18. Visit Kosovo

Day 100, July 22nd.  Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia – nr. Pristina, Kosovo, 21 - 37C, sunny

Arriving at the Kosovan border, the quiet, two-lane mountain road we’ve been driving on descends into chaos. It’s as if the Kosovan border is about to close forever and every last soul on the wrong side of the border is determined to get back to where they belong, at all costs.

A kilometre away from the border control points, the traffic slows to standstill; we take our place, patiently in the queue.  How naïve.  We’re immediately overtaken by a dozen Kosovan and North Macedonian cars, vans and lorries – and then notice the same behaviour is happening further ahead of us. 

No matter that there is nowhere for this traffic to pull back into, or that there is a stream of lorries trying to come the other way along the now blocked lane: getting to the front of the queue seems to be the only priority.

Suffice to say, gridlock ensues.  We watch as the incompetent melee of vehicles on the wrong side of the road (double overtaking, in some cases) attempts to squeeze in to gaps which don’t exist, to let an increasingly irate convoy of articulated trucks come past the other way.  If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re caught in the middle of it, it would have made excellent viewing.

Finally we reach the border; the actual passport formalities are swift.  We’re stamped out of Montenegro but not stamped into Kosovo; this seems to be the form – due to their ongoing border issues with Serbia – unless you specifically request a stamp.  We buy insurance at the border as well: the mandatory minimum of two weeks’ costs us ten euros.  By any global standards, that’s cheap (North Macedonia was 50 euros).

First impressions of Kosovo are encouraging.  We stop for a coffee and loo break immediately after the border; the young girl and elderly gentleman working in the café give us an effusive welcome, whilst their excellent espressos cost 50 cents each.

Onwards, we drive up through the same valley, following a brand new, elevated motorway – as good as any we’ve driven on in Western Europe – towards Pristina.  Nearer the capital, the countryside flattens out into a wide agricultural plain, flanked by hills and mountains in the distance. 

The houses, factories and warehouses we pass are all new; there are no bullet holes here to remind anyone of the war in 1998-99.  Later this evening, we learn that this is because the invading Serbs burned everything to the ground, trying to eradicate all traces of Kosovan Albanians from Kosovo, meaning nearly every building in the country – barring the occasional farmhouse here and there and the odd religious edifice – are all new.

Our accommodation tonight is with Milo (pr. Meelo) and his family, who live in a little farming village called Sushice, nine kilometres from the capital.  We can camp in his garden. 

En-route, we stop at a grocery store to buy food: entire aisles are devoted to tinned meat and fish, supplies of anything fresh are limited.  We buy enough to cobble together a meal; as it turns out, we needn’t have bothered.

Two hundred metres further down the lane, we spot a young man selling tomatoes by the side of the road. They look incomparably better than what we’ve just found in the shop so we reverse and ask him for four (they’re huge).  Seemingly four just aren’t worth selling – so he gives us a kilo – and asks for one euro in return.

It feels almost embarrassing to pay so little for such a quantity of delicious looking, fresh produce.  As luck would have it, I have a two-euro coin in the wallet; I hand it over and gesture as casually as possible that we don’t need the change.  Patronising perhaps?  Negatively shifting his mindset on how to deal with future foreigners?  We can’t believe he has many opportunities to sell tomatoes to foreigners.  In any event, he’s happy, and we’re delighted.

We arrive at Milo’s at 5pm, directed through the gravel tracks in the village by cheery, elderly locals who evidently realise that lost-looking foreigners here can only be heading for one place.  Milo owns a small farmhouse on the hillside which he’s been renovating for seven years; there’s a sloping lawn shaded by walnut, almond and plum trees, and – to our delight and surprise – a little swimming pool in the middle of it.

He greets us warmly, as does his wife Mimosa and their three children.  Whilst we’re setting up camp, he invites us to join them for supper, which we gratefully accept… the tomatoes will have to wait for another evening.  We’ve still got the litre of North Macedonian wine that Rino gave us a few days ago as a gift; we decide to take that to supper and share it.

