Albania 16: Onifuro Red

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. Because much of the reportage is based on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1. Also, because this computer lacks search capabilities, and my brain needs a RAM boost, I fear I may repeat some tales already told... repeat some tales told better the first time.]

Change the setting and the commonplace becomes wondrous. --Mykel Board

It's about here that I should make an obvious but important comment. When traveling, the best stories are the worst experiences in real life. If you almost died, it's exciting. If you sat down and watched some old guys play dominoes, it is not. So even though the second scene is more enjoyable that the first, the first is better to write about.

So it is with Albania. People here are not filled with avarice, or hostility. They are, in fact, friendly. In Vlora, I sat on a bus next to an elderly man with a cough. I was new in the country then, and did not realize that since, everybody here smokes, everybody here has a cough. Then, I was worried. I'm gonna get sick. Swine flu. I'm sure of it

When we pull into town, I'm anxious to get away from him. I also need to find my hotel, booked by the chatty and attractive concierge of the Nais Hotel.

When I leave the bus, I say the name of the hotel Pavareso several times, hoping someone will be able to direct me. Someone does. The old man from the bus. Not only does he direct me, but he gets on the city bus with me, pays my fare, and turns me over to an attractive young woman (he has to get off earlier), who takes me within pointing distance of the hotel.

That's the kind of people Albanians are.

In a restaurant, or on the street, people will call you over for a chat. They'll ask you where you're from, if you're married. What religion you are. (I finally found out how to say JEW in Albanian, Izraelit.) How long you've been in Albania and more. They're curious people, and enjoy your company.

Yesterday, I went from Gjirokastra to Berati. I caught the 7 o'clock (AM) bus. At 6:30 I'm at the bus station-- not the station, exactly, but the holding pen for the buses where they rest overnight.

On the glass doors of one building entrance, it says, Agjensi. There's also a sign that says, Gjirosatra-Ateni.

I figure that's the ticket agency. Strange, because the buses I've taken so far have no tickets. You just get on the bus, tell the conductor the name of the town you're going to, and he makes up a price. Unlike scam-the-tourist rest of the world, the price seems to be the same no matter where you're from.

Inside the agjensi, a bunch of men drink coffee at a bunch of tables.

“Autobussi Berati ërstë ku?” I ask.

“Yo yo yo,” comes the answer.

What is this, the Bronx?

Actually, it means: no no no.

One of the guys drinking coffee makes a motion to follow him. (Very close to the Japanese motion for come here... palm pointed downward, fingers together in an open-close wave.)

“Italiano?” he asks me.

“American,” I say.

“Bene, bene,” he says.

“Non Berati këtu,” he further tells me. “Lushnja, Lushnja, Berati. Ju koptoni?”

“Koptoj,” I tell him meaning I understand. Though I only think I understand: Here to Lushnja. Then change buses to Berati.

We walk around the corner to another café, where even more men drink even more coffee.

Lushnja? Lushshna? the guy asks each of the men. One of them shakes his head to show he's going there.

My caretaker explains that I'm an American and I only speak a little Albanian and can he make sure I get on the right bus. He shakes his head yes, and my caretakers says good-bye walks out.

The new guy (who turns out to be the bus driver), motions for me to sit down, drink some coffee and he'll return at 7 o'clock.

“Yeah right,” I think.

At 7 o'clock, he's back.

He waves me to follow him, picking up one of my bags. I do and sure enough, there's a bus with TIRANA on the front. It's the right direction. Lushnja is on the way.

I watch relatively unworried as he puts my bag in the luggage compartment under the bus. So far, buses have been the only crowded thing on this trip. Otherwise, it's been only me. Buses are full, at least when they start off. They may empty out toward the end of the line.

Not this one.

There is the bus driver, the conductor, one shaved-headed guy who talks continually with the driver and may or may not be a paying customer... and me.

A few times during the trip someone gets on and soon gets off again, but for the most part, it's just us.

Bertati is like a smaller version of Gjirokastra. It's as vertical, but not as high. There's a castle at the top. There's also an ethnographic museum, and lots of ruins.

The most interesting museum is the Onifuro (I'm not sure if I'm spelling the name right) Museum. It's got mostly icon art, but it's named after the most famous Albanian painter. He even has a color named after him: Onifuro Red.

I'm not allowed to take pictures in the museum, which means I have to turn the flash off and do it very quietly. Everything is dark and blury but you can see the red at least

In order to understand what I like best about these icons, you have to come with me back in time, and half-way around the world.

We land in Cuzco, Peru. Cuzco is famous as the stopping off point on the way to Machupichu. It's also famous as being one of the highest cities in the world (I got altitude sickness there. It was like the flu!) Finally, it's famous because the locals, especially the K'chua Indians, eat guinea pig. It's called cuy.

There is a church in Cuzco that has a large renaissance-looking painting of Christ at the last supper. At first, it looks like a run-of-the-mill last supper. JC and the Disciples. But a closer look shows you that on Jesus' plate is... you guessed it... roasted guinea pig.

This is relevant, because it shows how Christian artists bend their versions of history to include something about themselves.

In my previous reports about Albania, I've made comments about the large foreheads the local people have. Massive Frankenstein-like bridges that probably indicate some kind of uber-intellegence. (For some reason, younger people seem to have smaller foreheads than their elders.)

I imagine this is a very old trait. So if you look at the paintings here... especially the iconic apostles, you might be able to guess what you'll find. Yep, apostles with huge foreheads!

Almost as interesting are a series of icons that make Jesus look black.

Some: Arab/North African black, some Negro-black. One of my favorites looks like my pal Bryan from Trinidad.

Here's a bad picture of that icon, but I had to take it on the sly... without a flash.

After the museum, I take a walk up to the castle. It's another vertical trek, not quite as bad as Girokastra. About half-way up, I come across a wall, about nipple high. Flat on top, perfect for a rest and view of the city. Already resting there, is a middle-aged guy with a very big forehead.

He pats the place next to him, motioning for me to sit down. I do.

“Italiano?” he asks.

“American,” I say.

Then he starts talking about the castle, the hillside, the history of the area. He's speaking a weird mix of Albanian, Italian and English. I can understand about ten percent. Then he jumps down from the wall, and motions for me to follow him. He takes me inside. We pass a small café that seems to be part of the castle, like the one in the last castle. Hmm, a good place to stop for a cup-- or a glass-- of something.

“Here is a wall,” he says pointing to a wall.

Then he points to hole in the ground, surrounded by concrete. “Cistern,” he says.

There are concrete steps (railingless as are most staircases in Albania). They lead down to nothing, just three steps down and a drop, 30 feet? more?. At the bottom of the drop, faintly visible in the limited light, is brackish water. All around me is the loud buzzing of insects who know their lunch has just arrived.

“You go first,” I gallantly suggest. “I want to take your picture.”

In a short time, we leave the cistern.

Un dua të shkoj café. (I want to go to the café) I tell the guy, as the first few drops of rain splash against my hat.

“Wait,” he says, “go café soon. Just little more.”

He has me follow him to a hill on the side of the castle. He point to what looks like a giant TV broadcast antenna.

“That is the TV broadcast antenna,” he says.

Then, there is the well, the prison, and the door.

“Now we go to a café. Very traditional. Old kind,” he says.

“I want to eat in the castle café,” I tell him.

“It's not open,” he says. “Not open.”

He takes me there to prove he's telling the truth. It is, in fact, closed.

“Now,” he says, “can you give me some money?”

Resigned to the scam, and knowing he probably needs 200Lek more than I do, I give him 200. Delighted, he takes me to a tiny cafe. There are three tables. At one, two guys play dominos. At the other, a single guy sits drinking Raki, Albanian vodka.

