(9) Crete

23 - 28 November 2012, Crete, Greece

Paleochora's beach at night

After Sarajevo, I met with Kara in Belgrade.

Together we travelled southward in order to escape the approaching winter. We passed through humble and lovely Macedonia and finally got to Athens.

On 23 November we left the Greek capital to reach Crete in hopes to enjoy a thrill of summer.

Docked in the early morning in Chania - with a ferry from Athens - we took local buses and hitch-hiked through the island to reach Paleochora in the first afternoon.

This town lies at the south shore of Crete and is supposed to be one of the warmest place in Europe.

Paleochora, Crete

Once there we immediately went to the beach to rest. The deserted field of sand stretched in front of us and gave a feeling of desolation and serenity. Children were playing with their dogs. The low winter sun was brighting and wind pulled the lukewarm air from Lybia.

Looking at those children playing and running free on the flatland made me realise how lucky they are. It must be great to live at a seaside place with a mild winter and to enjoy the freedom that only a small town can allow.

On the other hand, I think that a place like that could be perceived as a cage to escape, especially when children grow up and want to see the world.

However, coming to Crete made me feel better for two main reasons.

Traveling through Crete

Firstly, because I left Athens. One week being stuck in this busy metropolis trapped my mind in a deadlock where my thoughts run in circle at the frenetic rhythm of the city.

Travelling is a way to break this circle and to regain freedom of mind.

The second reason was related to the environment. Meeting the sea, the nature and a more pleasant temperature while leaving cars, pollution and chaos had some clear advantages. Moreover, as my eyes enjoyed a wider view than the narrow one of the city, my mind could open up and relax.

In this setting I asked myself what is the purpose of working an entire life to make money and to pursue a career in a grey and polluted city and then come to a place like this to enjoy two weeks of holiday per year.
 

The Artificial Caves of Matala

That night in Paleochora we slept on the floor of a closed beach bar.

The following days we slowly passed through the island and reached Matala, to see its famous caves.

In these artificial caves - created in the Neolithic Age - we heard that some people are still living and we were thus intrigued to see them.

(8) Sarajevo

26 October - 31 October 2012, Sarajevo

After Mostar I spent five days in Sarajevo hosted by a couchsurfer.

In this post I will report an interesting quote (in English and translated in Italian) that I found on the web about the meaning of travelling together with two pictures I took in Sarajevo.

Sarajevo at Sebilj

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.

We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. 

We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. 

And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more." 

Pico Iyer

 

Cemetery in Sarajevo

"Viaggiamo, inizialmente, per perderci. E viaggiamo, poi, per ritrovarci.

Viaggiamo per aprirci il cuore e gli occhi, e per imparare più cose sul mondo di quante possano accoglierne i nostri giornali.

Viaggiamo per portare quel poco di cui siamo capaci, nella nostra ignoranza e sapienza, in varie parti del globo, le cui ricchezze sono variamente disperse. 

E viaggiamo, in sostanza, per tornare ad essere giovani e sciocchi – per rallentare il tempo ed essere catturati, e per innamorarci ancora una volta." 

Pico Iyer

(7) Medjugorie: Mistaken for a Pilgrim

24 October - 25 October 2012, Bosnia

The main Church in Medjugorie

From Kosovo I headed to Bosnia as I wanted to see Sarajevo before moving to Belgrade.

Arriving from the region of Hercegovina in the south of Bosnia allowed me to stop in Medjugorie and Mostar.

Medjugorie is a destination of catholic pilgrimage after reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary. 

Although not particular religious, I was interested to see this place and the people who go there.

I arrived on the morning of 24 October and the town appeared immediately for its expected commercial side: a lot of shops selling every kind of religious souvenirs to a number of pilgrims from all around the world but mainly from Italy, Austria, Poland and Germany.

A warm autumnal shining sun allowed me to walk around the pilgrimage places only with my t shirt. I climbed the hill to reach the apparition spot where pilgrims were praying and some crying.

