Going up the Dajti and the Olympics

The Dajti mountain is like a beast watching over Tirana all the time, and the only way of avoiding it is to turn your back towards it. The other thing you can do is to actually take a trip up to the mountain where you can see the whole of Tirana and beyond. Legend (actually a friend of mine) has it that on a clear day it is possible to see the coast from the top of the Dajti, however I cannot personally verify that.

There are two ways one can go up to the Dajti apart from walking/climbing and helicopter. The cable car is seems to be the choice for many and I must say it is quite fun to begin with but can become a bit boring after a while, and if you are afraid of heights then it is not recommended. I personally like to drive up the winding roads which in some places are covered by tall trees on both sides. There is also a village or two that are on the way which still have the old characteristic houses that seem to be disappearing in Tirana.

The Hotel

Looking down on to Tirana

Once you are somewhere close to the top you will arrive at the Dajti park gates, where you need to pay to continue the journey, otherwise take the right hand turn and continue climbing (I have never taken that route yet and always wonder where it will lead). A few minutes after the barrier comes a wonderful Hotel and restaurant which is an ideal place for a weekend getaway and not far from the Tirana. I usually park the car there and continue the rest of the journey by foot to enjoy the fresh and clean air and sound of rushing water against the background of rustling leaves.

I would recommend going up the Dajti to all those that haven’t been yet, it really is a nice and peaceful trek. However be careful if you are driving, the Dajti can be very deceiving. You will set out on a clear sunny day with not a single cloud in the sky, and all of a sudden as if from nowhere thick white clouds descend on to to the mountain. If that happens I would suggest staying put and not panicking because the clouds will always go somewhere else.

Olympics

Not many days left before the Olympic games begin and Hysen Domi, President of the Albanian Olympic Committee, has announced that Albania will send its largest ever delegation to this years games in Beijing. Lets wish them luck and hope they do themselves and their country proud. Albania has a history in weight lifting and wrestling so keep an eye out for those events to see how well they do.

Fire Seaseon

Sitting in my flat a few days ago with the windows wide open, the pungent smell of burning plastic filled my nostrils. At first I thought there was something burning in the my flat, but when I couldn’t find anything burning I went to the balcony and the smell was everywhere. I looked at the street below and there it was, the bin was on fire. Now I know this happens all the time, but the stories in the news are a sobering reminder why in some places it can be fatal.

Forest fires seem to be a seasonal phenomenon here in Albania and in the region as a whole. Last summer many beautiful green mountains were ablaze and the same seems to be happening again this year. Today it has been reported that the fires are near to seaside resorts close to the city of Fier, and the police have arrested five people suspected of starting the fire. This kind of news is always saddening, but when you find out that it is was a deliberate act (this has not yet been proved in this case) it also makes me very angry. This phenomenon of starting fires deliberately is rife in Greece, where developers deliberately set fire to ‘green belt’ areas they hope to build on. I just hope this trend does not come to Albania, be it developers or farmers seeking new pasture fields, because the resources in here cannot cope with large forest fires. Last year my heart was going out to those poor soldiers and villagers who were fighting off the fire with nothing more thank tree branches.

Now you can argue that nothing can be done if people start fires deliberately, but the possibility of forest fires starting accidentally also exists. Everyday piles of rubbish are burnt whether in the bins, like my flat (and just everywhere else in Tirana) or just on the side of the street. Such acts are particularly dangerous in rural areas where the possibility of the fire spreading to nearby bushes is considerable. Also the burning of fields by farmers is practiced widely here, and again in the summer that could be a recipe for disaster. I don’t see any point of putting in laws to stop these kinds of act because they will not be policed. The change has to be made by the people and local governments. Farmers have to stop burning their fields in the summer, and the local government has to collect the rubbish from the designated areas and those dumped elsewhere. Just think how many accidental forest fires can be avoided!

Apart from the damage done to the scenery, the local environment and the local economy, people loose lives and livelihoods as a result of these fires. I just hope this is a one-off case and we don’t see such stories dominating the summer of 2008. Finally, lets all hope for some rain.

Beautiful Peze, and some other minor stuff

Peze Lake

Dodgy looking bridge on the way to the lake

One of the major advantages of living in Albania during the summer is the variety of places which you can go to for a swim. This weekend me and some colleagues went to a lake near the town/village of Peze not far from Tirana for a swim. None of us had been there before and were a bit sceptical about what we were going to find. All those thoughts went out of the window as soon as I laid my eyes on the lake. The scenery was magnificent and the water was just calling out for anyone to take a swim. Added to all of that is the fact that there was just us and the birds (and the many insects, but hey nothing is perfect). We spent a few hours at the lake and then headed back towards the village of Peze for some refreshments but I was already thinking of my next trip back to this wonderful place (I just hope no one sticks a bar cafe there).