At the other table is me.

The bartender, who looks very ownerlike, asks me what I want. I order a coffee, and sit by myself at the table, for a bit.

I watch the guys playing dominoes, and every time I think I have the game figured out, they do something (like putting a FIVE against a FOUR) that totally baffles me.

Un duo te koptoj dominos. (I want to understand dominoes.) I say to the older of the domino players. He looks like a Turkish pasha.

He pulls an empty chair from my table and puts it next to his table. Then he motions for me to sit down.

He asks me where I'm from, how I like Albania, the usual. He's friendly. He does not ask me for money.

I order a raki for myself and ask him if he wants one. He says no.

Then I figure he must be Muslim and regret asking. But he takes it in stride. The rest of the afternoon is just peaceful drinking and watching dominoes. Thoroughly enjoyable to do, not so thrilling to read about.

Now, I sit at a restaurant near the main square in Berati. I'm waiting for my dinner to arrive. I've ordered something I don't know what it is, but is cheap. I read my guidebook while waiting. My chin rests in my hand. I'm careful not to put too much pressure. I might loosen the temporary cement that holds my $600 gold inlay onto the tooth beneath it.

My cheek itches. I move to scratch it, and feel a raised bump, like a tiny scab. I pick at it and it comes off under my fingernail. It's red, but not bleeding. It's too small to see if it's just a mini-scab, or if it's some tiny insect, red with my own blood, just picked from my skin.

Carefully, I set it on a page in my notebook. Exactly at the center of a crosshatch. I'll give it some time. If it moves, I'll know it's alive, and not some kind of effluvia that my body throws onto the skin every once in awhile. It should be easy to see if it moves. It only has to reach a line on either side.

After a minute... two minutes... it's in the same place I put it. Safe! I think.

Flash ahead: I write this in my hotel room in Berati. It's 10PM. I did nothing touristy today. I wrote a bit, called (and got through!) to Andi in Tirana. I went to my local internet café. (They know me by now.) I uploaded Albania 13 to my Blog, and Facebooked a bit. I even checked my long neglected MySpace pages.

(I rarely use MySpace because of its censorship. I can't post a link to my blogspot-blog and I can't link to anything using TinyURL. It “fails the spam filter,” they say. Yeah, right.)

Tomorrow, I get up and leave for Tirana, the city that Masuda felt dai-kirai (I hate it), and the one that Dave, the British tourist mimed a slit throat over. I've got about a dozen days left in this vacation, only about half in Albania.

Then, I return to the dreaded Italy, before returning to the even more dreaded New York to go back to work to pay for this trip.

Downstairs at the hotel, the concierge tells me his name is Lula, the same name as my favorite South American political leader. He's a kindly old gent who tells me his son lives in Queens and works at JFK airport. He can't remember his son's address or phone number, but he gives me his own phone number and I promise to call him and retrieve it. I'll contact his son when I get to New York, tell him I saw his dad, and he's fine.

He promises to walk me to the bus tomorrow, to make sure I get on the right bus to Tirana. I'll be safe if I come with him, he says.

“Sure,” I say.

STOP! If you want to shake me and say, Mykel, stop it. You should have learned your lesson, then you don't get it. The Albanians are nice. They're friendly. They're good people. But just like everywhere. There are monsters.

The next day, Lula does walk me to the bus station and puts me on the right bus. The bus leaves Berati and passes more than a hundred of the 70,000 bunkers that are everywhere in Albania. They're a ubiquitous reminder of the bunker-mentality of the past. You can buy bunker mugs, bunker ashtrays. They're a national symbol. I wish I could see one up close.

Ah well, tomorrow TIRANA! Maybe I'll see one there.

Albania 15: Jimmy

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. Because much of the reportage is based on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1. Also, because this computer lacks search capabilities, and my brain needs a RAM boost, I fear I may repeat some tales already told... repeat some tales told better the first time.]

Change the setting, and the commonplace becomes wondrous. --Mykel Board

Jimmy's Tale

I write sitting in the Cuçi Bar Restorant in Berati. My plan was to sit all day in an outdoor café, drinking a cup of coffee, very Parisian, and just write. But, such are plans.

The outdoor café is louder than a sports bar during the world series. It's right across from a mosque. Pretty setting. But over the general din, the guy at the next table kept shouting. Like he was in an argument about a sports team. But I kept hearing the words iszhrael or something like that. People who know me know I'm not the biggest fan of the country of Israel, though I have Israeli friends. (Hell, I'm not the biggest fan of the country of America, though I also have a couple of American friends.) But I also know Izraelit in Albanian means Jew. And hey, you talkin' about me?

I could be completely wrong. The guy cudda been screaming about something else. The local soccer team for all I know. In one of his movies, Woody Allen talks about how Jews are so sensitive, that they hear Jew in everything. People talking on the street:

“I didn't go. Did you?”

Jew? Jew? Did he say Jew?

So maybe I mis-heard. In any case, the guy is so loud and annoying that I can't stay. So I go for a walk, go down a side street. Find this restaurant and figure, if so many flies like this place, the food must be good. And they have Fanta. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the sugar and not high fructose corn poison. But the Fanta in Albania is really great... And the restaurant doesn't care if I use their electricity to write this entry.

This is my third day in Berati. It's a nice town, somewhat vertical, but not as dramatic as Gjirokastra. It's not about Berati I want to write, though. It's not really about a town at all, but about a person.

In my last entry, I wrote about my climb to the castle. On the return trip, after meeting some Peace Corpsers, I found myself a long way from town, and very high up in the mountain. I knew the way from the Post Office, so I asked a local directions there, figuring the rest would be easy.

I asked an ancient Albanian guy. One tooth in his mouth... and it was gold. Thinning gray hair, and that large Albanian forehead that is so distinctive of the people here.

(Actually, the entire Albanian headshape is distinctive. There's no back to the head. Just a straight line up from the back of the neck to the crown. The face is rectangle, like a brick on end. And that forehead. That high forehead, like a caricature of an intellectual. I don't know much about brain geography. I think intelligence is what's behind the forehead, so maybe Albanians are really smart. I don't know what's at the back, though. That, they're missing.)

The guy told me his name was Jimmy. I told him mine was Mykel.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he said. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

I asked him where the post office was. He told me it was closed. Communication from this point was difficult, but he showed me, I thanked him, and found my way home from there.

I return to the castle the next day. First, I want to go to the information center again... find out about the bus schedule to Tirana. Second, I want to see the Zekate house, a Byzantine house, reconstructed in the original style. Third, I wanted to go to the Ethnographic museum. I had such a good experience at the one in Saranda, I figured I'd see another one, just for the photos and the guides.

As I climb the cobblestone path toward the castle, I hear a voice.

“Mykel! Mykel!”

It's Jimmy.

“Mykel,” he says. “You go to the post office? You mail things?”

I tell him yes and thank him. There's not point in trying to explain again.

He moves to my side.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he said. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

“Une koptoj.” (I understand) I tell him.

“You have a cup of coffee with me?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say.

That's why I travel. I don't travel for buildings, though some, like the Gjirokastra castle, are pretty amazing. I don't travel for scenery, though the Albanian mountains are amazing. I travel for people-- and adventure. If I don't say yes to every invitation, I may be missing something. I'll never know.

So we go to a café on the side of the mountain. I don't know how it stays there. Certainly one wall must be longer than the other. I wonder if they have special chairs, two legs longer on one side, so you can sit outside without falling over.

Jimmy and I both order coffee. He talks to me.

“I taught Russian, but I love democratzia. I love American song: Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson. Gloria Gaynor (?????)...”

I nod. Then remember that I might be saying NO with that nod. Jimmy doesn't seem to notice.

