our water. I am seriously considering getting myself arrested down at the station, simply to get figurative wheels in motion that may eventually help to get our literal wheels in motion, and at least get five of our group back to safety. It is now about 2:15. We are pinning all of our hopes on the old guy and his phone call to who knows whom, considering that the police don’t seem to want to help us. But with that thought, here comes another car moving north. It is the border patrol guy. He takes one look at our situation and says something about Kosovo, pointing behind himself, back the way from which he came (which if you ate paying attention, is not the direction of Kosovo) and drives off. Really? Was he the help that the friendly old guy had called for? We reach rock bottom. Michelle quotes Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” with “Could be worse, could be raining.” At this point I almost expect a thunderclap, followed by a deluge, just like in the movie. But truthfully, with the heat, the rain might have been welcome. 

Five minutes later, the same two Kosovan cops drive up. They stop. Somehow they avoid blowing a tire. We don’t know if they came because of the old guy’s phone call, or if they were just heading back to Kosovo anyway. But they stopped. And they helped. Their own lugwrench did not fit our lug nuts. Nor did they have a jack. But they had knowledge that we did not. One of them looked under the driver’s seat and magically procured a box that contained a jack and a wrench. We had had the tools all along. How did we not find them? I had looked under there. They were just hidden among the mechanism that slides the seat back and forth. Now I felt like an idiot, but at least a hopeful one.

To shorten what has been an awfully long story, we are able to change the tire with the proper tools. The police drive off and leave us to it after supplying some of their own elbow grease to the effort. But we get it done and begin the long journey back to the paved roads of Kosovo. We make it without another puncture, and continue on. We make it back to our favorite town of Restelicë around 4:00. There we hit a traffic jam. Stuck behind a vegetable delivery truck, that can’t make it past cars coming the other way on the narrow road, we wait. And we wait. Townspeople from all around are out walking the street trying to help direct traffic as the line of cars in both directions gets longer and longer. The cows aren’t as helpful. It is a complete shit show. We can’t believe that this doesn’t happen all of the time in this town. It would be funny if we weren’t so mentally spent, covered in dirt and motor oil, hungry as hell and worried that the gas stations might close at 5:00 as Google warns us they will. We need air in the spare. We need gas. We need a break.

Crossing back onto the paved roads of Kosovo!

Stuck behind the veggie truck.

The cows do not care if they are blocking traffic in town.

This guy out on the open road makes a lot more sense to me.

It takes something like twenty minutes, but we finally do get moving again and we get to a gas station at about 4:45. Luckily, I have fifty euros in cash as they don’t take credit cards. We drive on to the next town and try three banks before Mark finally is able to find an ATM willing to dispense money. We eat dinner at the closest restaurant and clean up as best as we can. Then we continue north, coming within about fifteen minutes of our starting point this morning in Prizren, before turning west and crossing into Albania instead. This crossing is pretty easy. They need a lot of paperwork for the car, but we have it all. We start driving away from the customs officer in his little booth, when Quincy asks if we have all of the passports. I count. I recount. Stop the car! This is a ten lane superhighway to make room for all the border gates. Michelle is not deterred. She hits the brakes in the middle of the highway about fifty feet from the agent’s booth. She walks back and collects the sixth passport from the agent who has nothing more to say than “scuzi”. Cars are zipping by, dodging our van. Michelle has the passport. Thank God we checked. 

(Okay drama mostly over, I am going back to past tense.)

I am writing all of this down, the morning after, in our hastily booked hotel in Kukës, Albania, just minutes beyond the border. Last night we got into the hotel around 8:00, ten and half hours after we left the last hotel, and only about what should be a 45 minute trip away from that spot. We texted the hotel in Ohrid. We wouldn’t be showing up.  No, not tomorrow either. Macedonia is dead to us. We will enjoy an extra day in Albania. We drank a beer. We played a game. Poor Carol had to work after all of that. But a new day has dawned. We did not have to sleep in the car on a dusty untraveled road in Macedonia. We are safe. All is well. Though we do need to figure out what to do with the blown tire and how to either get it patched or replaced. But not until after breakfast. Hopefully, we can move on after that and leave all of this drama behind us.