Climbing up to the apparition hill

Looking at them made me feel as there was something to feel and to see there. I tried to do that but I could not perceive much more than a peer pressure to take this whole thing as serious and real as possible. Maybe because of my strong catholic education and my consequent resistance to it, I did not feel at ease.

On my way down the hill, I sat on a rock for a short break. An Austrian lady - probably because of my beard, sandals and backpack - thought I was a pilgrim and hence offered me food, money and shelter. Respectful for her faith, I refused her offer: I did not want to take advantage of her devotion.

In the afternoon I participated to a presentation of a community for ex-heroin abusers. Three young men talked about their experience with drug and how their life changed after they entered the community Cenacolo and how they were rescued by faith. This community was established by a nun in 1982. She took a decaying farmhouse in Saluzzo - a town near Turin - and with little money she renovated it and started taking care of young drug addicts. The project worked well and now the community counts about 20 bases in Europe and America, one of them in Medjugorie.

After the presentation it was late afternoon and I needed a place to sleep. So I started asking around in the town for a cheap accommodation. A group with a priest, two mystic nuns and a pious woman offered to me to spend the night in a beautiful villa owned by a wealthy American lady giving hospitality to pilgrims. 

Notwithstanding my resistance and my attempts to explain that I am not a religious pilgrim, they seem to not care about it and eventually I was brought to this place. The pious woman tried to convince me to regain my faith and to enter the seminary to become a priest.

In order to persuade me to come back to the path of righteousness, she insisted that I should meet a clergyman with special capacities to read inside people and talk directly to their heart. I was intrigued by this figure. In a van with other pilgrims arrived an aged bishop on a wheelchair. He is supposed to levitate and to carry invisible stigmata.

I found myself in a uncomfortable situation. I was keeping the hand of this old man surrounded by about 20 devoted people and answering his questions about my life, studies and faith. Eventually, when I said that I do not even pray, he told me that I should welcome Jesus in my heart and he let my hand go. I did not have the feeling that he actually told me anything meaningful.

Probably because they finally realised that I was not a believer, I had to find my own place to spend the night.

In this place of religious pilgrimage I saw a lot of brainwashed people who desperately need to believe in something. On the other hand the most precious experience has been the presentation in the community by the ex-drug addicts. By working hard on themselves, they developed a strong loving attitude that I could not see elsewhere in the religious people or clergymen. Herman Hesse was right: "the shortest way to holiness is the hell". Through heroin those men saw the worst part of life and reached an awareness of themselves, a maturity and a humbleness that I had barely seen before.

My stage after Medjugorie: Mostar

Finally, satisfied for this experience that allowed me to see this contrast, I left the town and hitched to Mostar.

(6) The Beauty of Albania

18 - 21 October 2012, Albania

On the ferryboat at the Komani river

My stay in Albania was brief and limited to its very northern part. Nonetheless I realised that Albania is a unique place. A land of hyper friendly, energetic and roaring people facing problems of a third world country. A culture that seems the result of blending other ones, such as Ottoman, Balcanic, Italian and, recently, American.

Albania is one of the most intriguing countries I visited. A country where beauty melds with misery and where genuineness is everywhere.

This impression was clear already the first day in the country but it was strengthened by the experience of the following ones.

The day after my entrance into the country I woke up in Shkoder willing to reach the Koman river and the Valbona national park. Worried for my safety, I was not sure that hitching in Albania was a good idea.

In the late morning a crowded local bus brought me to Vau I Dejes - which is on the way to Koman. From there I started walking alongside the road leading to this village. While walking I was showing my thumb to the passing cars, aware that walking the remaining 25 kilometers was not possible in one afternoon.

Soon a car stopped and its driver approached me speaking Italian, without knowing my nationality. Bizarre, I thought! He was an Italian priest working with local communities on those mountains. During the travel he explained about the difficult situation in this area, where one of the biggest problems is that most of the children do not go to school.

