He was back in Montenegro, had reached the coastal town of Ulcinj , the southernmost point of the country and close to the border with Albania. Ulcinj seemed very different from Kotor , the Montenegrin beautiful cove is the tourist jewel of the country. Ulcinj is a place that explains the huge diversity that exists in the Balkans,
as I write this, yet I have in memory the minarets of the mosque at the
beach while girls in bikinis strolling the sands and the sound blaring
marks soundtrack tacky place.
After a couple of days in the Montenegrin town, I went on a dilapidated bus heading to the Albanian capital. Share ride with a couple of English-speaking travelers with many local families, all of them, it was clear that I could hardly tell whether they were from one country or another. The smell of the bus was very nice, a curious mixture between the countryside breeze coming through the windows and decrepit coming from the loaves with its unmistakable aroma artisan produced.
No references had just Tirana , in fact, there is abundant information on Albania. Before leaving I found something on the internet and got a guide on Albania because of my search in the bibliographic archive of the excellent Network of Libraries of Barcelona. However, most of the information that was found in the social network related to historical facts, political, and economic, which in a way I liked as I could trace of the past to find an explanation to this.
Albania, as I wrote, is the back door of Europe, the poorest country of the old continent , a place geographically halfway between Greece and the former Yugoslavia and looking in an Italy which often migrate en masse many of its citizens . A country that never opens the Albanian television news, but if it does it is always negative issues such as migration problems, the Kosovo Albanian issue with Serbia or issues mafias.
It always seemed to me unjust (and manipulated) so that a country is classified by the negative, and I imagine that within me is the innate curiosity of visiting some of the country and know firsthand the situation, so perhaps unmask some of the information that reaches us through the media.
As he walked on the bus and crossed the border, I saw some abandoned houses and other half done, showing the very poor economic situation. As the bus devouring kilometers, the green land stretched so peaceful along the way, I supported his face against the glass of the window staring into the distance and thought of the old empires and how the past still Balkan felt in these enclaves.
He crossed a new frontier history and thought capitalized, with the Balkan wars, the two world wars and the legacy of decades under communist dictatorship. Too weight of history that support these small countries still echo the old empires here and in Albania they crossed the Byzantine, Bulgarian, Italian and Nazi invasion, the Soviet legacy and oddly enough Maoist influence when the country decided to live in an autonomous way.
Most of my friends whispered and made faces when I told them I wanted to cross Albania, virtually the same faces of surprise when they put me I was going to Ukraine or the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The first reactions we have to hear the word Albania are evidently not a place to go on a trip, nor is it a place that has good connections to get or that is in the "tour" of the East or the route low cost.
Arriving at Tirana I found a city with soul little capital, the provincial air is chewed in the environment and traffic instantly and showed me from the outset as pollution was one of the great problems of the place. As I walked toward my hostel I took tea in one of those dens where the locals come to spend hours, sometimes killing time with board games and others with nothing to do. His eyes met mine, laughing faces were, despite some bitter memories wrinkles and the face and the eyes of many showed me at first sight.
Of those locals, I thought maybe one would name Ismail, as the famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, who received the Prince of Asturias Prize and who several times has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, an author whose books accompanied me on this trip . I reached forward to the hostel, a nice place that pioneered in this country to host and accommodate backpackers who happens to be an oasis in the city.
After regain strength, I headed towards the Skanderbeg Square, epicenter of the city and honoring the national hero. Like many other communist countries spaces, brand construction of the political style of the old regime, destruction of ancient buildings and large samples to allow the power of the Party.
The Et'hem mosque is within walking distance and I can hardly imagine how it would all this in times of the tyrant Enver Hoxha , another criminal who led his country to greater self-sufficiency and the misery and famine. A country under the command of that tyrant denied any semblance of reason and locked himself in the madness of autarky looking only to the infamous Maoist China.
As I think about all that, I see as the hosts take the cool end of the day to walk while the setting sun gives way to night. It is now, when the minarets of the mosque are illuminated with lights that brighten a city where lighting is not abundant.
The Ottoman influence is felt in place, although the call to prayer
sounds, there are few girls who go in miniskirts and Western air.
Camino lost by the Albanian capital, I go through streets and alleys, I see tired faces and unwittingly crossed me with the Pyramid of Tirana , nonsense building that was conceived as a sanctuary place to honor the tyrant dictator Hoxha.