As we’re unpacking, the neighbours in the farmhouse up the hill break into a series of cheerful, alchohol-fuelled traditional local songs, supported by an accordion.  It’s the sort of music you’d pay money to listen to at an ‘authentic’ folk festival in busier parts of the Balkans, and a delightful accompaniment to our labours.

Milo and Mimosa prepare a delicious, simple dinner of home-baked beans in a tomato sauce with fresh bread.  Over dinner, Milo explains a little about their family and their country.  They are Albanian, like 90% of Kosovans (most of the remainder being Serbs, still).  His neighbours up the hill are Serbs; he gets on with them but they’re not friends, so to speak.

He's a graphic designer and Mimosa is lecturer in science at Pristina University; they live in Pristina ten months of the year but come to this ‘holiday house’ in the summer.  Renting their garden to campers isn’t really for the money, it’s more about meeting new people, making friendships and sharing experiences. 

After dinner and as we tuck into the second glass of (surprisingly good) North Macedonian wine, Milo explains that he, like most other males in Kosovo, fought for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the war between 1998 and 1999.  He says, “we were not like real army, just fighting with whatever we could find, knives, anything!”. 

Until international (mainly US & UK) intervention led to NATO forces commencing a bombing campaign against Serbia in March 1999, the KLA was outnumbered and outgunned.

The rest of Milo’s family were forcibly deported by Serbian nationalist forces to North Macedonia, as part of the Slobodan Milosevic-led Serbian campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its Albanian population.  In total, over a million Albanians (out of Kosovo’s total population of 1.6 million) were deported to either North Macedonia or Albania.

Milo was injured during the war and evacuated to Austria, and only re-united with his family after the war.  He touches briefly on the numerous war crimes committed by the Serbs: the systematic rape of over 20,000 Albanian women, the massacres of civilians in Drenica, Izbica, Suva Reka and numerous other villages, the systematic destruction of Albanian towns, villages, farms, and any remnants of cultural heritage.

He talks matter-of-factly, not necessarily cheerfully, but without anguish.  He and his family lost everything in the war: their family house of four generations, along with all their belongings, was burned to the ground by Serb forces.  “But we consider we are lucky, when everything is burned, it means you must make fresh start!”

He explains, with great pride, the return of Albanians after the war. “Within one, two weeks, they all came home.  All 800,000, million of them, they all came home immediately, to rebuild.”

It’s hard to take in the magnitude of everything he conveys, and impossible to begin to empathise with his past.  We’re beyond awestruck by this ability – similar to what we saw in Bosnia – to cheerfully and determinedly look forward, and be positive about the future.  It’s staggering. 

As we finish up the wine, Milo says that everything is peaceful now but they’re still fearful of Serb nationalists – there was an attack just last year in Mitrovica.  He’s passionately, emphatically grateful to the UK in particular for its support during the war, and it’s continued support during peacetime and the era of rebuilding, post-independence. 

He’s the first of many people in Kosovo who express this sentiment to us: during parts of our visit here, we feel like undeserving heroes, receiving praise and thanks for the heroic efforts of others.

Later, I stagger into the roof tent, late, slightly tipsy, full of awe and admiration.

Day 101, July 23rd.  Sushice, nr. Pristina, – ‘Saint Bridge’, nr Fshaj, Kosovo, 20 - 33C, sunny

Despite Kosovo’s version of the nocturnal canine chorus being particularly loud and energetic – and despite the Kosovan cockerels joining in enthusiastically from 5am (one particularly rude one, right under our roof tent), we sleep pretty soundly.  The North Macedonian wine probably helped.  Ralph and Laurie will sleep through nearly anything now.

We’re invited to breakfast with Milo and Mimosa, whilst Neno, their youngest son, excitedly explores our roof tent.  They cook a delicious local dish called mange (pronounced the French way, not like some canine infection) – of slow cooked tomatoes and local green chillies, with sour cream.  It’s delicious – and gives us a great idea for what to do later with the kilo of tomatoes that are currently languishing in the passenger footwell.

Milo gives us a list of things to see and do in Pristina, before we head west towards Prizren.  We leave amidst hugs and thankyous, promising to return.