“I speak Italian, Russian, and French,” he says. “I'm sorry. I don't English. My son, he speak very well English.”

“Une koptoj,” I tell him.

“Now I have no work.” He says. “Four years no work. I have son. He in Tirana. He study medicine. I have daughter. She in Italy. She also student.”

Just then the waiter comes out. I ask him to take our pictures. The sun is, for once, so bright, that the shadow from the restaurant awning, divides our faces.

“I'm a teacher too,” I tell him. “I teach English in New York. All my students are Japanese.”

One of the many nice linguistic coincidences is that teacher in Albanian is mësues (pronounced masseuse). It's much sexier sounding to say I'm a masseuse, than a teacher. Though Jimmy is not a guy I particularly want to be sexy with.

We finish our coffee. Jimmy says to me, “I'm sorry Mykel. But I have no change for coffee. You have change? You can pay?”

The total is around 150 lek. I think I can spring for that. But it's a weird culture where people invite you out, then expect you to pay for them. It's like my guide in Durres. Don't worry about the money... you're paying.

“We go to the Zekate House,” says Jimmy. “I show you.”

So up we walk. Up is the only way to walk to see anything in Gjirokastra. Down is the way back.

During our walk, Jimmy talks some more.

“You teach English,” he says. “Everybody use English. I teach Russian. I teached Russian. Little children. I not teach dictatorship. (He pronounces it dictatorship). I teached Democratzia and music: Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Gloria Gaynor. But I teached Russian. Now in Albania, no more dictator. No more Russian. I no work four years.”

“That's too bad,” I say, turning to look into his impossibly weary eyes and unavoidably staring at his single gold tooth. Is he eighty? Ninety? I don't know. He's strong enough to take this hike. Straight uphill, it's leaving me breathless. I wish I smoked. Then I'd have an excuse.

He continues talking, but hides his mouth with his hand as he speaks.

“You have lots or little a teacher?” he asks, rubbing his thumb against the other four fingers in a near-universal sign for money.

“Not a lot,” I say, “but I live.”

“I don't live,” he says. “Mykel, I don't live.”

Luckily, about this time we come to the Zekate house. A dog barks at our approach. It's looks like a poodle, or something poodlish. White, fluffy, with a harness instead of a leash. It's pulling against that harness, yapping away. I guess it's a kind of automatic doorbell, informing the occupants of an approaching visitor.

The house itself is an interesting old building: two towers and a stone foundation. The house is so wide and the street so narrow, it's impossible to fit more than one tower at time in the camera lens.

The top, white part, has rectangular windows, very close together. There are long wooden support beams holding up the black roof. In the lower, stone, part, the windows are arched at the top, and rather small compared to the whole wall space.

It's an incredibly impressive building, looking not quite like anything I've seen before.

It is also closed.

“I'm sorry Mykel,” says Jimmy. “It is closed.

I shrug. At least the return is downhill.

“No problem,” I say. “Let me take your picture here, and we'll go to the ethnographic museum.”

He nods.

When we get to the museum, Jimmy says goodbye.

“Here is the museum,” he says. “I will not go in. You go in.”

“Thank you, Jimmy,” I say, shaking his hand. “Faleminderit shum.”

He turns to leave. There is a deep sadness in his walk.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. During our conversation, Jimmy tells me how old he is. He's younger than I am.

***

I enter the museum and am immediately greeted by a photograph of an old Praktica (East German) camera, with a big red X over it.

Okay, that spoils have the fun, since the stuff in the music is stuff you want to remember, and, if you have a brain like a... like a... I can't remember what... like I do, then you need pictures. Just to spite, I take a picture of the no picture-taking sign.

Looks like I'm going to have to take this tour on my own. No host and hostess like last time. That's a shame, but then again, I can take pictures. Who's gonna know?

I walk upstairs. A middle-aged woman is sitting on a couch talking to a much older woman. The younger of the two wears a long dark dress and has dark stockings rolled to mid calf. She wears sunglasses... on top of her head.

(I already wrote that few Albanians wear glasses. Many Albanians, however, wear sunglasses... always. When it's sunny, they wear them over their eyes, looking like mobsters or Secret Service. When it's cloudy or rainy, they wear them on top of their heads. Looking, like tourists in their own country.)

The woman sees me and pulls up her stockings.

“Ju flicni Anglisht?” I ask.

She shakes her head yes.

“You want to see the museum,” she says.

“Po,” I say.

“200 lek,” she says.

I pay her the money. And she takes me to a large room with a window in the ceiling.

“This was the kitchen,” she says.

Then she takes me to another little room. It's all white with a little carved-- or more accurately broken-- space in the floor and wall.

“And this was the bathroom... the toilet,” she says.

Then a room with what looks like red shag carpeting on all the furniture. Everything is on the ground. Just pillows around a round central table. On the table are half a dozen place settings with metal plates, forks, knives and spoons-- all on the same side of the plate.

“And this was the dining room,” she says.

And so it continues, room to room, until we're back where we started.

“And now you have seen the museum,” she says. “Good bye.”

Hmm, a bit different from the last ethnographic museum.

I walk downhill to go back to the hotel, wondering if I should have given Jimmy a thousand lek or something.

Albania 14: The Vertical City

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. Because much of the reportage is based on previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1. Also, because this computer lacks search capabilities, and my brain needs a RAM boost, I fear I may repeat some tales already told... repeat some tales already told.]

All generalizations are wrong... including this one. --Mykel Board

1. Albanians don't eat. They drink, especially coffee. Cafés by the dozens are filled with locals, sitting, staring at the passing parade of people. Or in heated conversation, with one person yelling something as if in rage, and the others shaking their heads in agreement. There are restaurants, fast food joints, and pizza parlors galore. It's just that there's no one in these places. Albanians get everything they need to live in liquid-- and inhalant-- form.

2. Albanians smoke. (Tobacco... though once I did smell the good stuff. By the seaside, in Vlora.) They smoke everywhere. On the street. In cafés. In bars. When you sit down at a table to eat or drink, the first thing a waiter does is bring you an ashtray. It's like America in the 50s and 60s. The aroma of tobacco is in everything. It's great.

I realize how much I miss the smells suddenly disappeared from American life. A smokey bar is a real bar. Not the fake TV-watching, music-blaring, meat markets that pass as bars in America in 2009. In this small corner of the world, people appreciate the smell, the sensuality, the toughness of cigarettes. By the way, Albania was one of the first countries in the world to legalize gay marriage. Smoking and gay marriage. I think the two are related. That brings me to...

3. Albanians show affection without it being a sign of conquest-- or even sexuality. Teenage boys walk with their arms around each other. Middle aged men walk arm-in-arm. There's nothing sexual about it, but there is real friendship. Friends, not afraid of showing their friendship-- by touching one another. It's a joy to see, though it makes me sadder to think about what Christianity's hate-the-body/hate-the-touch has taken from us in America.

Now on to Gjirokastra:

Gjirokastra was a steep city, perhaps the steepest in the world, which had broken all the laws of town planning. Certainly this was the only place in the world where, if a passer-by fell, instead of sliding into a roadside ditch, he might end up on the roof of a tall house. This is something which drunkards knew better than anyone. --Ismail Kadare, Chronicle in Stone

Gjirokastra-- coldsore day 13. (Yeah it's still faintly there.)

I sit in my hotel room in Gjirokastra. It was probably the right move to leave this morning, instead of yesterday. It did rain today, but not the torrential Noah's ark rain of yesterday. And, it stopped before the bus left from Saranda.

It's been raining in this town too. It just stopped, but the sky is dark and threatening. It's 1PM, I'll give it half an hour. If it's still not raining, I'll go to the old (vertical) town. Right now, I'm in the new town, not far from the bus stop.