Back in civilization with a plate of melon that the hotel owner gifted us.

 

 

Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges.

Montenegro and Peja, Kosovo 

The struggle to leave Sarajevo was real. The Google not only suggested that we go down a street that didn’t exist, it also insisted that we go back that way (the wrong way on one-way streets) once we had decided to remain on the roads rather than drive through a building. So we had to continue on one-way streets in the wrong direction for about a mile before we could finally turn around and head in the correct direction. But we made it out eventually. The problem is that four would-be navigators each had their phone out giving our one poor driver, Michelle, four different sets of directions in an attempt to help. This does not help. We are, as a group, working on quelling our instincts and trusting the one appointed navigator in the passenger seat. It is a work in progress. Thank you Quincy, for not adding a fifth voice to the chaos and for staying above the fray… 

Leaving Sarajevo, you can see how quickly you hit the mountains.

But Sarajevo was eventually in the rear-view mirror and the Bosnian mountain roads brought new adventures. Curves. Lots of curves. Some sheep. Some cows. Plenty of haystacks. Never would I have guessed that haystacks would bring Carol such joy. But we seemingly have to point out every one to her as we go, as, God forbid, she might miss one. “Ooh, look at the size of that one!” The drive was mostly hairpin turns. We averaged less than 30km/hr for over four hours. In Croatia, they just build tunnels so that you can actually get from here to there. But not in Bosnia, nor in Montenegro, which was our next stop. We flew through the border crossing and continued to seemingly make no progress. It poured rain for most of the day, but we didn’t much care as we were warm and dry in the car. We weren’t going to go any faster even if the roads were drier. So let it rain. 

A very rare straight portion of the road to Montenegro

Told you the road is curvy.

One why-not-stop was a middle-of-nowhere coffee shop in the rain where we drank the local coffee and got into conversation with a random local guy who talked our ears off for a good twenty minutes about local politics and such. It was incredible. He had an evil belly laugh that cracked us all up. When we finally told him that we simply had to move on, and we got back in the car, we all wondered aloud “what had just happened?” Who the hell was that guy? And wasn’t that awesome? Yes, yes it was. Awesome indeed. We learned more about Montenegro in those twenty minutes than we did the rest of our stay in the country. Though, full disclosure, that did only mean two days. We will, however, be back in Montenegro again, when we drive back up the coast to complete our loop of the peninsula. 

The next short stop along the way was the Durdevica Bridge that spans the Tara River, over 170 meters above it. At 365 meters in length, this bridge was no joke. We got out and walked back over it to take a bunch of pictures. We watched the zip-liners with envy and/or disbelief depending on who you asked in the van. For me personally, it was envy. We marveled at the view. Then we hopped back aboard Luka and continued on our way.

Can't see the bottom of the bridge, but you can see how long it is.

Nice views from that bridge. Carol had to wear my hat to keep her hair out of her face for the photo.

Not much farther on, we finally reached our destination, a cute little ski-town named Zabljak. The Z is pronounced “zh” which is like the sound the “si” makes in the middle of the word “vision”. The “j” always has the “y” vowel sound before the "y" consonant sound, when in the Balkans, not much different than “ee”, but with a “y” consonant sound at the end of it. So “ZHAB-lee-yok” is about the best our western tongues can muster. Everything in Montenegro is written in Cyrillic. The only words we know are “hvala” (thank you) and “pivo” (beer). We learned those back in Croatia. And they haven’t changed from country to country, and language to language. At least not until we hit Kosovo. But I am getting ahead of myself. Other than those two words, we pantomime and smile. But the locals are quite friendly, mostly. They don’t expect foreigners to know their language. Why would someone from California know Montenegrin? They are patient and kind and forthcoming. Well, not that one parking attendant (FOOL! FOOL!) but pretty much everyone else. Our landlord in the rental house was super friendly, once he got past being shy about greeting us. He was an older gentleman with great intentions and very little English. He shook our hands vigorously and earnestly at every encounter, and there were many such occasions. Loved that guy! When we were departing, he wanted to make sure that our route out of town was a good one, concerned that we might get stuck in road construction or something. An over-the-top sweet gesture.

