Hajde Korabi!

My dad arrived safe and sound (and with my new iPod touch!) on his wedding anniversary and just in time for my birthday. We headed directly up to Peshkopi where he immediately slept off the jet lag and I returned to packing and saying goodbye. On my birthday I had a small party. All my friends were pretty considerate of my gift restrictions and tried to give me small/light gifts. Unfortunately, lots of small/light gifts still add up to a lot and some hard decisions had to be made.

On the day after my birthday my dad, a couple of other PCVs, two of my OA kids and I started out for our adventure on Mt. Korab. At (nearly) the last minute the plans that I thought had been made fell through and other arrangements were made. Sometimes I think that all my efforts to plan ahead are just in vain, like banging my head up against a wall. . . But I still have to try.

Anyway, the arrangement's were made, we had a furgon pick us up and take us to Radomir, the village at the base of the mountain, about two hours away from Peshkopi. As we got closer it just got more and more beautiful. The weather wasn't great, but the rain and clouds added to the atmosphere of the whole thing, especially when a full rainbow came out. I don't know if I have ever actually seen the end of a rainbow before, but this one touched down in a village below us; I'm convinced that if we had looked we would have found some gold. . . Or at least really good food.

Our last minute accommodations turned out to be pretty great, with a family in the village of Radomir. We ate some good, fresh food and slept on sheep skins on the floor. In the morning, we got up early and started up he mountain. With a general direction and a map drawn on a cigarette carton we climbed towards the highest peak we could see. At about 2:00, we reached the top of this ridge. From there, of course, we could clearly see two important things- first, the ridge we were on was a peak, but not THE peak, and second that there was a much easier way up (and down) than the way we came. Knowing that we didn't have enough time to reach the REAL peak, we decided it was good enough to have reached a peak, took our pictures and headed down on the path.

We caught our furgon back to Peshkopi and I spent my last night in town frantically packing and trying one last time to consolidate everything. In the morning we headed to Tirana to have a calm night in with Jan and gear up for the next leg of our adventure.

Next up: the Accursed Mountains (finally not forbidden).

Sent from my iPod