The ride here from Saranda was uneventful. Saranda, by the way, was my favorite town so far. Several people talked to me, asked me where I was from. I didn't make any friends, but this was the closest to friend-making I've had in Albania.

Goni, the hotel owner, managed to joke with me, and tell about his surgery in Michigan... all without English.

(I find that the only way I can remember Albanian names is to relate them to other languages. Goni is FIVE-TWO in Japanese. Just like the evil Co-ocho was TOGETHER (co)-EIGHT in Spanish.)

I even had a glimmer of hope with my cellphone this morning. Playing with the settings got me a few seconds of connectivity. But then it failed, and I haven't been able to get it back since. Ah well, another thing on my todo list when I get back: Complain to t-mobile and see if I can score another phone.

I wish I had a thermometer with me. Not the health kind. It would be too easy to find out I'm sick and then act accordingly. I mean the room kind. It must be 40^o F in this room now. I've got on my 200 lek sweatshirt and still I'm cold. My feet too, through my army boots.

Ho ho! Look what I found! A remote control for the heater. I set it to 30^oC. (It doesn't go any higher).That's about 90^o Fahrenheit. There's no way it'll actually reach that temperature in here, but it may just get warm enough to let me take my shoes off.

Ah, that's better, now onwards and upwards...

*****

It's been a tiring, yet peaceful day. I walked uphill through the old town to the castle. It's a hell of a walk. First through the entire new town. Then practically straight up on a cobblestone street,through the old town.

Then to the top of the mountain.

The city is so steep-- not hilly, just steep-- it makes San Francisco look flat. The castle is at the top, and it's pretty spectacular.

Of course, I'm the only one in the place-- and it's huge. Bigger than Grand Central. It was first a castle in the 1200s. Then a prison from the middle ages through the 1970s.

I take a piss in one of the cells, makes me feel like I'm getting revenge for one of those nameless prisoners who probably died here. Most of the cells are just block rooms, cement cubes almost as small as my New York apartment.

Some have a little raised area in back.

A few are below ground level. These were the punishment cells. When water reaches these cells it stays, ankle deep, puddling the floor, attracting mosquitoes. The punishment was hot water in summer, cold water in winter. You can only imagine.

The castle has it's own café, a stone and wood room, in what looks like a bunker of some kind. The weirdest part of the castle walk, though, is the plane.

The Albanians say it was a U.S. spy plane shot down in the 1950s. At least that's what they used to say. The current sign, near the entrance lists it like this:

U.S. Spyplane???

 The question marks, I guess are post-Communist.

 Why it's in the castle, and what the story is, I don't know. Just coming across it, sitting on the castle grounds, lends the adventure an even greater air of surreality than it already had from the tanks, and the anti-aircraft guns.

The museum of armaments, contained inside the castle is not open. My guidebook says there's not much there anyway. Most of the good stuff was looted during the riots of the late 90s. Those were caused by the collapse of a national pyramid scheme. Like Bernie Madoff.

People in Albania got angrier than Americans did. There were riots all over the country. In this city, they broke into the weapons museum, stole the displays, and used them.

The castle was also used as a storehouse for heavy weapons,

and when you enter you go down a poorly lit, very spooky hall with heavy artillery pointing from both sides. At the end of the hall is an entire tank, along with a giant statue of someone with a gun.

Then comes the prison, then an open field, then the small café, where I have a Turkish coffee, as the only customer, of course. There is a very loud cat, though it doesn't seem to be having coffee.

On the way back down from the castle, I find a tourist information center. I go in.

There are three guys in there, all in their late 20s. Two of them wear glasses.

[Note: very few Albanians wear glasses. It's strange. I haven't figured out if it's because they have good eyesight, or no opticians.]

“Ju flicni anglisht?” I ask the young man behind the counter.

“Pak” he says. He nods toward one of the other guys. “He speaks English,” he says.

“Sure,” says the guy. “You want a map of the town? One Euro. You want one only of the old town. It's free.”

The guy has a perfect American accent.

“How come your English is so good?” I ask him.

“I'm from Cincinnati,” he says. “My friend and I are with the Peace Corps. We're working here in Albania.”

“Ju flisni squip?” I ask them.

The guy behind the counter answers. “With a very bad accent,” he says. “You're Albanian is much better. Maybe you have an Albanian in your blood.”

I figure out what he means and thank him.

The Peace Corps guys walk me to a local restaurant. On the way they tell me today is a national holiday: Mother Theresa Day. Schools and some businesses are closed. The restaurant is not.

I should order the qifqi (pronounced Chief-chi), they advise me. It's a specialty of the area.

I do and it's not bad. It's a fried riceball with various herbs and spices. I also get fried green peppers... and a beer. Cost me 500 lek. Not bad, huh?

I don't really have a good sense of how to get back, except that I need to walk downhill. Way downhill. As long as I get back before nightfall, I can make it to the hotel with no problem. It gets dark around 6, so if I leave by 3, I'll be fine.

Then I check my useless phone. It's 4:30. I'm outta here!

The locals don't seem to be able to read maps. I show them mine and ask where different places are, but they can't relate the places outside to the marking on the map. I've seen it several times in Albania. People can give directions, but they can't read a map.

I know that the post office is a good reference point. I think I can find my way down from there.

I ask a vegetable seller where the post office is. His only customer, a nearly toothless guy with a scruffy bit of white beard and one of those high Frankenstein foreheads, asks me if I'm Italian.

I say no, American.

“I speak Italian, Russian, Greek, Albanian,” he says. “I don't English. I go with. My name is Jimmy.”

“Uh oh,” I think. “Here we go again.” At least this time, I already have a hotel.

“Post office closed,” (he pronounces closed like closet) he says.

“That's okay,” I say. “I only need to find it.”

“You come tomorrow. Open. Open.”

I try unsuccessfully to explain that I don't really need the post office, but am only using it as a landmark to guide me back to my hotel.

“Tomorrow, open. Open,” he says again.

He takes me there anyway... or at least within pointing distance. And... it's all downhill from there.

Albania 13: Noah in Saranda, Albania

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. Because much of the reportage is based on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1. Also, because this computer lacks search capabilities, and my brain needs a RAM boost, I fear I may repeat some tales already told... repeat some tales already told.]

For bounty cheers not his delay, nor there will weary stranger halt. --Lord Byron
Saranda (Coldsore day 11,12 almost disappeared, just an off-color red spot)

I write this at one in the afternoon, lying in bed in my hotel room in Saranda. It's my third day in this town, the only Albanian city I've spent more than 2 nights in. It's not because I like it so much (though it is my favorite city so far), but rather is it uneasiness that keeps me here-- and water.

I feel vaguely sick, and vaguely exhausted. My eyes close even as I type these words. My jaw aches... and that will only get worse. I have a chance to nap, but I feel like I'm missing something if I don't get out and enjoy the few hours of warmth.

FLASHBACK: My escape from Qeparo is relatively easy. After getting on the bus, I just ride. No one speaks to me. No one offers me accommodation. Nothing good, nothing bad. A stop here and there to pick-up or discharge, but we arrived in Saranda with ease. I find a guide-book recommended hotel, and am paying 15€ a night. Less than half than what Co-ocho extorted... Naw, no more about THAT GUY. Let sleeping evil men lie.

[Note: brushing away a bee reminds me to write that there are bees everywhere here. Not just in the countryside, but everywhere around the city. I haven't been stung yet. So, it's good to see them.

In America, they're dying out. Victims of too much insecticide and too much overbuilding. They try to overbuild here, but it doesn't work. They've made a resort, but nobody stays in it. In summer, I guess it's crowded... but not enough to kill the bees.]

