Trip to Thethi, compliments of my loving husband and wonderful photographer, Mark



The Bridge...





Singing in the Rain





Welcoming Committee



Lunch, Albanian Style

Our Accomodations!

For now, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking..



The only open bar, but they had "Nick" Beer from Macedonia and lively conversations

nap time



 This was an amazing trip. We rented a toyota Land Cruiser, thank goodness.. the road was 1 1/2 hours of hairpin turns, bumps, rocks, made worse by the downpour of rain. We looked at each other a number of times and just hoped we'd taken the right turns. The signage here isn't great, and of course, Thethi is nowhere on our garmin. Finally we came to see the village thru the clouds and fog. Amazing place, "lost in time" for sure. So remote that even the Ottomans didn't try to take over the village. One can't imagine what its like here in the winter. The road is closed, these people have to stock up with supplies ( cigarettes and beer, according to the bar owner) for at least 4 months.
Fortunately the road was open, well sort of, and we descended on this quaint place, welcomed by pigs,
sheep, sheep herders, and faces of people who's families have probably lived here for 100's of years.
We found our Family Home, Harusha.  The look on Mark's face was priceless when he saw our "bedroom" but it looked clean and they had hot water and "western toilets". It was almost 2p, and we had eaten our share of trail mix and snack crackers. The "mother" of the house cooked a delightful lunch of soup, yogurt, cheese, tomatoes and of course, lamb.. oh and delicious bread. Everything was homemade you could tell. We shared the room with a lively group of Albanians who brought their own raki and wine! After lunch we walked the roads, up to an old church which had been recently renovated by US $$$ (Catholic territory, again, the muslims couldn't get here), took pictures of the incredible mountains and streams and enjoyed the cool mist.  Then we found the bar!  A lively place with good beer and a tv set with of course, soccer. Back to our room for a little R and R, now reading by our lights on our Kindles, Mark and Gracie took a short nap. A "light" dinner was served around 7:30p, delicious spinach wrapped in dough, their version of mac and cheese, more yogurt and cucumbers, bread and beer
Now our tummies are full and we're ready for the cots! Gracie with me, Mark's feet touching mine from the opposite side of the room, makes for a romantic evening :)
Morning came with the first light of day. Think we both put back on our warm clothes from the day before and headed to breakfast, this time with Gracie. Mark kept saying that they probably think she's an ugly baby cause we had her wrapped in her Dora the Explorer blankie and only her head was out. We finally let her walk around so they could see she was our "baby" dog.
Breakfast was double shots of espresso for me, tea, homemade jam and honey, and eggs.
We now felt we got our $25 per person!
The drive home was not quit as bad, although it rained a lot, my bladder was empty and we knew there was an actual road at the end of the "goat path". Sunday traffic in Tirana, quick trip to the Mercator, then a nice evening walk to the Taiwan Center for dinner. Oh, I had a delicious whole seabass grilled for $11!. I think we were asleep by 9p. Absolutely plan on going back to Thethi in the summer!