Rugova Valley, Kosovo... Do Not Tell Anyone 🇽🇰

Rugova Valley.

We spent two days hiking around the Rugova Valley in Kosovo. The hospitality is from times gone by, where homemade clotted cream and bread hits the table at 7 am. Where any guesthouse you stumble into will serve a home-cooked dinner made with labor and love by a host with too much pride to do things any different.

In the village of Drelaj, our host’s grandfather had served in the Kosovo war. Something that only existed on tv for a couple of minutes a night watching the news as a kid in the 90’s. He had published a journal documenting the day-to-day of what went on, hiding in caves, fighting through the countryside. To look at Rugova now, you would think it had always been this peaceful, with not as much as a barking dog to break the serenity. There are dirt roads and herds of sheep, tranquility smothers you from all angles.

A lot can change in 20 years. A lot has never changed in this part of the world. Sometimes when you are in a place you get a sense of impermanence. That maybe it’s not going to be like this for much longer. Rugova was one of those places for me.