After adjusting to the hotel room, I take a walk in town. I need to find a sweater for the cold that has taken over the country. I'm headed to the local tourist information center which has the unfortunate Albanian acronym of ZIT.

Walking around, I see that this town, like others in Albania, is built on the ruins of an older city that was built on the ruins of a still older city, built on the ruins... (imagine the imagination imagining itself-- William Gass) At the corner, near the ruins of a Basilica, built on the ruins of a synagogue, is a bus stop. Waiting at that bus stop is the Japanese girl I helped in Durres... so many days ago. She has her nose buried in a Japanese guidebook.

“Masuda-san!” I call.

She doesn't answer.

“Masuda-san,” I call again.

I guess she's trained herself to block out any sounds from the outside. She certainly doesn't expect anyone to know her or call her name.

Me? I jump at anything that vaguely sounds like Mykel. I'm always expecting to meet a friend or have to quickly run.

I cross the street and walk up to her. She's startled, but then happy to see me. I remember that she speaks no English.

Suddenly, I'm faced with speaking entirely in Japanese. Not only is my Japanese bad to start with, but because my brain switched to Albanian, it's even more of a struggle to remember. But we do manage to communicate.

She tells me she's going to Butrint. It's an ancient city, not far from here. She asks if I want to come along. Company! An Asian female who I can (almost) talk to! I jump on the chance like an old Albanian jumps on an ignorant tourist.

On the bus, she tells me that she's just come from Gjirokastra in the mountains. It's a beautiful city, but even colder than here. I explain that's my next stop. Then on to Tirana.

She makes a face.

“Tirana-wa suki ja nai desuka?” (Don't you like Tirana?) I ask her.

“Tirana-wa dai-kirai,” (I HATE Tirana) she says.

I ask her why, and she explains. I don't understand most of it. Something about getting hit in the back of the head.

Butrint is a U.N. identified World Heritage Site. The shape of the town and amazing ruin layout reminds me of Machupichu, although the architecture is thousands of miles and thousands of years different. Being a WHS means they get money from outside. It also means they can charge an outrageous (for Albania), 500 lek to get in.

(In case you haven't figured it out, one lek equals about one yen equals about one U.S. cent.)

Masuda is bothered by the flies and mosquitoes. She walks through the site waving a handkerchief in front of her face. The flies don't bother me, and the mosquitoes seem to like her more than they like me.

During our walk through the ruins, we stop and take lots of pictures. The ruins date from Greek, pre-Roman times (we are withing spitting distance of Greece), through Roman, through Byzantine, and everything in between. I wish I knew more European history. I could put all this in perspective.


















We both take lots of pictures, mainly of each other, with each other's camera. In other words, she takes pictures of me with my camera. I take pictures of her with her camera. I use the self-timer to get one of us together. In an ancient stadium, of course. Everywhere, there are ancient stadia.





As we leave Butrint we run into some British tourists. I recognize them as English-speaking because they carry the same guidebook I do.

Dave and Marge have rented a car in Tirana and driven it this whole way.

“The driver can't look at the scenery,” says Dave. “Just keep an eye on the road.”

“Isn't it just terrifying?” I say, thinking about buses passing each other on the no lane highways.

“It sure is,” he says.

“By the way,” I say, “I haven't been to Tirana yet. What did you think of it.”

He grimaces, and using his thumb, makes the sign of slitting his own throat.

“That good, huh?” I say. “Masuda here agrees with you.”

I translate for her and she nods vigorously.

After returning to Saranda from Butrint, we have dinner at a restaurant Masuda found yesterday. Between us we have a small dish of salad, a bowl of bean soup, and a plate of Pilaf. The latter is just a small pile of white rice with a tablespoon of meatsauce. It's enough.

After dinner: Soshite ima? (And now?) I say, hoping my voice does not betray a wink.

“Umi-wa mimashitaka?” (Have you seen the beach?) she asks.

The rest I'll just translate. It was too much of a struggle the first time.

“No, I haven't,” I answer.

“You should go to the shore,” she says. “I'm going to my hotel. Sayonara.”

We split up. I go for a walk along the beach, have a cup of coffee by myself. Drink a beer by myself. And come back to the hotel, by myself.

I see her very briefly the next day. I had planned on climbing the highest mountain in Saranda to see the castle at the top. On the way, we pass each other. I tell her my plans. She looks at the mountain and says, “Good luck!” in English. That's the last time I see her.

I never make it up the mountaintop. I try. I follow some paths that lead upwards, but they deadend. I retrace my steps and try again. By the third time, I'm so tired, I give up.

The only adventure of the next day is breakfast. It's about 10AM, and I'm out looking for breakfast. Maybe because this is a seaside resort town, people do seem to occasionally eat here. Probably only tourists.

First, I sit outside in a small cafe near the beach. Inside, someone is already drinking coffee. Maybe they have food. I'll ask. I sit down. And wait. And wait some more. I feel like a colored guy trying to get service at a southern sodashop circa 1962.

Ending my private sit-in, I walk across the street to a nicer café, built on a wharf curving out into the sea. The waiter comes up to me.

Un dua te ha ditchka. (I want to eat something.) I say.

“You can't eat here,” he says in English. “You can eat over there.” He points to a pizza restaurant on shore.”

I thank him and head to the restaurant. On the menu are 20 different kinds of pizza and one entry OMELET. That would be the perfect breakfast: just an omelet. Just too perfect. I know it's on the menu, but there's no way in hell they're going to have a real omelet. It's for show. I'm sure.

When the waiter comes I point to OMELET on the menu.

“Nuk kemi.” (We don't have it.) he says. What a surprise!

I order an O SOLO MIO pizza instead. It is to pizza, what a breakfast burrito is to a burrito.

In other words, It is a pizza, but instead of mozzarella, and tomato sauce, it has ham, sausage, cheddar cheese and eggs. A pizza McMuffin. It is really bad. Maybe the worst pizza I've had in my life, though Polish pizza in 1980 comes pretty damn close.

I can't get the taste out of my mouth for the rest of the day. It's one of those tastes.

I go to the Internet café to do a bit of posting and couch-surfing. My computer is agonizingly slow and I've been feeling a headache coming on all day. Now it pounds as I wait for the screen to redraw.

The headache is almost like a migraine, but in three strips. They all start at the bridge of my nose. One goes straight down the middle of my head. The two others travel back on the sides where a part would be, if I had enough hair to part. I feel nauseous, and completely exhausted.

It's the swine flu! I know it.

I pay the internet guy and stagger out of the I-café. I just hope I can make it back without collapsing in the street.

Back at the hotel, I collapse in bed. It's 7:30. I awaken at 11PM, without the headache.

I've still got the taste of breakfast pizza running between my molars. I take out my trusty toothbrush (to be discarded after this trip... coldsores, you know), and Tom's of Maine travel size, and scrub away. Then in a fit of dental responsibility, I floss for the first time this trip... and dislodge a gold inlay on my last molar.

That inlay cost $600 in New York. I did bring emergency dental repair glue. I know what happens. But I've used it before and the stuff only lasts two or three days. What if I swallow the inlay? I'm gonna have to strain my shit. Maybe make impromptu enema, squirt up one of those plastic bottles of water. Shit in the shower, with a window screen over the drain.

Right now, I paste in the gold. I use too much cement and it's too high on my jaw. It makes me bite at an angle. It's gonna give me a another headache, I'm sure.

Besides, I'm a nighttime tooth-grinder. I may even dislodge it at night! I could choke on it. Die! I sleep fitfully.