It's hard not to think about the follies and demagoguery that time not so long ago, those delusions of grandeur are now a decaying building that serves as an example and memory of those terrible years only.
Arrives for dinner at a local old and both the food and savor all the rich and complex diversity that emanates through the Balkan ghosts ...
After a couple of days in the Montenegrin town, I went on a dilapidated bus heading to the Albanian capital. Share ride with a couple of English-speaking travelers with many local families, all of them, it was clear that I could hardly tell whether they were from one country or another. The smell of the bus was very nice, a curious mixture between the countryside breeze coming through the windows and decrepit coming from the loaves with its unmistakable aroma artisan produced.
No references had just Tirana , in fact, there is abundant information on Albania. Before leaving I found something on the internet and got a guide on Albania because of my search in the bibliographic archive of the excellent Network of Libraries of Barcelona. However, most of the information that was found in the social network related to historical facts, political, and economic, which in a way I liked as I could trace of the past to find an explanation to this.
Albania, as I wrote, is the back door of Europe, the poorest country of the old continent , a place geographically halfway between Greece and the former Yugoslavia and looking in an Italy which often migrate en masse many of its citizens . A country that never opens the Albanian television news, but if it does it is always negative issues such as migration problems, the Kosovo Albanian issue with Serbia or issues mafias.
It always seemed to me unjust (and manipulated) so that a country is classified by the negative, and I imagine that within me is the innate curiosity of visiting some of the country and know firsthand the situation, so perhaps unmask some of the information that reaches us through the media.
As he walked on the bus and crossed the border, I saw some abandoned houses and other half done, showing the very poor economic situation. As the bus devouring kilometers, the green land stretched so peaceful along the way, I supported his face against the glass of the window staring into the distance and thought of the old empires and how the past still Balkan felt in these enclaves.
He crossed a new frontier history and thought capitalized, with the Balkan wars, the two world wars and the legacy of decades under communist dictatorship. Too weight of history that support these small countries still echo the old empires here and in Albania they crossed the Byzantine, Bulgarian, Italian and Nazi invasion, the Soviet legacy and oddly enough Maoist influence when the country decided to live in an autonomous way.
Most of my friends whispered and made faces when I told them I wanted to cross Albania, virtually the same faces of surprise when they put me I was going to Ukraine or the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The first reactions we have to hear the word Albania are evidently not a place to go on a trip, nor is it a place that has good connections to get or that is in the "tour" of the East or the route low cost.
Arriving at Tirana I found a city with soul little capital, the provincial air is chewed in the environment and traffic instantly and showed me from the outset as pollution was one of the great problems of the place. As I walked toward my hostel I took tea in one of those dens where the locals come to spend hours, sometimes killing time with board games and others with nothing to do. His eyes met mine, laughing faces were, despite some bitter memories wrinkles and the face and the eyes of many showed me at first sight.
Of those locals, I thought maybe one would name Ismail, as the famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, who received the Prince of Asturias Prize and who several times has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, an author whose books accompanied me on this trip . I reached forward to the hostel, a nice place that pioneered in this country to host and accommodate backpackers who happens to be an oasis in the city.
After regain strength, I headed towards the Skanderbeg Square, epicenter of the city and honoring the national hero. Like many other communist countries spaces, brand construction of the political style of the old regime, destruction of ancient buildings and large samples to allow the power of the Party.
The Et'hem mosque is within walking distance and I can hardly imagine how it would all this in times of the tyrant Enver Hoxha , another criminal who led his country to greater self-sufficiency and the misery and famine. A country under the command of that tyrant denied any semblance of reason and locked himself in the madness of autarky looking only to the infamous Maoist China.
As I think about all that, I see as the hosts take the cool end of the day to walk while the setting sun gives way to night. It is now, when the minarets of the mosque are illuminated with lights that brighten a city where lighting is not abundant.
The Ottoman influence is felt in place, although the call to prayer
sounds, there are few girls who go in miniskirts and Western air. Camino lost by the Albanian capital, I go through streets and alleys, I see tired faces and unwittingly crossed me with the Pyramid of Tirana , nonsense building that was conceived as a sanctuary place to honor the tyrant dictator Hoxha.
It's hard not to think about the follies and demagoguery that time not so long ago, those delusions of grandeur are now a decaying building that serves as an example and memory of those terrible years only.
Arrives for dinner at a local old and both the food and savor all the rich and complex diversity that emanates through the Balkan ghosts ...
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