Day 9: Hiking Camp Day

Friday, June 8, 2012

We are all exhausted and tanned by the sun. Today, we went hiking at Prevalle. We were told it would take us 2- 2 1/2 hours to get there, but I don't think it was much more than an hour. The roads were quite curvy and our bus drivers were some of the most talented I've seen. We'd zip around the curves like it was nothing. I was glad to get off of the bus though because if going up the mountain any further like that would have made me really sick. There were parts around the road where they blasted the rock to make the road, but the rocks still jutted out near the top of the bus since the blasts were done for cars and not so much for buses. At times, I even held my breath as my face was inches from a rock on the other side of the window. The place we went was a little past Prizren, the place were we went hiking last weekend that had the Turkish ruins and all the mosques. On the way to Prevalle, we even passed by the trail we took the other day. We thought that hike was a tough one because we pretty much ran the whole way up the mountain. Little did we know that we were about to fjord a river a few times and see snow after hiking a few miles up. I don't think I've ever seen anything so magnificent in my life. Both Jeremy and I talked about how beautiful the scenery was and he didn't even hike but to a small clearing maybe a mile up. We have hundreds of pictures from today from our good camera and my little one I used after I left Jeremy. Collectively as a team we probably have over a thousand. It's extremely hard to choose my favorite ones, but I did pick a few (more than normal) so you could revel in the beauty. I just sat in awe when I wasn't climbing!

We first had to hike to a little place by the river so we could eat a little snack. Then we were given a choice whether we wanted to do a long hike or not. Some people didn't hike at all. Instead, they hung out in the shade all day. The hiking people were given a few hours and were told they had to be back by a certain time and then off we went. Some people started the hike and stopped a ways in. Still others went further, and further, and further. We left people along the way. Many of them waited at the first place we found snow until we came back. Jeremy hung out with Kyle and took pictures all afternoon about a 1/2 mile or mile up the mountain. It's hard to say how far we went. I hiked with Morgan most of the time. We got to see a beautiful waterfall and were pretty much surrounded by mountains. Morgan and I left the few extreme hikers, and went our own way at the end. As we walked we had to lean forward and pretty much hold onto the ground because we were at such a steep angle. We went through shrubs and brush where we got a little scratched up, but it was so worth it because of the view at the end. When we reached our stopping point, we sat on some rocks and talked for a while before we had to leave. We were hiking for a few hours. The way down was a lot faster of course. Some Kosovars were running down the hill, which made us want to see if we could too. HA! I'm a little clumsy and almost fell at one point while running, therefore I stopped. As we made our way down, we collected our campers and team. We had three charter buses full of people, so you can imagine how spread out we were on the hike as some dropped off every few hundred meters or so.

I walked down with Morgan until we picked up Evan, and then Jeremy and Kyle joined us a little further down. When it was time to fjord the river, I prepared my feet for the cold. We chose to take off our shoes and socks so we wouldn't have to hike the rest of the way with wet stuff. Jeremy's feet went numb the first time across. I did fine. Evan carried Morgan both times. Crossing it was not comfortable on the soles of your feet either as rocks jabbed in your feet. The second time around wasn't any better. I was the first one across. Right as I put my foot on dry ground and prepared to dry off, I dropped one of my socks. I chased after it in the water and got it. Without thinking, I made it touch my other sock which then made both of them wet. I then got to put my feet in my shoes and hike the rest of the way without socks. That was probably my least favorite part of the day. We had some tissues because Jeremy's nose has been running. The tissues (8-10 packs of the travel kind) came in handy because we used them to dry our feet. The other people didn't care. They just put on their shoes and kept going both times. I guess we were the ones that really cared about our shoes.

After the hike, we sat by the river and chatted with people. I'm constantly amazed at how the Kosovar students remember our names. This girl came up to me and said, "Hey Laura. You're the teacher right?!" I didn't even remember that I had met her. I felt so bad! We had a really good conversation about all sorts of things. I really enjoyed my day.

I got to experience my first real European bathroom. It was probably the grossest thing in my life!!! I'll just say that some people didn't go in the hole. GAG. I had gone from 8:30am-4pm without going though, so I couldn't wait until 6 when we'd get home.   

Me, Lila, Hannah, and Lila's friend

They don't have "normal" food for a picnic. All the things you want to eat for lunch, they don't have in Kosovo. No peanut butter, no sandwich stuff (only really hard bread and interesting meat)... This was our lunch. We thought the Teddy Bears would be like Teddy Grahams, but they were more like butter on a strange biscuit/cookie and they weren't even sweet. They have ketchup chips. Jeremy loves putting ketchup on his chips, so he likes these even though they don't have "enough ketchup". Evan picked up 1000 g (1 kg- the mass of a textbook) of peanuts. That's pretty much what I ate! We also had some trail mix. 

This was where we had to cross. It looks pretty narrow, but it wasn't! 

Parker, Ben, and Kyle

This is where I left Jeremy and continued on my way up the mountain.

Josh, Parker, and Morgan thinking this hike is an easy one up to this point

Be Epic

view along the way

line of ants

Breathtaking

Still going up

We finally made it to the snow.

The waterfall

Kyle

Rock talk #1

Rock talk #2

This is one of the views Morgan and I saw at the top. We loved seeing the reflection of the clouds on the mountain.

Going down

One of the views from the first little landing point.

One of the views from the top.

group photo

After the hike, we had a pretty calm ride back to Suhareke. We immediately walked into Hotel Rozafa's restaurant for dinner. They knew we were coming and had it all ready for us. These guys are amazing! Jeremy and some of the other guys have been able to carry on conversations with them through an ipad app that translates what they type. The hotel staff has been great. There are some other guests that come to the hotel, but it's pretty much just us all the time. They make breakfast for us daily and then cook for us meals whenever we need them to. We ended the night with finishing our first manuscript study. Another graduation party was going on in the hotel, so sleep doesn't come easily when the base is so loud you can hear it for a few hundred meters. Some of our team went to the party and danced a little with them. They love Americans and love for us to join their parties!