Here's what much of Zabljak looked like.

But wait, you say. Enough about the friendly guy, tell us more about the parking dude! If you insist. On our one full day in Zabljak, we went to Durmitor National Park, which is what you do when in Zabljak in the summertime. The most popular part of the park is a double alpine lake, separated only by a mini-isthmus, one-meter-or-so wide, called Black Lake(s). A gorgeous three hour hike around the lake(s) was preceded by a need to park the van in the proper parking area. We bought a parking pass (an actual piece of paper) from a perfectly lovely attendant who then told us to drive on ahead a few hundred meters to find a spot in the lot. About a hundred meters of very narrow road beyond, we were stopped by a second attendant. This guy was not having it. The pass would not do, no matter how it was presented. He yelled at us to go back. The lot was full. No room for Luka. Of course he communicated this only with one word (FULL!) repeated over and over again combined with wild gesticulating. It sounded much more like (FOOL!) but we got the idea. He was definitely an official parking attendant, sporting the vest and the badge, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that there was absolutely no way of turning the van around on that road. And we couldn’t put it in reverse and back up the hundred meters either, as there were cars behind us. We had no choice but to continue on and find a place to turn around if that is what was called for. But communication was not happening, and this guy seemed pissed at us, and unwilling to let us continue on. Finally, after a few full minutes of trying to appease the guy by letting him know we would turn around when we could, Michelle just gave up and drove on the rest of the way despite his protestations. We left him in the rear-view, shaking his fist at us and yelling Montenegrin obscenities, I imagine. We drove on only to find many empty spots in the exact place where we were originally told to go. We docked the van. We walked into the park, leaving the pass on the dash. I don’t know what that guy’s issue was. But Luka wasn’t turning around. He wasn’t going anywhere. We had some serious hiking to do, and the pass said we had three hours to do it.

No pic of the parking dude, but here are a couple of the friendlier Montenegrins.

And hike we did. At one point we left the prescribed path on AllTrails to follow all the other hikers who seemed to know where they were going. The path got a bit treacherous at times. But we felt bad giving up and going back, considering the fact that five year-olds and seventy-five year-olds alike were taking the path like champs. We persevered, for no real reason in the end, as the path was simply a loop back to where we meant to be. Bet hey, when in Montenegro, do as the Romans do. Who cares if they lost control of the area about 1800 years earlier. Mark’s favorite moment was the picnic lunch out on the lake, sitting next to the chain-smokers “enjoying the fresh mountain air”. They smoke a lot around here; to the point that they are surprised that we do not. How can you find “cejf” if you don’t smoke? (See the last post for clarification.) We’ll try our best, hvala. 

Black Lake

Another

And another.

One more for good measure.

There were hundreds of these wee frogs on the path near the lake. We had to be careful not to step on them.

After the lakes, we drove some more tiny windy roads to another mountainous hike within Durmitor National Park, with even more stunningly epic views and a lot fewer partakers. We scaled a few mountains, high-fived a few goats, and generally felt extremely proud of ourselves for our efforts. As such, we had earned the five-star, four course authentic meal that awaited us back in town (that soup was so yummy!) at one of several lovely looking restaurants in town.

Let's play a game of Where's Waldo. I am in this photo.

Quincy climbed this side of the mountain with me.

Carol was up communing with the wildlife. I call this "Beauty and the GOAT." Find both.

Our little cottage in Zabljak was overflowing with character, and it was set in such a beautiful, bucolic setting that we couldn’t stop sneaking private moments near the windows. It was good that we weren’t here in the winter though, as there were a plethora of holes and cracks in the building exterior, plugged only by toilet paper. It would have been a wee bit drafty, methinks. A few card games and more than a few cocktails later, we had to say goodbye once again to our new favorite place and move on to the next one.

A feel for the cottage and the view out the windows.

