The Scenery and My Discomfort

The scenery around me was beautiful, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I wasn’t staying at a comfortable hotel. The colourful leaves on the trees, the rushing river, and the grey, jagged rocks that looked like castles would have made for a wonderful description if I had been sitting on a hotel porch with no worries except waiting for dinner. Instead, I smoked my pipe, appreciated the beauty, and promised myself to come back when a hotel was built on the hill. Then, I went to the kitchen to check on the chickens that were being boiled.

Simple and Dark Living Conditions

In my room, the only light I had was a candle stuck in a crack in the floor. The floor also served as my seat and table. The soldiers were downstairs by the firelight, singing sad Turkish love songs. I used my boots as a pillow and kept my hands in my pockets to stay warm while I tried to sleep Istanbul Daily Tour.

The Mysterious Dawn

There’s something strange and eerie about traveling through an unfamiliar land at dawn. The light in the early morning is mysterious. As we set out for Elbasan, we all shivered in the cold. We had promised ourselves we’d reach the town by night, but we had to climb higher in the dark. None of us spoke because it was too cold to talk. The leaders of the group stayed close, and we climbed over rocky clefts. The animals hesitated at times, but kept going. As daybreak came, a thin haze covered the world, and clouds hung in the dark ravines below us, making the place look like a giant graveyard.

The Difficult Descent

The path down the mountain was steep and winding. The force of centuries of rushing water had carved deep gaps in the rock, so our route cut into and out of the mountain. Sometimes, the track was so narrow it was only a few inches wide. At times, I held my breath as my horse carefully walked along the edge of a cliff, with a drop of a thousand feet below. My heart raced when one of the soldiers’ horses slipped, but I couldn’t turn around for fear of disturbing my own horse. For a brief moment, the horse struggled to regain its balance, and we all stopped to let the frightened animal calm down.