The road we were driving on was winding up and down the mountain next to a canyon with a river at the bottom that granted me a jaw-dropping scenario. He left me some kilometers before destination. No car was passing by and I could walk in the middle of the road. I did not know where I was going to spend the night but I trusted my fate. 

Accommodation in Komani Village
on the floor of a restaurant

Later I realised that in a country like Albania you can do that. People - especially in the countryside - have a big heart and help if they can. I had the feeling that Albanians are less scared than most of people in Western-Europe simply because they are poor and therefore have nothing to lose. People are used to help each other just because peer support is sometimes the only resource available.

My faith in fate was eventually awarded. In Koman village I entered a restaurant to get some food. There I met a man who lived in Piemonte and therefore speaks the local dialect of my region. He arranged me a place to sleep on the floor of the restaurant and gave me some advices about Albania. One of the main ones he gave was to do not mess up with Albanian women. Allegedly, I could easily get into troubles with men if I gave a longer look at one of 'their' women - wives, sisters, daughters. Fortunately, finding a woman in Albania was not the purpose of my travel.

Komani River at Koman Village

The following morning a ferry navigating along the Komani lake brought me up to the town of Fierze. On the ferry I enjoyed its conformation. A large green-water river divided the mountain range into two imposing entities of rock covered with scattered native green vegetation.

The result was a canyon of uncontaminated beauty. If the same scenario was in any European country, it would be completely over-crowed by tourists. There, in the middle of Albania, fortunately untouched by mass tourism, I enjoyed the sight only with locals and so I felt privileged.
 

Komani River at Fierze

From Fierze I walked and hitchhiked through Bajram Curri to the village of Dragobi in the Valbona national park.

In this mountain village I met a man who escaped Italy because of problems with Italian justice. He offered me to sleep in the infirmary of the local hospital that was closed. He gave me the key and a bottle of tap water and left. In this building there was neither running water nor electricity or heating. I needed food but seemingly there was no shop in the village and I could only see a closed bar.

It was five in the afternoon and in the midst of the mountains it was breezy, cold and quickly getting dark. A beautiful mountain stream was running in front of the hospital. Although we were inside a national park the stream at the village was so full of garbage that it seemed to be running on an open dump. The village was almost deserted. I did not feel good. I felt fever and I was tired by the night before on the floor. I had no other option than to wait in the infirmary for my host to return. Fortunately, after a while the bar opened and I could buy some biscuits.

I plunged myself into the sleeping bag and did not know if the man was actually going to return. After a couple of hours he came with a tray of warm food for me. In my weak condition where the only thing I could desire was something warm to eat the sight of the warm meal made me feel moved. And of course I felt extremely thankful to this stranger, a man who at home I would probably have not trusted and assisted, because of my fears and prejudices. I felt also thankful - I reflected later - to all the local people encountered who welcomed me with a moving ardor.

Mountains at Valbona National Park

In bad conditions following the cold night, the coming morning I reached the highest village of the national park where I took a room with heating, running water, electricity and breakfast for ten euros. I passed the day by resting in my warm room, walking around the village and enjoyed the sight of the unspoiled nature around me.

I met an American woman living there. She runs a restaurant and tries to promote eco-tourism and to raise awareness among local people for respecting the environment (more information about her project). She explained to me that northern Albania is a particular complex reality: in fact it used to be the poorest part of the poorest country in Europe. She explicated that rough dumps are the result of behaviour of local authorities that do not collect rubbish and hence leave local people no other option than create this kind of dump.

The following day two guys of about my same age brought me to Kosovo from where I started my way up to Sarajevo.

I left with in my head one word that sums up my feeling for the country - genuineness - and one sentence that best concludes my experience there:

If you are one of those persons who can see beauty beyond problems, prejudices and your own fears, then Albania is a must for you.