We are in a rhythm. One day of driving including scenic stops, followed by one day of enjoying the next town. So we stay two nights at each stop. It is working quite well thus far. Hopefully it continues to work for us. I’m having difficulty getting everything documented, because it takes quite a bit of time to write the blog, but almost as much time to upload the pics and format and such, and I need Carol’s computer to do that. The app just doesn’t work well on my iPad. But whenever we have a moment to chill, she needs her computer for work. So I am struggling a bit to stay on top of the blog. It seems that I am always having to recall what happened in the last country we were in, rather than what we are currently experiencing. And once I have written the text, it still takes another day or two to get the post ready to publish. I am not complaining, as I am the one who chose to do this. I am just apologizing to my three and a half loyal readers, because the stories could be more fresh than they are. But today I am getting the blog up to date for the first time all trip. I’m pretty pumped about that. Though I probably won’t get it posted until tomorrow or the next day. 

Okay, back to the narrative… So it was the day before yesterday that we left Montenegro. More mountain roads. More epic vistas. One unbelievable why-not stop at a tiny coffee house situated on the edge of a cliff. The patio had a better view than pretty much anywhere I’d ever been. We ordered coffee. He brought us coffee, cookies, sweets, kittens, and conversation. We basked in the atmosphere (found our cejf) and hated to get back in the van to continue the drive. The pic below is us just after this incredible pit stop.

Happy group shot including Luka

Can't capture the view with my iPhone. Trust me it was amazing.

The border crossing into Kosovo was a bit more rough than the previous crossings have been. Apparently our “green card” does not pay for insurance in Kosovo. So I had to bring our car’s documentation to a separate building and pay the requisite amount. But the lady there spoke no English and was quite angry with me for not having what she needed. Eventually she called an interpreter and put her on speaker phone. The woman on the phone explained that our rental car papers were not complete. So I ran back to the van and scrounged for other paperwork. I found it. Back to the short-tempered woman and a second scolding. But we got the paper that made things okay for the border agent and we were on our way after having not paid a cent. Maybe we will have to pay when we exit the country? I guess we will find out in a couple of days. But the whole episode reminded me of the old school movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” where someone was asked for the proper papers to be let through, and the reply was a terse “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” Apparently, we did. 

Just before arriving in Peja, we stopped at a “must-see” resort type place that is popular with the locals. Sadly, the caves were closed, but the "White Drin" waterfall was pretty impressive. It was a bit crowded, and a bit overbuilt to feel like we were enjoying nature, in my opinion. At least the resort allowed lookie-loos to hike up without charging us. A waterfall that nice in the U.S. would be pay-to-play for certain. 

It was bigger than it looks here. Oh well. Photographer, I am not.

We continued into town, completely surprised by the size of it. We thought we were going to a village in the mountains. We were wrong. More research next time. It turns out that Peja is the fifth largest city in Kosovo, and apparently the one hit hardest by the Serbs in the 1998-99 war. Who knew? Hundreds of thousands of people in the city and really only seven remaining historical buildings that weren’t so decimated by bombing that they could be restored for historical purposes. A city with thousands of years of history and almost nothing left to show for it other than monuments constructed in memory of the fallen citizens and the fallen homes and schools and churches and mosques as well. Peja is mostly a ruined mess that is trying very hard to regain its beauty and its culture and its identity. But so far it has not been able to do so. Twenty five years is not a lot of time, especially when in a country as poor as Kosovo is, to rebuild after such utter devastation. 

One of the few "nice" parts of Peja.

Thought this deserved documentation. No, we did not choose to eat here.

But we did partake here. I mean c'mon. It's a nuts shop!

Our hotel (thank you Brenda, for the recommendation) is actually one of the aforementioned seven remaining buildings. Though it, too, was burnt almost completely. They have restored it as best as they could, and now it is a functioning modern hotel in the shell of a UNESCO heritage building. We loved it! Amazing included breakfast too. We ate there this morning and we haven’t had a meal since and it is 6:00 p.m. and I am still not hungry. I am always hungry.

