The Blue Eye
I’ll admit it — I was feeling sorry for myself. It’s hard to imagine feeling sorry for oneself while traveling the world, but it happens. By Monday, I had mostly recovered from the nasty Bote Farms bug and was in a comfortable enough hotel, but my spirits were a bit low. I wasn’t feeling great about things and I wanted to get out of Sarandë. The place felt like a failure for me because I had such high hopes for working on the farm and getting the direction I needed to win the next Pulitzer. Alas, at least now I know where to point the blame.
I had heard good things about the town of Gjirokaster (pronounced Jee-ro-kaster), but without a surge of adrenaline from a jailbreak-like situation, the idea of carrying my bags to the bus station felt insurmountable. Additionally, I didn’t trust my stomach to behave on the three hour bus ride. Woe was me. Whatever was I going to do?
I called the hostel in Gjirokaster that I had read really good reviews about and asked if they had a free bed for the night, which they confirmed they did. Then I walked down to the port, and found a rental car agency. I wish I could say I haggled the guy down to $25/day, but that was the price he threw at me, and I accepted. But, I told him, I needed the car immediately. He told me he would drop it off at my hotel within a half hour. Then my adrenaline kicked in. I went back to my hotel, threw all my stuff in random bags, because with the luxury of a car, I could have as many bags as I wanted. Yeehaw. I checked out of my hotel, the rental car guy drove up, dropped the keys in my hand and I was on the road. I immediately felt better.
I really wanted to go to the Blue Eye, a natural spring that is ironically just 20km past Bote Farms up into the mountains. You can imagine the hand gesture and accompanying cackle I gave as I drove past the farm. Once I arrived (without getting lost!), I had a 1.5km hike into the Blue Eye through the forest that was just starting to turn autumn colors. It was kind of a grey day with some light rain, but as I walked up to the strikingly deep, blue spring, the sun broke through the clouds. It was stunningly beautiful and peaceful, because although it can be packed with tourists, on this semi rainy day in October, it was empty.
The spring is something like 60 meters deep, and nobody is quite sure where it comes from. The water gurgles up with such force that you can throw a flat rock into the spring and watch it flutter around in the turbulence before it gets pushed down stream. Not only does the spring contain all the shades of blue I’ve ever seen, but the greens of the moss and trees, leaves and grasses gave me an eyeful of my favorite colors. Swimming is forbidden at the Blue Eye, but I couldn’t resist putting my feet in the icy cold water.
After my dip, I sat at the river edge and fell into a meditation. I had an unexpected and overwhelming feeling of gratitude, that bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me and flowed through my veins with endless energy. I thought of every person in my life — especially you — with love and gratitude. I thought about my family members and friends with health issues. I thought about my friends that have lost or are in the process of losing their parents. I felt a profound sense of love and healing energy for each and every person in my life, that bubbled up from my heart and flowed out into the universe.
Stone City Hostel
After the unexpected profundity of the Blue Eye, I hiked back to my little car and headed for Gjirokaster, in an almost blissful state of being. I cranked up the Albanian radio and handled the hairpin turns that took me over the mountains and into the valley. I almost wasn’t ready for my road trip to be over when I arrived in Gjirokaster. However, I was extremely glad I was able to drive right up to the door of the hostel, because holy shit those streets were steep. Major Positano vibes. “Do people walk up here with their luggage?” I asked the woman who checked me in. “Yes, and they all arrive very out of breath.” I would have died. Score another one for the rental car, but I also sort of felt like a smug, asshole, cheater.
View from my dorm room - note the spooky fortress at the top of the hill
I had read about Stone City Hostel in many guide books, and it had the best reviews on Hostelworld. The moment I walked inside, I could see why. The hostel is in a traditional Gjirokaster house, with a big open kitchen and a beautiful patio. People were super friendly immediately and the vibe was just right, refreshingly. “We’re doing a free walking tour in an hour if you want to join,” my host told me. I’d be there, I promised her.