It’s only nine kilometres to Pristina but it takes over an hour: a recently overturned car is blocking one route in; another is snarled with traffic.  But we edge our way towards the centre, the bucolic countryside suddenly morphing into smart new multi-lane thoroughfares, lined with glittering, glass fronted shops with high rise offices and apartments above them.  Now in the capital proper, huge hyper-markets adorn every intersection – the rustic little grocers we found yesterday, long forgotten.

We park, carefully, in an underground car park that advertises a 2.3 metre ceiling height.  We fit – just.  Nina’s eye for estimating heights under pressure has been honed to a fine skill on this trip.

First stop is the Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa, started in 2007 and finished in 2017 – a vast, crisp limestone edifice, far too big for its surroundings (indeed it caused a stir at the time, given the relatively small Catholic population vs the Muslim majority in the area).  Ralph, as ever, is in his element, admiring the arches, the clean lines, and the beams – Laurie contents himself with a few arty photos.

It's hot today, but nowhere near as hot as it has been recently.  Low thirties.  We walk along the pedestrianised ‘Xhorxh Bush’, one of many streets across the capital and elsewhere named after US and UK politicians and generals. It takes us to a large open square, lined with fruit and vegetable vendors and a handful of clothing stalls. 

Again, the produce is extraordinarily cheap but we already have enough vegetables to kill people with, so we content ourselves with some fresh super-juicy nectarines and blueberries. This is something we’ll really miss when we get back to the UK – the ability to buy delicious, local fresh fruit and vegetables, with the seasons, everywhere.  Irradiated apples and solid peaches just don’t cut it.

We visit the Heroines Monument – a beautifully designed sculpture comprised of 20,000 pins, each with a tiny medal on its head.  The pins are placed on an iron backing frame at different heights, to create a 3D portrait. Each pin commemorates an Albanian woman raped during the war; the wider sculpture also pays tribute to the Kosovar women who either fought in the war, or supported resistance efforts.

It’s a beautiful piece of artwork, and unsurprisingly moving.

Our tour takes us along the bustling, chilled out ‘Bulevardi Nënë Tereza’, past coffee shops, restaurants and shops, all thronging with locals.  The buildings are a mix of new, shiny glass and steel edifices alongside 10 to 20 year old, less elegant concrete affairs. 

We bag a couple of ancient mosques (partially for Ralph’s benefit and partially because they’re the oldest buildings around), then pay a visit to the Kosovo Museum, which is largely dedicated to the war. 

It’s a surprisingly uplifting place; we spend most of our time in the photo gallery, inspecting pictures of UK and US soldiers on patrol during the war, usually with local troops and civilians, nearly always at ease and often laughing, joking, or playing basketball.  It’s a surprisingly different – and infinitely more positive – portrayal of interventionist forces than we saw in Bosnia.

We stop for lunch on our way back up the pedestrianised street – pizzas, grills and salads for less than 35 euros in the capital – before making our way back to the car.  There’s so much to take in in this little country, it’s hard to believe we’ve been here for less than 24 hours.

Our afternoon drive takes us along some brand-new roads and some roads still very much under construction, through entire towns and villages that are being built (or re-built), to a little campsite on the banks of the River Bardhë, a shallow, gravelly-bottomed, clear-watered river that meanders its way casually through Kosovo towards Albania.

Bedri and his son Flamur greet us, again exceedingly warmly.  “Make yourselves at home, this is your home while you stay with us, please go anywhere you like”.  Their campsite, less than a year old, is a small and rustic – a few acres of semi-cleared land by the river, dotted with enough trees to provide shade to the handful of tents and camper vans that are already here. 

We park up near a retired Dutch couple in a tent (it’s always the Dutch).  While Nina and I set up the tent, Laurie goes to inspect the river and Ralph immediately starts recreating the mange from this morning, with our tomatoes, chilli peppers, and some sour cream bought en-route today.