The restaurant in the hotel was excellent.

An image of the hotel during the war.

And another.

We walked the town of Peja quite a bit, finding everything we could that was left standing after the war. We also drove out of town just a smidge, to visit the Patriarchate of Pec, an all-female monastery. It is still under Serbian control as part of the cease-fire agreement of 1999, as it is as important a site to the Serbs and the Eastern Orthodox Church as, say, Westminster Abbey is to the Anglican Church. We had to show our passports to get in. There are thirteenth century frescoes all over the walls of the monastery, combined with new additions from every generation since. The tour guide was excellent, and she gave us an appreciation for the Serbian side of things, and why Kosovo is so important to them, this particular holy ground especially. I still side with the Albanians in terms of freedom from oppression and hostile takeovers, but everything is not always as black and white as it seems. A 750 year-old claim to a holy place is not something to be dismissed lightly; even if the claim on the opposite side of the conflict is thousands of years old. 

The Serbian Monastery of Pec

A different view of the same church.

One shot of the inside that I took before we were told "no photos".

After visiting the monastery, we continued a bit farther out of town to check out the Rogova Gorge. Apparently it is a Mecca for rock climbers and backpackers. We drove along the river through the gorge just to get a feel for it. We weren't prepared to hike that day. But we got some excellent chill time on the rocks in the river looking at the walls of the gorge.

Group shot of the "chillers on the rock."

To give an idea of how high and vertical the gorge walls were, I laid down and tried to place my phone as level horizontally as I could. This is the shot of the canyon wall directly above me.

There was a cool tunnel we had to walk through to get to our chill spot.

The mostly Islamic Albanian people of Kosovo (about 90% of the current population) absolutely love the United States. They give much of the credit for their freedom to Bill Clinton and to America as a whole for bringing about the peace in 1999. Apparently there is a giant statue of Bill somewhere in the next town. We’ll have to seek it out. Much of my newly gained knowledge of the conflict comes from a local archaeologist who showed us his personally curated museum in Peja just this morning. He eloquently laid out the current situation of the mislabeled Balkan states, on what should properly be called the Illyrian peninsula. If the many thousand of years of the region’s history are to be taken into account, instead of the unceremonious division of the peninsula after World War I, then things ought to be quite different than they are. What eventually became Yugoslavia, and then fractured into a bunch of warring states with unnatural borders, was the doings of world superpowers not from the region. But what exists now, though it is not really what anyone wants, is at least, for the moment, good enough to allow for co-existence. The current peace is a fragile one to be sure, and the scars from the recent wars are still quite itchy on the backs of the people who lived through them. But there is peace. All we outsiders can do is try to appreciate the things that come so easily to us, especially us pampered Americans, knowing that freedom is not a given, by any stretch of the imagination. 

Here is one of many monuments to the fallen. I was struck by how many people in the same family are listed. The losses were obviously devastating.

We came on this trip to Kosovo, just like we did to Sarajevo, because I, personally, wanted to experience the stories and the cultures and the recent history that seemed so far removed from my own reality; even though it was all happening in the prime of my own adulthood. I got married in the same year as the worst of the fighting in Kosovo was happening. Crazy. How lucky am I, that all of this tragedy was taking place so far away from me that I was barely even cognizant of it happening in the moment? And it is happening still, right now, in Ukraine, and in Sudan, and in the Middle East, and probably in other places of which I am not even aware. It makes me feel small, and a bit helpless. But ignorance is not the answer, within the insulated bubble of our American experience. So learning as much as I can about the world around me is always a priority. It is one of the infinite reasons we travel as often as possible. 

We have moved on to Prizren, an even larger city in Kosovo. Many beautiful mosques, and many museums, await us tomorrow. There is also a fortress up on the hill for some views of the city. But tonight will just be about “cejf” and enough of the deep thoughts for a bit. We will drink some beer, try some local cuisine, and try to appreciate some of the good things in life that the locals had to fight so hard for. May I wish for the world that everyone’s troubles never be any worse than not having the correct insurance “badges” at the border.