Walter, the owner of Stone City Hostel and pragmatic but very funny Dutch guy, led the tour. He was the first person who has been able to explain a lot of the weird shit about Albania, as well as the history of the town. The town was built in the 17th century by the Ottomans up on the hill, although the fortress that is perched above the city was built in the 12th century and changed hands hundreds of times over the course of history. Up until the mid 1980’s, the fortress was used as a prison for political dissidents of the dictator, Enver Hoxha, who was coincidentally born in Gjirokaster.
Walter about to take us into a communist bomb shelter
Walter went on to describe the type of communism that Hoxha subscribed to (think Kim Jong Un style). The guy was insanely paranoid, to the extent that he had thousands of bunkers and miles of bomb shelters built into the sides of the stone mountains to protect from the imminent capitalist invasion that never happened. Hoxha completely cut the country off from all communication with the rest of the world, and it wasn’t until the mid 90’s that the country’s borders were opened. So that explains a lot. To bring history to life, Walter walked us through one of the abandoned bomb shelters and it was spooky and full of bats. Wild.
By the end of our walking tour I had made a bunch of lovely friends, and we all went for dinner. Albanian food is… unremarkable. Fortunately the hostel breakfast the next morning was excellent. I snagged a guy from my dorm room and we went to tour the fortress. It was pretty creepy to walk through the prison that was still in use not too long ago, and poke through old dark chambers that hadn’t been roped off. The views from the parapet walls were beautiful, and I got prehistoric vibes looking down into the valley below. I could just imagine a pterodactyl swooping down on a wooly mammoth, for some reason. Like I said, the place is wild.
Gjirokaster is fascinating but small, so I only booked two nights. After two nights of pumping my new friends for information about where they’d been and what they liked best, I decided my next stop would be Permet, to check out some thermal springs. A note on these intrepid travelers — they’re badass. I met a lot of solo women who hiked the Peaks of the Balkans trail, a 7-10 day hike that goes through the mountains of eastern Albania and Kosovo. I met people who have a strict hitchhike only policy, and a guy who cycled here from Germany. I felt a bit sheepish having rented a car, but hey, at least I’m out here too.
This morning I hopped on the road again and headed for Permet. Before I checked out, I asked Walter if he had any recommendations for Permet. He pulled up my map. “Here is de hot springs everyone goes to. Ignore them. Walk up de river bed and you will find a bunch of way better pools. You will have to cross de river a few times. The canyon walls will start to get narrow. It’s beautiful. But if it starts to rain, get de fuck out of der.” Right-o.
I popped on the radio and headed for Permet. In an hour and a half I had arrived in the town, and went to check into my hostel. My room wasn’t ready, so I decided to hit the thermal baths. I followed Walter’s directions and didn’t get lost once on my way, parked, passed the “touristy” baths and started hiking up the riverbed. I saw a few people here and there, but for the most part I had the entire place to myself. I scrambled along the rocks and came across beautiful, turquoise rock pools that had been built around thermal streams. They smelled a bit rotten eggy, but they looked awesome. The water wasn’t hot, just warm, so I decided to see how far up the canyon I could get before I went for a dip.
I walked until the rocks ran into the river and the canyon narrowed. I sat there debating whether I should wade through the chocolaty, opaque water to get to the next bend, when a nice Belgian couple walked up. The girl and I sent her boyfriend to do the reconnaissance while we chatted. He came back covered in mud and we decided to walk back and hit the thermal pools we had all seen along the way. The three of us soaked in a tepid, azure pool with in an epic setting. I was happy for the company.
Grateful
And I’m grateful. Believe it or not, I’m grateful for Bote Farms. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to come to Albania. I’m grateful for the experiences I’m having here — to learn the wild history of this country I barely knew existed, and so so thankful I’m not from a country that lived under a communist dictatorship for far too long, and is still suffering the consequences. I’m grateful for my health and ability and means to be able to go out and explore this big bad world. I’m also grateful that most of the world (as it seems) speaks English and for the wonderful people I’ve met.
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