Ralph’s version is outstanding; Laurie actually prefers it to Milo’s version since it’s thicker.  We evacuate to the mosquito-free safety of our roof tent by 9pm.  That’s always the problem with beautiful camping spots by rivers – the bloody insects.  Luckily, our tent is still bug-proof and we sleep soundly, relishing a (largely) dog-free habitat for once.

Day 102, July 24th.  ‘Saint Bridge’ – Prizren – ‘Saint Bridge’, Kosovo, 22 - 36C, sunny, thunderstorms, rain

Very peaceful night’s sleep.  Laurie wants to go fishing this morning, so we’re up early, taking both rods to a slightly deeper section upstream, in the shadow of the mighty stone arch of the ‘Saint Bridge’ high above us, which we’d crossed yesterday to get to the campsite.

Ralph comes and joins and before long, Ralph’s got a spinner lure wedged in the riverbed and Laurie and I have lost two dry flies in the willow tree behind us.  Ralph cheerfully wades in up to his waist to rescue the spinner lure; Laurie and I can’t find our flies anywhere.  We persevere, encouraged by some unintelligible tips from locals who appear to be catching lots of small fish (we later find out they’re using fish traps – cheating), but once again, it’s an ultimately fishless endeavour.

On the way back to our car, Ralph, spies some other locals in the river, building a fish trap (effectively a circular, dammed up area by the bank) in the riverbed, out of stones.  He leaps into the water to join them, chatting away – the 100% language barrier (they speak only Albanian and German) doesn’t faze him, or them.  After a moment’s hesitation, Laurie joins him as well. 

I leave them to it and walk back to the campsite.  Nina and I enjoy a peaceful breakfast, alone.

Later in the morning, we pack up the tent for a day trip to Prizren, the cultural centre of Kosovo and its most diverse city.  As we leave the campsite, Ralph and Laurie’s new-found fish-trap friends run towards the car, waving wildly and shouting “Thank you for your kids! Bitter schön!”  Child labour very much still applauded here.

It’s a 40-minute drive, on a slow, straight road, lined with an extraordinary selection of shops: car parts, tyres, chandelier warehouses, homeware stores, hotels, restaurants, wedding venues, the ever-present car washes, and trailer-loads of watermelons for sale, positioned approximately every 50 metres.  We wonder what a typical post-shopping conversation between a married couple must be like. 

“Did you get everything dear?” 

“Oh yes, I picked up a stack of bricks, a new shower unit, a wonderful faux-crystal chandelier, two tyres and a dozen watermelons.” 

“And anything for supper, dear?”

“No, but look how clean the car is!”

The traffic in Prizren is bad – really bad.  The congestion is exacerbated by the unique Kosovan habit of blocking up junctions when they’re trying to turn left at an intersection, even if the way ahead is jammed, without any consideration of the consequences for the line of oncoming traffic, now blocked, trying to go the other way.  As a result, every city we drive through is perpetually inches from total gridlock. 

Several times in this country, Nina loses her sh*t with the locals, gets out of the car, and starts directing traffic at junctions.  As I know, she’s very assertive.  Give her a pair of white gloves, a whistle and a stick and she’d make an excellent police officer.  

It’s a strange habit, since in every other respect, Kosovans are reasonably patient and careful drivers (by Balkan standards, anyway).

The traffic, we find out, it seasonal.  Every summer, the Kosovan diaspora – all three quarters of a million of them, by the looks of it – drive their swanky BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches and Ferraris back from northern Europe for their summer holidays.  Prizren is full of them. 

Kosovo has even established a ‘Ministry for the Diaspora’: recognising the huge population of Kosovans who live outside the country, mostly in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium.  Remittances from the diaspora are the third-largest component of Kosovo’s economy.

We finally manage to park up near the centre and meet our guide for this afternoon, Suad, in the calm, air-conditioned reception of an expensive hotel.  It’s hotter here than in Pristina or the campsite, so our first stop is a shaded lunch spot nearby, where we can refuel and talk at the same time.

Lunch: half a large burek, some meat-filled pastry balls, and drinks – 8.50 euros.  Our cheapest paid-for lunch to date, by some margin.