At six AM, I awaken to the Muslim call to morning prayers. I like these 3 or 4 daily calls to prayers. They're eery melodies, but somehow calming. A great change from the honking and dog barking on the street. As I type this, the 7:30, evening, call is coming over the speakers on the minaret of the local mosque. (I wonder what they did before loud speakers.)

This morning though, in addition to the prayer call is thunder. Big bangs of it. I see lightning flash against the curtain. I count the seconds. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten... eleven... twelve. Then the thunder. Twelve miles away. That could be Greece. I don't know. In any case, it's weird for there to be thunderstorms so early. They should be in the afternoon or evening. I fall back to sleep.

Again lightning wakes me up. It seems like it's been several hours. Thunderstorms don't last several hours. I fall back asleep.

It's nine o'clock and the thunder, lightening and rain continue. Not a normal pitter of rain. But a deluge. A downpour. A torrent. I look out the window. The sky is black. It's raining so hard it sounds like someone has turned a firehose on the hotel.

I walk downstairs. Go into the bar-café.

Without asking, the pretty blonde waitress brings me a double espresso. I am not the only one in the café. At another table sit two men. One speaks loudly into his cellphone. The other jokes with the waitress, then turns to me and makes a NICE BOD shape with his hands. The waitress plays insulted.

He asks me if I'm Italian. “Yo, American” I tell him.

Then he points to his friend on the phone. “America,” he says in English, “Chicago, Boston. You where?”

“New York,” I tell him.

Then he looks outside and says, “Shi!” which I figure means RAIN, and which sounds enough like the Mongolian word “shess” which means “piss,” for me to remember.

(Ironically, the word drink in Albanian is pi, pronounced pee.)

“Madh shi!” (big rain) I say.

I look out the window again. The streets are flooded. So flooded, in fact, that although the hotel is on a hill, water is running the other way. I mean the lower streets are so full of water that it's forced back, running uphill. This is not a river. It is whitewater rapids. And it shows no sign of letting up.

Do I take the bus to Gjirokastra as I had planned? If I do, the way will certainly be treacherous. I won't be able to see THE BLUE EYE, a famous Albanian landmark, and I'll have to wait some time in the rain for the next bus.

On the other hand, if I stay another day and it doesn't stop raining. I'll never be able to leave. How much space in The New York Times will they give to a fatal Albanian flood? Probably won't make it to page 10. It's not like the Thai tsunami, where TV stations grabbed American survivors right and left. Whose even gonna know there was an American in the flood?

I picture myself in my hotel, climbing up to higher and higher floors as the flood rises around me. Even if the rain stops, I won't have food or water. I'll parish here, $600 tooth or not.

I decide to risk the flood and stay in town one more day. I sit in my hotel room and watch the water on the street rise up past the curb.

-end-

more on mykel at www.mykelboard.com

Albania 12: Tale of Terror pt.2

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. As much of the reportage is base on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1.]

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Qeparo (Coldsore day 9, but will it matter anymore?)

I don't sleep very well that night. When I do manage to drift off the dreams are terrible. Fortunately I can't remember most of them. Only one where I was standing outside, just standing, my eyes closed, seeing nothing. I feel a hand grab the front of my shirt, just about solar plexus level. In the dream I know it is a dream. This is not real. I read down and feel the hand. A human hand, masculine, holding tight. I grab the hand and squeeze. It crumples in my grip. Then I wake up, again.

I must have drifted off yet again, because I'm again awakened. This time by the sound of the glass door being slid open. There he is, unsmiling, with a large cup of coffee and more fruit.
The only thing I've eaten in the past days was fruit. Figs, pamagranite, and a mysterious cactus fruit. It all grows in the garden 30 or so feet directly below. Fertilized, I'm sure, by many others who have stood in this exact spot.

I understand why he asked me how long I'm staying. He really hates what he has to do, and wants to postpone it until the last possible minute. I could escape, maybe. But I'm so far out of town, so lost, how would I ever get anywhere? And he'd see me with my backpack, that'd be a... er... dead giveaway.

Finally he tells me his name. Coocho. I'm horrible with names, but I know if I don't remember this one, I'll be in even worse trouble. Somehow it becomes the most important task of my life to remember. Let's see: Ocho is eight in Spanish. Co-means together like co-worker or cooperate. Two eights together. I fix the image in my mind and superimpose it over his face.

I take out my camera and motion that I want to take his picture. I figure when my remains wash up on shore, they'll find the camera and then catch the guy. Surprisingly, he agrees. I guess he figures on taking the camera after the act.

After the photos he points out to the sea. He asks me if I'm going to go swimming. I tell him it's too cold. He says maybe tomorrow. I say, no I'm leaving tomorrow.

I can see the sadness in his face when I make it clear I'm not staying another day. The longer he can wait the better. I know doesn't want to have to do this, but he's got to. But now it has to be tonight.

Dua te shikoj Himara. (I want to see (the town of) Himara.), I tell him. Not thinking clearly, that if I manage to get into town I could never find my way back to this place. I get lost in Soho, for God's sake.

He points to me, then himself, and then makes the two-fingers-next-to-each-other sign that means together.

Ok, at least that will get me back to the death chamber.

Together we climb the stairs to the alley that leads to the tunnel that leads to the ditch, that leads to the stone steps that lead to the road where the bus will come to take us to Himara. We wait for a bit. The bus does not come.

I take a picture of the stone staircase, another of the garage door close to it, another of a sign that says QEPARO FSHAT, right near the descent from the highway. I have no idea what “fshat” means, but maybe some cab or bus driver will recognize the sign. Besides, if I escape, like the girl in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I can use the photos as clues for the cops to find Albania's Ed Gein.

Still, the bus doesn't come.

A car pulls out of a nearby driveway, off the main road somewhere. Slowly, it makes its way to the outer street. Coocho walks over and signals the man to stop. He has a conversation with him and opens the front and read doors of the car. He motions for me to get in the rear. I do. Then he closes both doors and waves good-bye to me. We head into town.

The driver lets me and the other passenger off at the post office. I look up the word return in the Albanian-English dictionary: kthim.

Ku kthim? I ask him. (When return?)

He shows me two fingers, one bent halfway. I guess that means in an hour and a half. I figure he'll park his cab here and return to it when it's time to leave. That doesn't give me much time, but I can buy some stamps and mail my postcards, go for a stroll down the beach, look at the ocean, have a cup of coffee. When I get out of the post office, the cab is gone.

I'll never find my way back now. My bags, most of my money is there. My computer. I know the only logic is death, but what if I'm missing something? What if he's just this nice eccentric old coot who does want to take care of me. It's not logical (or true, it turns out), but what if?
I walk to the taxi stand near the post office. Maybe the driver will be there. He isn't.

Most of the cabs are empty. In the only one with a driver, the driver is asleep on the front seat with the door open and one foot out of the cab. Knowing my own consciousness on just awakening, I decide not to wake him for the drive.

From a nearby restaurant, another guy, late thirties, needing a shave as do all Albanian men, walks toward me. [Note: Albania joins that list of countries: Turkey, Mongolia, Brazil, where the women are neck-wrenchingly beautiful, but the men are as ugly as the Bush family.]

Taksi? he says.

I pull out my camera and flip through the pictures until I find the garage on the main road.

Ju dini ketu?I ask. (You know here.)

He squints at the picture and then shakes his head. “Po (yes),” he says.

Then he says 13 Euros in English. I try to bargain, but he sticks to the price.

Taxi-meter he says.

During the ride, he never turns on the taxi-meter.

But he does get me to the garage. And actually a little past where the QEPARO FSHAT sign is. I get out and go down the stairs, trying to remember the way to the house of horrors.

A strange kind of trance music comes from someplace. It's like a pop version of Phillip Glass. I never heard it before, but it may be what's popular these days. It sounds spooky to me.

