14/6/22
When we arrived in the beautiful village of Theth, we decided we needed to stay two nights. We wanted to relax and enjoy being in such a beautiful place as well as doing a couple of walks. When we arrived, we dumoed our stuff in our very cute room, before heading out on a short walk to a local waterfall, Gruna’s. We walked along riverside and were amazed at just how bright blue the water was, with fresh white foam – it was glorious!! We walked along before starting to climb up the rocks a short way so we could cross the river and then hike up a steep stoney bank to reach the waterfall. It was beautiful! We chilled there awhile before going back a different way (because noone loves a ‘there and back’ walk, am I right?!). On the walk back, I was hoping to find a cafe since I was rather peckish. Sadly, good old maps.me let me down on that front and the cafe that was marked was a long destroyed hut with no signs of life. Just past there though was a gorgeous canyon which was definitely an added bonus on our walk – it was bloody glorious!! After the canyon, we headed back towards the village riverside to find somewhere for a late lunch.
We had a somewhat frustrating lunch, frustrating due to the fact that the guesthouse we went to seemed to hate tourists and at first they didn’t want to serve us and then they avoided us entirely once we had our food – crazy! Then we headed back to our own guesthouse and I chilled on a balcony and read, enjoying mad mountains views simultaneously, while Amanda worked. I chatted to a Dutch American couple who were living together in Netherlands now, but had met in Indonesia, cuteeeee! They were fun! When Amanda was fine with work, we ate dinner – I had chicken soup followed by a stuffed pepper, all of which was rather good! Then we chilled and I slept relatively early since we had a pretty big hike to do the next day!
15/6/22
Today was hike day. The typical Theth hike takes you over Mt Valbone to Valona village, but it is then quite a mission to get back from Valona, so we decided to clb the mountain before retracing our steps back to Theth. This way, we didn’t need to carry big rucksacks nor did we need to move from our cute guesthouse or endure a long and complicated journey back to Shkoder.
We set off after a guest house breakfast of bread, cheese, eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers, with snacks and a sandwich. We stopped at the local shop to pick up more water and lemon soda and then we set off, over the river, up the valley and then cutting up into the hills, past guest houses and then into the woods. The scenery was very pretty. We crossed a couple more streams and I filled my LifeStraw each time. We stopped in a meadow for snacks and then stopped again near the stop to admire the mountains and eat more biscuits.
Towards the top, it became rather cliffy and I was not a big fan. I started my slow and cautious walking since the path wasade of grit and small stones and a school group and their teacher watched me bemused. I made it past the cliff edge thankfully to enjoy the views of the Valbina side. Then we climbed higher on more sketchy ground to the summit.
Of course, as I was going up, I was wondering how on earth I would get down! I sat at the top with cliffs on three out of four side of me and tried to enjoy my sandwich with a large dollop of vertigo on the side. Amanda found it amusing until I had spread the fear of falling of a cliff to her too! Soon she was also bum inching along to get down off the cliffy summit! A man asked if we were okay, which we were, but he also offered his poles, which I could not resist! I only needed one but he gave me both which was nice. Turns out he was an Albanian tour guide who did the walk between Theth and Valbona every week in hiking season. Since he was an expert, I only felt a little bad for stealing his poles! He shouted down to his German tour group that he was coming but he was helping the ‘junge madchen’. I was pleased to be described as such. Once off the sketchiest bit, I returned his poles, thanked him and we headed off back to Theth, while he continued with his group to Valbona. The way down was surprisingly quicker even with me being a bit of a wuss! I think I’ve become less of a wuss since all my travel hiking though, which is nice! We stopped to cool off on a stream once we were back at the bottom. We arrived back at the guest house around 4pm, showered and chilled before dinner. Then we ate and slept early.
16/6/22
We had a final guest house breakfast before packing and waiting for the minibus to take us back to the city. I waited for the bus on the upper balcony, read my book with a coffee and admired the view.
wanderingwelshie travels 