Suad gives us another history lesson on Kosovo and we listen, as attentively as we can, whilst trying not to melt in the heat. He’s of Turkish origin and lived in Istanbul during the war. 

He explains in a little more detail how the forced deportations worked. “The soldiers come to your door, they give you like, two or ten hours’ notice to leave or they shoot you, then they come back and burn everything”.

He talks us through the rampant nationalisation led by Slobodan Milosevic before the war, starting with the systematic removal of jobs and rights from the Albanian population.  He explains the methodical, thorough manner in which the Serb forces burned everything Albanian throughout the country, trying to rid the country of every last vestige of Albanianism.  

We ask him what life was like for the 5% Serb population, after the end of the war, when the deported Albanians returned.  He raises his eyebrows. “You see, the Serbs in Kosovo, before the war, some of them they like, colluded with the nationalists, everyone knew it.  So when the Albanians came back life was pretty tough for them.” 

This culminated in 2004 with a mass Albanian uprising and the burning of 35 Serbian churches and monuments, plus dozens of killings on either side, followed by the expulsion of 8,000 Serbs from Kosovo.  Given everything that had gone before, it’s hard to believe the Albanians were as restrained as this.

Now, Suad explains, everything is generally fine – and everyone more or less gets on: 90% Albanian, 5% Serb, the remaining 5% a mix of Roma, Turk, Bosniak and Gorani.  Prizren is the only city in Kosovo where all six ethnic groups live, and it’s a peaceful, bustling, harmonious place.  Once again, we find the human ability for practical forgiveness and looking to the future to be astonishing.  To us outsiders, it feels incomprehensible that you can muddle along with the same neighbours who twenty years ago might well have been helping to burn down your house and rape your daughters. But then – lucky for us – we can’t empathise with this situation.

Later, it takes us an hour to navigate the traffic chaos and leave Prizren.  Whilst we’re queueing, a monstrous thunderstorm passes overhead, turning the road into a river and demolishing the umbrellas of unfortunate locals who are hurrying by on the pavement.

Finally, back at the campsite, the weather has cleared up again and we can put the tent up without concern for late night soakings or lightning strikes.  Ralph and I go fishing again; whilst Ralph is casting, a peculiar misunderstanding with a friendly local results in me finding myself on a solo boat-trip, on his home made, leaky little wooden boat, with a small and very unwilling outboard motor.

Ralph, with a look on his face which says, “Daddy you are an utter berk, how do you find yourself in these situations”, cheerfully waves me off.  At least he knows where I’ve gone, I tell myself, as we phut-phut slowly upstream, under the mighty Saint Bridge and into the narrow gorge beyond. 

As it transpires, my boat captain isn’t trying to kidnap me or exhort money from me.  Like literally every other Kosovan we meet, he just wants to extend hospitality and friendliness: his way of doing that is taking me upriver to see this beautiful gorge.  Unfortunately, the recalcitrant engine gives him the V-sign and cuts out when we’re in the gorge, far out of sight and earshot of Ralph, or indeed anyone else.  The bottom of the boat, largely dry when we left, now has six inches of water in it. 

Consequently, it’s a more peaceful ride downstream, as we drift in the current, my captain casually paddling away.  I spy a few cormorants hunting for fish, and hope Nina won’t be cross with me for getting stuck on a boat and delaying our supper plans.

I shouldn’t have worried. In the meantime, Nina has befriended Phil, a lone cyclist from near Macclesfield who has doggedly cycled here from Germany.  We’re always full of admiration for people doing these sorts of trips on two wheels.  In my absence, Nina decides she needs some fresh company for the evening so invites Phil to join us for supper, at the smart looking restaurant on top of the gorge, overlooking the bridge.

The five of us enjoy a fine supper of fresh grilled trout, steaks, pizzas, lemonades and plenty of beer, for a total of 50 euros.  Once again, our ‘living-like-a-prince-at-other-people’s-expense’ guilt kicks in, and we leave a generous tip.

Later that evening, we talk to Flamur, over another beer.  “In the war there were only two types of people” he says.  “Good people and bad people.  Religion, blah blah blah.  Politics, blah blah blah.”  Sometimes, the simplest insights are the most accurate.