I walk down some steps, through a tunnel, another tunnel, past a ditch, through an alley. I see a
pile of bricks I never saw before. A door with a large round knocker... never saw it before. I'm lost.

I turn to retrace my steps. An old man comes the other way.

“Co-ocho?” I ask him.

He laughs, and points back where I came from. Then he makes a downward motion with his hands, and a sweeping curve with his arm. I retrace my steps, and soon get lost again.

“The sea, the sea,” I think. If I can find the sea, I can look up at the houses. I'll recognize it from the blue front and the sheer drop. If I go down, any path down, I'll find the sea.

I pick a downhill path. The music is louder here, more menacing than mellow. Like a horror movie soundtrack.

I follow the path until it ends... dead ends, then I go up a little and take another path through a bunch of fruitplants, and then down again. Sand, plastic debris, I've found the sea.

Turning my back to it, I scan the houses. There it is. Blue, in its glory, ready to fall with me, into the sea. I head right for it, up the path to the lower gate to the house. I know this gate, Co-ocho took me through it yesterday, to show me the fruit and the path to the beach. I'm sure this is the way back to the house.

The gate is locked.

I do not scream. I do not pound on it. Instead, I keep the house in view, and go up through the trees, catching my sleeve on the cactus, then pulling free. The music continues, insistent, droning. Up to a small trail. I've lost sight of the house, but I think I know where it is. I follow the path. The house comes into view again. I can see it slightly below and to the right. I reach the set of steps I recognize. They lead down toward the house. They end at a gate.

The gate is not locked.

I walk through it and escape into my room. It's warm. I collapse on one of the two beds in the room and fall into a dreamless sleep.

I awaken when it's still light outside. There is a rattle as the glass door slides open. Co-ocho brings a tray with more figs and other strange fruit on it. Much of the fruit from yesterday lies rotting by the sink. He doesn't seem to notice. He moves the food in smooth motions, like a robot. Gliding the tray to the plastic table in my room.

He makes an eating motion, putting his hands to his lips.

Bukë? (Bread?), he asks.

Po (yes), I say. I need something besides all that fruit. It'll just go right through me. I'll be a pretty messy corpse after all that fruit. He'll deserve it.

“Did you take a shower yet?” he mimes.

“Yo (no),” I say.

He shrugs, goes away and comes back with a couple slices of bread and a few cubes of cheese. He also brings about a cupful of cold spaghetti with tomato sauce. Everything looks homemade.

Then he goes away for a bit and I write a little more. Just as the sun is setting over the Adriatic, he returns. He looks grim.

Opening the sliding glass door, he takes a chair and puts in next to mine.

The miming starts again. You eat. You sleep. Now you pay. I recognize the Albanian word.

Pagoni. (You pay.)

Pay with my life? I don't ask.

He holds up one finger. A thousand Lek?? That's ten dollars. Hah, that's wonderful. I give him two thousand.

“You're my friend (I use the Italian word amici, since it was a word I never needed in Albanian),” I say. “Take more.”

He nods NO.

I don't understand. One night, four thousand lek. Two nights, eight thousand. That's robbery. That's more than I paid in my jacuzzi hotel in Vlora. This is a haunted house! $80, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to...

I hand him the money. It's most of what I have left from my last trip to the bank. But, he's only robbing me! He won't kill me. It's just extortion. He's a hustler, a con artist, not a murderer. Take my money, please! I cudda kissed the guy.

I ask him what time the bus leaves for Saranda tomorrow. He tells me 9 AM. I say I'll get up at 8.

Too late, he says.

OK, I tell him. Statë ore. Seven o'clock.

I set my phone alarm (that's all it's good for, it doesn't work here) for 6:30, just to have time to clean myself up and empty out all the fruit.

At 6:15 he opens the door to wake me up. He stands and watches as I get dressed, stuff my remaining clothes into my pack and go out the door with him. He leads me back upstairs through the alleys and ditches to the road. His wife joins him.

My bus comes and I get on it. He does not say good by. I watch him cross the street to go back to Vlora, and wait at the bus stop. Someone not from around here, will get on a bus headed South.

He will ask them where they're staying, then he'll offer his own place. Eventually, someone else will say yes, and move into the room I just left.

Albania 11: Tale of terror

[NOTE: This blog/diary of Mykel's Italian-Albanian trip starts several entries before this one. Due to the oddities of Blogging, the entries appear in reverse order. As much of the reportage is base on the previous days, I recommend reading from the start, at the entry ALBANIA 1.]

Qeparo, Albania, find that on a map! Coldsore day 8

It's time to begin the terror tale. Though it's not over yet. But life also is a terror tale. After it's over, it can only be written by someone else.

This tale starts in Vlora. The concierge at the hotel told me that all the buses from Vlora to Saranda had left. My only choice was to go to Himara, about half-way. That bus doesn't leave from the regular bus station, but one a bit out of town. I can get there by taxi. No problem.

(My guidebook lists S'ka problem! as Albanian for “No problem.” It also has this note: Often turns out to mean there is a problem.)

The bus leaves at 1PM. It's now 9 o'clock.

“Is there anything I can do at the bus station for some hours?” I ask the concierge.

She nods. “There is nothing there,” she says.

She makes a plan for me. The plan is to take a walk, return to the hotel and eat lunch in the hotel restaurant at 11. Then, after lunch, take a taxi to the bus terminal. I'll be there in plenty of time.

Maybe that's why I don't see people eat. They have lunch at 11AM. Maybe dinner at 4. Who expects people to be eating at that time? But nope, that's not it either.

I walk along the beach for a little bit and sit to watch a bulldozer push the plastic garbage around. I go to the post office and mail some postcards. Do other people still send postcards? Well, they still make 'em, so I guess so.

At 11, I return to the hotel and go to the restaurant. It's empty, though the door is open. A heavy-set woman mops the floor.

Une dua te ha ditchka. (I want to eat something.) I say. She tsks once and motions for me to sit down. I'm the only one in the place.

I ask for the menu. She brings it to me and stands over me while I decide what I want to eat. It's my first meal of the day. The menu has beefsteak, fish a la hoity toidy, pizza, pasta. I order a salad and a mineral water.

“Vetem salada?” (Only a salad?) asks the waitress, clearly meaning You disturbed me, made me open the kitchen and neglect my cleaning duties for a salad? What's wrong with you?”

“Vetem salada.” I reply.

It turns out that the salad is enough. It's weird, but on this trip I have less of an appetite than I do in New York. I drink more beer here, but eat a lot less. I wonder if I'm going to lose weight. The food is so salty, I expect I'll gain blood pressure.

My stomach is strange, as it always is when traveling. It suddenly clenches, in extreme pain. A rush to the bathroom clears me out, and I'm good for the rest of the day. After my salad, come the clenches.

I have a long bus ride ahead. So after I pay the bill, I'll clean myself out, and be ready for the long ride to Himara.

I stand to signal that I'm finished. The waitress come to me, collects my money and through the open restaurant door walks a burly guy wearing a black and white knit sweater. He walks right up to me.

“Taxi bussi Himara,” he says grabbing my bags. “We go.”

So, me, my stomach ache and I are off to the bus station, It's just a space in the street out of town, barely big enough for a bus or two. I get in one that says HIMARA on the front.

The driver takes my backpack out of the bus and puts it someplace I can't see. I'm the only passenger in the bus, but not for long. People arrive about 15 minutes before the schedule leaving time.

