Welcome to travels with Todd

While I’d decided to discretely walk along the well marked paths in the vicinity of the hotel, some in our group had what I perceived as a cacoethic need to plunge into the 10° (or perhaps colder) water of the Shala River. Although they proclaimed it invigorating, I remained averse to the notion of voluntarily subjecting myself to such frigidity. (Yes, I’d entered the Antarctic simulation at the International Antarctic Centre in New Zealand but, as you can see,

I was well layered in a manner that would have been a rather foolish look for a riparian dip.) Still, several in the group took the plunge or perhaps merely a dip and, at our firepit conversation, in the gaps between the plangent calls of a nearby owl, B, announced that he had so enjoyed his initial curglaff he planned to repeat it before breakfast. He invited anyone bold enough to accompany him. By all accounts, no one did. 

Hand me down my walkin’ shoes

The main planned activity for the day was a hike to the lost village of Molle. The trip itinerary on the website described it as a two-and-a-half kilometer walk with a 600 meter elevation change. Since I customarily walk 10km per day and manage the admittedly less daunting hills of Lisbon, this sounded like a nice, if mildly challenging adventure. As the events of the day unfolded, it would prove to be a bit too much of a challenge – at least for me – for two reasons.

One appears in the paragraph above and the other has appeared elsewhere in this blog. This was a hike along narrow, occasionally muddy, often rocky paths with some steep ascents not a walk along the calçadas de Lisboa. As I listened to the squelch of my New Balance walking shoes (not hiking boots) or grasped a nearby tree for support as bits of scree tumbled underfoot, I found myself opining out loud (and more than once) that I was a city walker not a mountain goat. The trail we climbed was narrower and steeper than the one in the photo below from Protect the Adirondacks.

Those of you who read the post You and me Sunday driving from my Hawaii trip might be familiar with the second reason. In it I wrote,

“Estou bem, obrigado. Caio frequentemente.” This is one of the first phrases I learned in Portuguese. In English it says, “I’m okay, thanks. I fall frequently.” (It would have been more accurate to say, “Tropeço frequntemente e, as vezes, caio.” This translates as, “I trip a lot and sometimes I fall.” But that was too much for me to learn in a short time.)

The combination of the slippery hilly path and my propensity for tripping made me overly cautious as we climbed the hill. And, of course, the added concentration I was placing on remaining upright made the climb even more taxing and I was lagging noticeably behind the rest of the group. N and C, a young English couple currently living in Germany, kindly stayed behind me to provide support should I have tripped while being too far behind the main body of the group.

We reached a stopping point – perhaps a bit less than halfway through the walk – that E thought provided a particularly good photo opportunity.

(We’d come from the level of the river below.) I took a pair of photos and, together with G (the only other American in the group) decided not to continue to the walk’s completion. (G said he was having some issues with his surgically repaired knees and thought he’d be as uncomfortable on the descent as I would have been had either of us continued to the village. Or perhaps he was simply being kind.) They shared this photo from the upper portion of the hike.

I was glad to have him with me because G had certainly been more observant on the ascent than I had been. You see, while I’m more than capable of missing the obvious, I like to think that I missed seeing the arrows painted on some rocks to mark the path that he saw because of my focus on maintaining my balance. Still, once he pointed them out, I was able to spot them on our descent. (And if E, serving as our guide had mentioned them at any time before or during the hike, I never heard him do so.)

I fell twice (and I think G once) and, for me, this justified my decision not to complete the climb. The falls did little more than muddy my pants but I think had I continued with the group to the hike’s completion it might have further impacted my focus. This could have led to both more and, perhaps, more dangerous falls.

We reached the lodge safely

and spent the afternoon engaged in a broad ranging and quite interesting discussion. G had recently retired from his position as a professor of anatomy and physiology at a campus in the University of California system. He’d met P at a conference some three decades prior and they began a lifelong friendship and it was his visit to England that had him accompanying P and P’s spouse L to Albania.

P had been invited to Tirana to speak at and observe the development of a medical school he’d helped establish some years earlier and the three of them decided to spend some additional time exploring the country including some time as part of this Intrepid group. I learned a little about  physiology and anatomy and about G’s teaching methodologies during our conversation. (He’d make a more interesting disclosure at a dinner later in the trip that I’ll reveal when we reach that point.)

The eleven remaining hikers reached the top where this view awaited

before they returned late in the afternoon. Most sat by the river – though some might have taken another dip in the chilly waters of the Shala. G and I joined them for more conversation. It’s possible that I indulged in an adult beverage, too.

Tomorrow morning we will pack up and return to the dam and another tunnel walk. We’ll have lunch in Vau-Dejës and spend the evening at the Miri i Zanave farm near Fishtë. Here’s where you can find the pictures, including others from the group, that you haven’t yet seen.