Day 103, July 25th.  ‘Saint Bridge’ – Rugova Canyon, nr. Peje, Kosovo, 24 - 34C, sunny

Super-relaxed morning this morning.  It’s not too hot, the boys are having a blissfully happy time building ‘Laurie Island’ on the far side of the river out of stones and river weed.  Nina does a great job in ensuring we ‘slow down’ and enjoy the morning – there’s no hurry to leave.

Late in the morning, Bedri and his wife invite us to visit their veg garden.  Suffice to say, we’re given more armfuls of fresh tomatoes, aubergine, peppers, and a little watermelon for Laurie.  We’ve decided to have lunch here before we leave; they give us a fresh loaf of bread so we can make sandwiches.

When we finally leave, they charge us 20 euros per night.  It’s unquestionable that we should pay anything more for the coffees, bread or vegetables they’ve happily supplied us with during our stay.  Why don’t people in rich countries behave like this?

As we drive out of the campsite, we spot my friendly boat captain from yesterday afternoon.  Laurie is particularly keen to capture the same boat trip experience; it’s only a small boat so we load Ralph and Laurie up, alone, with our friendly helmsman, and wave them off: Laurie sat in the middle, armed with a bucket to bail out the leaky boat, whilst Ralph relaxes and enjoys the view. 

As they disappear out of sight up the gorge, Nina and I briefly question our wisdom: sending the boys off on a boat that we know is neither watertight nor reliable, with a gentleman I met only fleetingly yesterday, in Kosovo?  Sure enough, the engine conks out once again in the gorge and they have to paddle back – Laurie dutifully bailing out – but they probably couldn’t be much safer if they were in the back of the car.  Once again, our hospitable boatman refuses to accept any money.

Our destination today is the Rugova Gorge, just beyond the city of Peja in the northwest of the country, with the aim of doing a Via Ferrata climbing expedition tomorrow morning.  Due to the near-absolute lack of reception we’ve had anywhere outside the cities in Kosovo, we end up doing several lengthy reccies up and down this magnificent, vertiginous gorge, without finding anywhere we can book a Via Ferrata, or any suitable flat land for camping.

In desperation, we return to Peja and stop in a café, to have a coffee and use their Wi-Fi.  Nina works her customary magic under pressure, speaks to someone and confirms an 8.30am rendezvous for tomorrow morning.  Simultaneously, I locate a few mountain chalets further up the gorge, which look like they have flat land around them, on which we might be able to free camp.

On our final trip back up the gorge, we locate the chalets – 400 metres up the mountainside from the valley floor, with magnificent views up the gorge to Montenegro – only 6km further on.  The chalets – new, wood and stone built affairs that would look good in Austria – are inviting.  Too inviting, as it turns out. 

Having found a local who’s aimlessly sweeping the gravel outside on of them, and identified him as the maintenance man, we speak to his boss on the phone who agrees we can camp outside, for 5 euros.  We’re on the verge of setting up the tent when Nina says what I’ve been thinking: “Shall we just stay in one of these for the night?  We’re all knackered, and we’ve got a big day tomorrow with an early start.” 

Is the Pope Catholic?  The boys and I don’t need asking twice.  Back on the phone to the boss, we agree a price for the night using just two bedrooms of a particularly nice four bedroom chalet, and unload our bags with new found energy and enthusiasm.

Ralph cooks us another outstanding supper: another variation of Milo’s mange, and we go to bed early, sated, and happy.

Day 104, July 26th.  Rugova Canyon, nr. Peje – Sushice, nr. Pristina, Kosovo, 24 - 35C, sunny

Everyone’s refreshed when the alarm goes off at 7am this morning.  Excellent call to sleep in a house for once.

By 8.30am we’re down the valley again, reporting at the little tourist office on the outskirts of Peja, where we meet Gesim, our climbing guide for the morning.  He’s lithe, suntanned, cheerful and straight-talking.  He also gives the boys their sternest pre-Via Ferrata lecture on safety and technique they’ve ever had: no bad thing, as it transpires.

