"Outstanding beauty of the Accursed Mountains that takes your breath away."

As our great adventurer Bilbo Baggins once said "Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story." Bilbo Baggins is one of the main characters in the trilogy of  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings written by J.R.R Tolkien.

Few days ago me together with Rinor wanted to do an adventure and went to Decan and headed towards the Monastery of Decan. It was around 7 pm and we started our hike and went through the monastery and headed towards Prilep's mountain huts in the Accursed Mountains. We were prepared to hike over the night until we would reach the mountain huts of Prilep, however after walking for 30 minutes a vehicle passed by and stopped right before our feet, they asked us "where are you going" and we replied to them "we are heading towards the mountain huts of Prilep" and they took us with them. Rizah Mazrekaj and her wife and children honored us by being pure positive persons and they were going to Plaqica e Vokshit.

Our morning Coffee with Molliqaj family.

We enjoyed every minute being with them, they even invited us to go with them at their mountain hut, but we couldn't go with them this time. The time came and we had to part ways, we were thankful to them because they spared us a huge amount of hours walking, so they continued to go to their huts and we started walking again, it was night and the weather was calm and the stars were shining out in the sky.

 We had a good pace and kept going further though it was our lucky night because another truck came and asked us for where we are heading and we told him, he said to us that he's going to Belegu's mountain huts and he told us that from there we could reach the summit of Marjash easier. Therefore, we joined him and had much fun during our way, he gave us beers to drink and told us his name which was Jeton Mulliqaj. As a result, we slept the first night just a little bit above Belegu's mountain huts. That night was really calm, we hiked just a little bit higher and we spotted two foxes, they were observing us and stood all the time near us.

Gjeravica far in the left, in the middle Rupa and Marjash.

After we set the tent, we prepared instant noodles and ate. In short, we went inside the tent and prepared to sleep, somewhere between midnight we heard our tend shaking and it was a weird feeling, I asked Rinor "is that a bear" he was sleepy and replied "no". It continued shaking yet we didn't react and it felted like some hands were grabbing the tent, in brief the next morning one of our hiking poles where missing.

Guri i Kuq (Red Rock) in the middle.

Thus we searched for it, but couldn't find it so we let it be that way, we went down to the mountain huts, took some water and an old age man invited us to drink coffee and we went there he was very kind. He offered us to eat breakfast but we refused because we had eaten, he gave us some mountain cheese, that cheese was very delicious and he told us how to go to "Qafa e Rudines" and from there to reach the summit of Marjash. Additionally, the place were we slept was called "The meadow of Salt".
 How got this meadow its name?
- Long before in that place people threw salt in the meadow in order the sheep to eat it together with the grass.

The ridge of Marjash.

Moreover, we started to hike through the pass of Rudina and found the trail that guided us to the beautiful summit, it was a wonderful experience, the mountain of Marjash has a fantastic ridge that only one person can hike at a time. Around 12:10 pm we arrived at the summit, the weather was good, a bit cloudy but we could see endless mountains forming beautiful silhouettes. From up there we could see the accursed mountains in Albania, in this case the mountains that surround Valbona Valley and Theth, on the other hand we could see the mountains of Karanfil (Cloves) in Montenegro.

Mountain huts of Prilep.

In essence, we stood there for 30 minutes and headed back the same way we came, because the weather started to get more cloudy, and we had a dark cloud over us so we decided to head back. Subsequently, we reached to mountain huts of Prilep, it was the first time for me to be able to see so many mountain huts in one place, they were beautiful. In the entrance of Prilep we saw a man he was harvesting blueberries his name was Dervish and told us that we could go from here to the Bear Meadow. We found a spring and made a great pause there and refilled our bottles, in time a person came and he looked very strong. He introduced himself to us, and welcomed us at the Prilep mountains huts, he had his own wonderful hut as well, and invited us for a coffee. Uncle Nebi Lokaj  is a great person, after we went to his hut, he introduced us to his wonderful wife, she was like every mother would be. Overall, they were pure hearted people, they gave us coffee to drink, later some plum rakia and finally they wouldn't let us go without giving us something to eat.

At the summit of Marjash 2533m.

Therefore, in this adventure I realized that good people still exist that care about others, I hope we will meet them again someday. Make a long story short, the time came to say goodbye, we headed towards the Bear Meadow and they stood at their hut, after all we arrived at Roshkodol, and from there we continued to hike to the mountain of Milishevc and shortly we arrived at the mountain huts of Isniq.

We stood there for 30 minutes and we drank coffee at Arben's hut, he had a cute 6 years old son named Dion. From there we went to the mountain huts of Milishevc, it was almost dusk of dawn, we rushed hiking up the hill in order to reach the ridge and eventually to see the sunset. So, we spent the second night there, made a bonfire, and watched the milky way. Later on, after we grilled some suxhuk (sausage) we hit the sack.

Rudina Pass.

The next morning we woke up before the sunrise, we went to a cliff and watched it closely, the sky over the mountains started to look very pinkish and a little bit of red color, it was wonderful. On the other hand we were thirsty, and had a little amount of water, then we left the backpacks and the tent and headed for the peak. We started to hike slowly, with a steady pace, we stopped many times, because we had plenty of time, we could see many mountains around us, one of them was the highest peak in Rugova mountains it was Guri i Kuq (Red Rock) 2535m. As has been noted, we could see again the Karanfilat (Cloves) and Jezerca the highest summit in the Accursed Mountains.

Obviously, the time came and we had to return back at our tend, so we descended down from that unknown peak and went to our tend, during our return we saw some Norwegian hikers, they were doing The Peaks of the Balkans and it was their last day, those people were going to Liqenat of Kuqishte in Rugova. We went down and started to visit the mountain huts of Milishevc, we visited a guest house there called "Kulla", we drank there coffee and took some great pictures.

Marjash.

To sum up, we finally started to go back, we went through a long road and arrived after some hours at the fifth kilometer of Rugova Mountains, from there we walked to the bus station of Peja. Not to mention, we stopped by Buquku and ate some "qebapas" and we still were hungry, subsequently we went and bought some doner to ease our hunger. We found the bus to Prishtina that started at 17:20 and returned back and hopefully our next adventure will be as fantastic as this one. I hope you enjoy reading it, it is hard to express the beauty that we saw with words so I made sure to upload as many pictures as possible.

Mountain Huts of Isniq.

From this window you could see Rupa summit.

The way down to the Bear Meadow.