There is not much in the news today but Matilda Mecini makes the news as Miss Universe Albania, she will be competing for the Miss Universe crown with other hopefuls from around the world. Beauty pageants are a big deal here in Albania, or so I think but every year they cover it quite well in the local media here.

Some other minor news now, Mr Edi Rama (who lives in Peze by the way) seems a bit cheesed off that the Europeans are not giving Albania the respect it deserves compared to Serbia and some former Yugoslav republics when it comes to EU membership. I think he has a point but hey, Kosovo just got independence, you cant have everything at once. And Finally , Mr Withers (US Ambassidor) Gerdec and Fatmir (not so Fatmir) Mediu saga continues with an interesting exchange of letters, reports the LA Times. I think this one is gonna run and run and run and as usual the real culprits wont get the justice they rightly deserve. The fat get fatter and the poor…… well……….who cares….. right?

Nato, Berat, and Pollution

Waking up yesterday morning I walked out onto the balcony to have a coffee and was saddened by what I saw. Now, I have to tell you that I live on the seventh floor of a building and have quite a nice panoramic and unobstructed view of Tirana, however yesterday the visibility was so bad that I could not see some of the hills to the east of the city. In fact the Dajti which is just over a 1km from my flat was barely visible. This was not due to clouds or fog, but a mixture of dust and smog. On a nice clear day, I can actually see cars travelling up the Dajti, but as you can see from the photo below that wasn’t the case yesterday. Lying in a valley and with all the fumes and dust Tirana really has its work cut out when it comes to air quality, especially in the summer. So I think a nice rain storm would be called for in the next couple of days to settle things down a bit. So lets all pray for some rain (I cant believe I am saying this).

Big thick smog

On another front, the news regarding the signing of the NATO accession protocols are on all major news outlets but you can check it out on a  not so major news site. One step closer to the EU I hope, which will probably happen early in the next decade. An interesting view was also published regarding the NATO membership by on Radio Netherlands Worldwide entitled Albania is a nation without memories which is based on the views of an Albanian physics graduate who was imprisoned for many years during the communist era. It is an interesting read, and I found the views posted on Stepping Stones interesting.

Berat has also been in the news recently because it has been added to the list of world heritage sites by UNESCO. Berat is a town in Albania that I have heard many pleasant things about (it is also the most visited by tourists) but have so far not had the pleasure of visiting. I shall make an effort this summer to give it a visit and see the famous castle which dates back to more than 2000 years.

Swimming in Velipoja

The weather over the past weeks has been wonderful, blue sky with the odd fluffy white cloud, and the warm temperatures are very far from what I am used to back home. So last weekend me and some friends decided to go to Velipoja for a swim. The drive from Tirana took about two and half hours but that was mainly due to traffic, and I have to mention the roads were of good standard unlike those on the way to Vlora. As we passed Lezhe the scenery became much more beautiful and the drive more pleasurable as we passed through fields full of horses (and cows but they dont beat horses so who cares) on both sides. Arriving at the beach was a bit of a disappointment for me because there were so many people (I like quiet beaches). However this feeling did not last, because the beach is very very very long, and all the people were concentrated in on area of the beach because of the close proximity of the Bar/Cafe/Restaurant/Pizzeria/Fast Food/Hotel/Motel/Lavazh/shops etc.. So we bought what we needed and drove to the left side of the beach and after about 1 mile we arrived at a quiet spot close to the mouth of a river that runs into the sea.

After an hour or so of swimming we decided to walk further east along the beach, as we crossed the mouth of the river the were four or five people fishing, but once we passed them the beach was deserted for all the way till the end (2 km approx). There no one on the beach except for us and the rubbish that was probably washed up by the sea. And although we passed debris, plastic bags, flip flops, cans and other bits of rubbish it really didnt matter, because the beach was so long and so wide that the rubbish wasnt really staring you in the face, and most important of all it wasnt in the water, it was just lying there scattered on the beautiful beach.

Overall Verdict

The water was blue and clean, unlike Durres, and we had a great time swimming in peace and I would recommend it to those who want to swim somewhere nice but not as far as Vlora or Sarande. Has plenty of hotels, shops etc for all the things you may need but is relatively undeveloped and long may it stay like that.

The mouth of the river

Empt sandy beach till the end

Hello or shall I say Si je?

This is my first post and I would like to welcome all visitors and thank you for taking time to check me out.

I hope to keep you all updated on the goings on of Albania and in particularly Tirana the great capital city that never never sleeps! I hope those of you in Tirana are reading this inside an air-conditioned room/office otherwise you are backing and I would advise you to go and have a cold shower. Thankfully we have had plenty of rain this year and the electricity situation seems to be much better than it was this time last year. Lets just hope we get more thunderstorms like we did last week to settle the dust and power the grid.