We leave in his pick-up truck, the boys riding in the back, and drive a little way up the gorge to a layby, where we stop and get harnessed up.  Then we cross a small Tibetan (i.e. steel cable, with occasional metal planks to walk on) bridge across the river, before walking up a steep mountain path where our climbing begins.

Above us, the cliffs in the gorge rear up all around.  They are between 200 and 300 metres high, rough, jagged and overhanging.  There don’t appear to be any easy, non-vertical paths here: our initial observations are correct.

At every stage today, the boys gamely insist on taking the highest, hardest, steepest route available.  Gesim, assessing them (and us) as we progress, always agrees.  The end result takes us 340 metres, more or less straight up the cliffs, and miles out of Nina and my comfort zone.

First is a steel, spiralled ‘rope ladder’, which we must climb up for 30 metres or so, before climbing off and traversing a cliff to a small cave, once inhabited by hermits who evidently took their peaceful contemplation very seriously.

Next, a long climb and scramble to another sheer cliff, then straight up for 50 metres, followed by a tricky traverse round an overhang, up to another cave.  By now, there’s a 200-metre sheer drop below us.  We’re not even halfway through this morning’s adventure and I’m already in zoned-out, ‘don’t look down’ territory, for fear of (a) crying, (b) putting off the children who are doing brilliantly and (c) soiling myself.

The final stretch, once we’ve been going for nearly two hours, involves us climbing up and out of another cave, traversing round yet another section of overhanging cliff – this time with alarmingly few staples or holds to hang on to – before a final climb up a vertical section of cliff, to the top, 350 metres above the river and road below us.  The cars and lorries on the road are mere dots from where we are: at this height it feels like we should be in an aeroplane, not clinging to the side of a cliff with only two increasingly small-looking ropes protecting us from complete annihilation in the rocks below.

Laurie is fearless.  Ralph, who had a small wobble on the earlier overhang, regains his composure incredibly well to complete the final section.  I’ve moved into total Zen mode and can’t think about the children, or anything else, except putting one hand and foot firmly in front of the other, and clipping in with surgical rigour. Nina, behind me, appears to be going through her own little battle, but appears at the top, with a big smile on her face, like she’s just come back from walking the dog.

It's a huge achievement – especially for the boys.  Gesim tells us he regularly has army training corps here; in every group between 10% and 20% of the climbers have meltdowns on these sections.  It’s not hard to see why.

Elated, but physically and emotionally drained, we carefully pick our way down a rocky path to the river, keeping an eye out for vipers and loose rocks.  At the bottom, we strip off and jump into the perfectly refreshing river, relishing the cool and loving the feeling of being back on proper terra firma.

We lunch in Peja – in a new, funky restaurant with Russian-style dance music thumping out.  Ralph demolishes the largest burger he’s ever seen; Laurie does similar with a huge bowl of pasta.  

We decide to only head as far as Pristina this afternoon (last night, we’d naively contemplated getting as far as Skopje today).  We call Milo to see if we can stay with him again; he’s delighted and hour and a half later, having delicately side-stepped our way round a very grid-locked Pristina, we’re greeted like old friends, and invited in for supper again.

Despite our exhaustion, this time, Sushice’s dogs and cockerels are more thorough in their efforts to keep us awake, and they succeed. 

Day 105, July 27th.  Sushice, nr. Pristina, Kosovo, nr. Vranje, Serbia 24 - 37C, sunny

Still sleepy this morning, we pack up promptly and say our final, final goodbyes to Milo and his lovely family.

We leave, passing down the same motorway we came in on: even though we’re headed for Serbia, we have to exit via North Macedonia.  Serbia, like an obstinate, spoilt child, still pig-headedly refuses to recognise Kosovo as an independent country and as such, if you enter Kosovo from any other country apart from Serbia, and then try to enter Serbia, the border guards will deem you to have entered their country illegally, and will turn you back.

It's hard to sum up our admiration for the people of this wonderful little country – Europe’s newest independent state – or the treasure trove of natural wonders that sit within its borders.  There’s only one conclusion: Visit Kosovo.