Authentic Adventure on the Kosovo-Albania Border
Images: Bridget Nurre Jennions
As we pull into a remote village in western Kosovo—a column of bikes and fluorescent colors interrupting the agrarian landscape—the sound of a drum stops us in our tracks. We turn to see a tweed-clad older man from the local Roma community who has emerged to cheer us on.
“Americans, yes?” he asks through translation. We are a mixed group of Americans, Canadians, and one Brazilian, but we don’t correct him.
“Welcome and I wish you a pleasant stay in Kosovo.”
We look out of place as we roll past tractors overloaded with hay and local women tending to cows, but we are greeted warmly each time with a smile and a wave. We are guests here … and in the scenic Malësi—or highlands of western Kosovo and northern Albania—there is no more important role.
Adventure tourism is on the rise in this quiet corner of the world, not only because of its ideal location between the Via Dinarica and Peaks of the Balkans hiking trails, but also because of the opportunity the Malësi region offers to experience traditional hospitality that dates back centuries.
Left to self-administer through much of the 500 years of Ottoman rule, the villages in the Albanian highlands developed a kanun, or code of honor, that centered on three storey stone buildings known as kullas. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the kullas doubled as homes for the wealthy families who were also responsible for receiving and caring for guests at any time of day. According to the code: “a weary guest must be received surrounded with honor.”
Traditional kulla
Visitors were given a designated seat on the top floor of the building—which also served as the location for weddings, funerals, legal proceedings, school, and more—and treated to a litany of stories, or rrotlla, over steaming cups of thick coffee. Many of Kosovo’s historic kullas were destroyed in the late 1990s or have deteriorated due to lack of care, but some are recently being restored and used as guesthouses.
Sali Shoshi has made it his life’s work to ensure that the region’s traditions are not lost with the kullas. An architect who has worked in cultural preservation for 15 years, Shoshi recently decided to join his passions for Kosovo’s heritage and its impressive natural scenery by starting his own adventure tourism company, Catun. One of his most popular bike tours brings visitors to the home of Isuf and Kumrije Mazrekaj, whose family kulla Soshi is helping to restore.
“Many people in this area led this traditional life until very recently,” Shoshi explains, pointing to a 1976 documentary that portrays the daily life of a 117-member family in the western village of Nivokaz. “By bringing visitors to experience the food and culture of the Albanian people here, we can help preserve their traditions and help them earn a living from them in a sustainable way.”
Another Catun tour leads guests across the border to the staggering snow-capped peaks of Valbona National Park in northern Albania. The bike journey takes visitors past dozens of Albania’s estimated 700,000 bunkers, eerie remnants of the 50-year period when the Malësia region was split between Enver Hoxha’s communist Albania and Josip Tito’s socialist Yugoslavia and the border was completely impassable.
