After Peshkopi, home to Pëllumbas

Wednesday 26th June — Monday 1st July 2024, Albania

In Zgosht, a hamlet of just a few houses, there’s a rustling from within the maize. A beaming woman appears with a pair of freshly picked cucumbers, holds them out to me wordlessly, points to the sun and raises her eyebrows as if it to say “don’t you realise it’s too hot to be outdoors, you fool”. We talk to the limits of my Shqip, she laughs a lot, we say farewell.

In Labrazhd I share a meal with the architect and workers building a new bridge across the Shkumbin river. They’re taking a long lunch to escape the heat and it doesn’t take much to convince me to do the same.

Egerd, a local, brings his daughter Feri to the restaurant to practice her English. She asks many things but two stick out: Will I make Albania famous, so she can meet more English speakers? and Do I know how to swim?

Feri is a little afraid of swimming, but she likes the idea of it. We spend the afternoon down at the river with her cousin, helping her practice and I’m reminded of teaching Shlock to swim down at Sunday hole in Nelson, New Zealand.

Egerd and Feri have already decided that I’ll sleep at their house. Xhoi — Feri’s sister — is preparing for an important exam the next day. I’m fed to bursting from the moment I arrive — salad, bread, fruit, jam, pancakes — so I panic a little when Gurije (mum) puts a feast on the table for dinner too, but I manage to eat everything I’m given somehow.

It’s nearing midnight when we all sit down to watch the Shqipëri v. Spain match. I’m glad to be watching with Shqiptar again (as in Peshkopi for the Croatia match), even for a loss. With ‘my team’ knocked out of the championship, my brief fling with futbolli fandom reaches its natural end.

In the morning I set off late, Gurije insists on making me a feast for breakfast, and a salad to take for lunch. Between Labrazhd and Elbasan a labyrinth of disused railway tunnels promise relief from the heat. The longest of the tunnels stretches to just over a kilometre of cool, damp, dark. Entering each one I cross my fingers that I’ll be able to get out at the other end, thankfully no return journeys prove necessary. A tortoise and I startle each other in the dark.

The detour toward Pëllumbas is mostly to see Atlas again while we’re both still in the Balkans, but I’m also glad connect the line of the walk with the little village of two hundred people where Mizuki, Atlas, Helen, Irfaan, and I spent the winter — feels right somehow.

Another day and half from Labrazhd and I’m home, wandering those familiar rutted roads. I grab a drink from the tap that we carried water from each day through the winter, and an espresso at Bardi’s restaurant in the square before walking the last few hundred metres to the house. Stepping back through the always open door into the kitchen I find Atlas holding court with the new volunteers, everything as it should be.

I run the canyon loop each morning, accost Atlas for not introducing the new volunteers to Dutch (the only card game worth knowing) and do it myself, fall in love with Arsalan a bit while talking about our dreams for the future, meet Jessica from New Jersey, make a pair of sorely needed new spatulas for the kitchen, watch a Cicada shed it’s skin one night, eat lots, drink much too much Fernet with Atlas, and rest.

I only stay five and a half days this time, not long enough, but any longer would be too long. With every passing day in these hills, with every spiriting encounter, the voice in my head that says “stay in Albania, the walk can wait” gets louder and bolder. To linger here might yet become to live here, and I’m not ready for that yet, so I keep it short.