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| You can see the city of Bajram Curri towards the right of the hill.. |
So yesterday was August 7th which means for people of the Bektashi Muslim faith in Bajram Curri that an annual hike to the top of the tallest mountain in Bajram Curri is in order. This traditional somewhat of a pilgrimage happens every year and men and women of all ages take the hike to the top of Shkelzeni for faith.
We had heard about this hike and of course were intrigued by the event. We woke up at 5am to drive to the old village of Tropoje (Tropoje e vjeter) which is at the foot of the mountain. In the movie "Taken" Marco is from this village. We fit 6 people in a small small vehicle which consisted of Eric sitting on my lap... some how Garrett got the front seat to himself. Garrett's counterpart and my neighbor, her sister and a family friend were going to make the hike with us; all three women I'm guessing are over the age of 50.
We were told it would take 3 hours to get to the top. Now we didn't know if it was 3 hours for them or it would really take 3 hours. It ended up taking us 6 hours, and that's even after we went ahead of them.
To our surprise once we were at the top we saw almost 20-30 horses and a lot of people.. We thought the hike was one of the hardest we had done since in Albania (comparing it to the Valbone pass to Thethi and "The Bad Stairs" in Kukes) yet we saw old women and little kids at the top.
On our decent down we ran into an Albanian man who had been living in London for the past 20 years and came back for the summer. He was with his wife and was very eager to talk to us since we spoke English. He explained to us that even though most of these people live in poverty they are healthy people. They make this hike not only on August 7th but some once a week. Their motivation is faith. His motivation was faith and this was his first and last time taking this hike. After talking to him, it put a lot of what this hike was into perspective and meant a lot more on the walk down.
Garrett's counterpart and her friends all made it to the top, it took them a little under 9 hours, but they made it. Garrett called her once we were back in Bajram Curri and asked where she was and her response was "Geru! Une jame sieper ne MALLLLLLLLL!" and as she explained she was on the top of the mountain, she screamed the word mountain so it echoed all around. Shume respekt. Shume shume respekt. Come to find out, she didn't make it into work the next day because she was on the mountain until 11pm. 6am-11pm. Shume respekt.