One of the first of the new arrivals is an older guy. About my height, he wears a typical Albanian tan straw hat. He has a worn-but-clean tweed jacket, and black slacks. His eyes are deep-set, and half closed, like they've seen too much. He sits in an empty seat, the one behind mine. He taps me on the shoulder and I turn to face him. I can see that his eyes are watery-- not sad watery, but sick watery. And one doesn't look exactly in the same direction as the other. He says something to me in Albanian.

“Une nuk flac sqip,” I say.

He shrugs, then motions for me to come and sit next to him. I do. It's not long before I begin to fear that is a mistake.

The bus leaves about a half hour past schedule.

With very few words, THE GUY speaks to me: some Italian, some Greek, some Albanian... but mostly with sign language... like he's done it hundreds of times before.

He asks me where I'm from. New York.

Where I'm going Himara.

Where I'm staying in Himara. (He puts his hands together and tilts his head on them. Then closes his eyes meaning “place you sleep.” I don't know, I shrug.

You (he points to me). Sleep (the sleeping gesture again.) My place. He points to himself, makes a little house-like triangle with his fingers, and then the sleeping gesture again.

I know. I know. But I'm sick of hotels, and Albania is supposed to be safe and small-town people are always friendlier than city people, right? I shake my head in agreement.

There's not much more to say as we ride along. Once he taps me on the shoulder and makes a straight ahead motion, then up and down, as if he's explaining the torturous mountain road ahead. I say koptoj (I understand). But maybe I don't.

During the next hour or so, I look at him every once in awhile. I'm trying for human contact. A smile or something. There is nothing. He looks straight ahead, eyes half closed as in worry, or very serious thought. Sometimes he looks at his knees. His forehead furls. I begin to feel uneasy.

After about two hours of silence, the bus pulls into the Albanian equivalent of a highway rest-stop.

It's a small mountain restaurant called: BEGO

The bus empties. Most everybody goes inside to eat. A few have a smoke first, then join those of us inside. THE GUY stays outside. He walks around. He does not smoke. He just walks, looking at the ground most of the time. I eat a simple rice dish and have some water. Just as I'm finishing, THE GUY walks in and sits at my table. Juu doni te ha ditchka? (“You want to eat something?”) I ask. He smiles weakly, shrugs and leaves again. A few minutes later, I leave and take some pictures around the restaurant, then get back in the bus. THE GUY looks at me without smiling and pats the seat next to him.

We take off, going up and down mountainsides, hairpin turns, just like buses in the mountains always go.

I look at THE GUY and smile. He doesn't smile. He looks at his hands. In them now are rosary beads. He's running them through his fingers. Squinting in something between worry and sorrow. I begin to read his thoughts.

Forgive me mother Mary for what I am about to do. I know it is evil and against your ways, but I must. I have no choice. This is my life. You know me, mother Mary. I know it is wrong to take a life. To inflict so much pain, spill so much blood. But I must. You know that, mother Mary, don't you? I pray for forgiveness.

The beads run through his fingers, one after the other, until they run out at the cross. Then, he starts again.

The bus stops to pick up some school children. They look somehow off. Especially the boys. High foreheads and small jaws. And they're quiet. Ages that from six to ten... and quiet. It's spooky. Like Children of the Damned. They don't stay on the bus very long.

We pass a roadsign. 5km to Himara. Somehow that's a relief.

When we reach what looks like Himara, most passengers get off. We do not.

An old woman, wearing all black, with a black babushka gets on the bus. THE GUY excuses himself and talks to her. She glances at me, a sad look on her face. Then, he shoos me to the window and sits down on the outside, blocking my exit.

The bus closes its doors and heads out of the city.

THE GUY taps me on the shoulder and points to the woman. Then to a ring on his finger. I guess that means she's his wife. They sure didn't act very friendly. Maybe she doesn't approve of what he feels he has to do.

For the next quarter hour, he's back to his rosaries.

In the middle of a hill, the bus doors open and the women gets out. The only two people left are THE GUY and me. A little while further, the bus stops. The end of the line. THE GUY gets out. I do too, retrieving my pack from the back.

Then we walk, through a little opening in the wall. Down a long street. Through a tunnel twisting and turning, to a gravel path, through a ditch. Turn here, there's a staircase, probably built by the Romans, or the ancient Greeks. They'll never find the body in a place like this.

Will I be slowly tortured in the basement? Tied to a cross like Jesus? Helpless, THE GUY wraps his rosary around my balls and asks mother Mary for forgiveness before he bites them off. Will it be quick? Have a seat, I'll be right back. POW! Between the eyes. Will he drug me, then do things to my unconscious body before slitting my throat, severing my head, and boiling it for dinner?

Finally, we end up at a building that overlooks the sea, sheer cliffs to the rocks below. THE GUY brings me to a room that has glass doors and enters from a balcony-- like a motel. The room has two beds, a small unplugged refrigerator, a sink, cabinets, and a bathroom.

THE GUY takes a plastic table and a couple chairs from MY ROOM. He motions for me to sit down. Then he walks away. While he's gone I run my eyes over the tile floor and plaster walls, looking for bloodstains, stray pieces of flesh. There's a dark spot. Some discoloration along the wall. I wonder who that was.

Then, he comes back with some coffee, some strange looking fruit, and a bottle of water. I see by the plastic ring that the bottle has previously been opened, then refilled. I guess that's what's drugged. I don't drink from it.

The coffee is delicious. Turkish style, made by boiling water and coffee grounds together and pouring the mixture into a cup. After you drink it, it leaves a thick black sludge on the bottom of the cup. Heavily sugared, it's the best.

It's hard to find in New York. The first time I had it was in the former Yugoslavia, with a friend whose mother read coffee grounds like old gypsies read tea leaves. I wish I could read my future now.

“Kafé Turke?” I ask.

He nods, “Kafé Grek! No Turke!”

Yowsah some rivalries die hard.

Then he asks if I'm married, do I have kids. All the things that will tell him how much the world will miss me when I'm gone. I guess he's relieved when I say I have neither.

He asks how long I'm planing to stay. An encouraging sign. If he were going to kill me, why would he care? I tell him two nights.

He shakes his head. I realize it's a trick. Something to make me feel more at ease.

Then he asks me if I want a shower, Duche, he uses the Italian/French word.

“Uh oh,” I think. “Here it comes. Get me naked and the fun can begin.”

“Yo, falaminderet” (No thank you) I say, shivering to show it's too cold to bathe.

Actually, it's unbelievably cold. In Italy, and the first two days in Durres were summer. When I got to Vlora a bought a bathing suit, a $30 Armani-- the only one they had left. It was hot. I planned to do the beaches in the south. Then came the rain and since then, cold. Now, it feels barely above freezing. My Inspector Gadget hat and coat are not enough to keep out the cold.

THE GUY wishes me good night and I open the glass doors and enter the room. I try not to think about what will happen later that night. I try not to think about how none of it makes sense in any other way than MURDER.

If he was just being generous, why didn't he take me inside and introduce me to his wife? Why didn't he offer me a little family? Why the lack of smiles? The questions about who will miss me?

Inside the little room things are so cold that I wrap myself in the only blanket in the place and sit with the computer, typing this, photoshopping my pictures, playing spider solitaire, planning as if there were going to be a tomorrow.

It's then that I notice that the glass doors to the room-- the only entrance and the only escape-- lock from the outside. Only the outside. What kind of place is this? What hotel has rooms that only lock from the outside? What house?

At about 9:30, I go to sleep, fully clothed, wrapped tightly in that blanket. Outside a dog barks incessantly. But it's not the dog that keeps me awake. I'm still freezing. I wonder how much of the shaking is from the actual cold, and how much is from fear. I shake like the flu chills. Shake like there's no tomorrow... waiting for the sound of the bursting into the room with guns or machetes. Or worse, the sound of a key turning in the lock outside.