At a cold and overcast daybreak, Boxing Day 2020, we woke up in our sea-looking accommodation in Saranda, Albania. Breakie, a cup of tea, and we got to do the last bits of packing. We were about to begin on our winter hike to Butrint National Park.
This is a 94.24 km2 area stretching over and around Butrint Lake, south of the city of Saranda. It encompasses a variety of landscapes, such as hills, bluff coasts, little secluded beaches, marshland, reed beds, islands, as well as one of the most invaluable archeological sites in the country.
We had some eight hours of daylight to cover 20 km until the place we intended to camp for the night.
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Along Butrint Street: Saranda’s Southern District
8 am, we shouldered our heavy bags and set off in the crisp morning. The sky was dismally drab but spewed no rain. We got on Butrint Street, conveniently named for leading us to Butrint National Park.
The road zigzagged endlessly through Saranda’s posh southern neighborhoods in long, smooth curves. Luckily, the traffic was very sparse, allowing us to cross from one side to the other at will and always take the inner side of the turns to cut off substantial portions of the distance.
The entire district was erected for tourists. There were more hotels than houses and hardly any businesses relevant to locals. But as it was winter through the pandemic, there were no tourists and the entire place resembled a ghost town. We got to wonder at some lovely sea views amid the complete quietude.
Cuke Village & Bistrices River
Before long, the city was left behind. It was followed by a village named Cuke, where a pleasant, rustic atmosphere dominated the senses. More donkeys roamed about than cars. Cocks crowed frantically all around. Peasants greeted us cordially from every house.
We crossed the bridge over the blue water of Bistrice River and we left the main road to head uphills towards the village’s upper section. A wide view over the plains that abutted the lake of Butrint stretched out before us. It soon was outside our ken when we got on a dirt path and moved around the hill and towards the coast.
Mali Germatit Hill
The path went past a ramshackle stone sty, where we stopped for a brief tea-and-snack break. The sky then manifested his true intentions, releasing the first drops for the day. We put all our waterproofs on and strode away.
The path from there on… wasn’t a path anymore. Meandering through prickly bushes and clambering over sharp-edged rocks, we pushed our way to a little secluded beach. It was the hardest part of the whole trip to get up the steep and densely-vegetated slope over to to the other side of the beach.
Further, we spotted a decent trail to carry us along the seaward slope of Mali Germatit Hill. The rain kept pouring on-and-off and the broad Ionian Sea had taken on a peculiar periwinkle color. The only signs of human civilization in sight were the scattered villages of northern Corfu across the strait. Only we and cows were moving on our side of the water.
Manastir Village and St. George Monastery
Towards the end of the trail, a pretty impressive castle-like structure appeared atop a tall, precipitous crag. It was the 14th-century Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. George. We held a prospective plan to visit it, but given the fairly long ascent to it and the already late hour, we decided to skip it.
Instead, we got back to the main road at the height of Manastir Beach and, viewing the village of Manastir up the slope ahead, we headed straight south.
Along Butrint Lake
It was pissing down for good now. I felt a little envious of the drivers who, comfily snugged in their dry cars, sporadically overtook us, hissing tires mixing with the rain’s pounding pitter-patter. The view of the lake, reaching all the way down its southern shore, was our constant companion for the next hour or so it took us to reach the city of Ksamil.
In Ksamil
The rain had ceased, and we even enjoyed a brief spell of sunshine, when we stopped at that quiet beach on the northern outskirts of Ksamil. We took some breaths, filled up our water bottles from a broken pipe of a beach shower, and we started ambling towards the city center.
Ksamil was another summer-resort city. It proved pretty hard to get some lunch, as all the food places were shut, apparently operating only in the summer. We ended up in a cute little cafe-bakery – the only open place we found – where we had a cup of Greek coffee and pastry while taking cover from the rain, which had by then resumed in full might.
It eventually stopped again. We collected our jaded muscles and made for the grocery shop across the street to get dinner supplies. And we headed further south.
Camping in Butrint National Park
Leaving Ksamil behind, we were well into Butrint National Park. Less than an hour later, our day’s hike terminated at a view porch over the Vivari Canal, which connects the lake of Butrint with the sea. The view of the broad plains and the Greek mountains in the distance across the canal was the highlight of the day.
The sun set. The air froze. We took advantage of the short-lived twilight to assist us with pitching the tent. We walked a trail towards the canal mouth and found a nice, flat and sheltered, spot to accommodate us for the night.
It was a sweet night. The tent’s interior remained warm and dry amid the brutal storm that raged and rumbled incessantly throughout the night. Lightning bolts at times struck so deafeningly close that the ground shook underneath. The rain kept on pouring well into the morning.
Hiking in Butrint National Park
The rain finally stopped, a good few hours after we’d woken up. We then ventured out of the tent, packed everything quickly, and set off. Of course, it started pissing down again at the same moment.
We walked a couple of km down to the shore and in front of Butrint’s archeological site. We found that closed, probably due to the pandemic, but we managed to get some good glimpses of it from the outside.
We stepped on the cable ferry that there connects the two banks of the canal: an impromptu plank raft with nothing but a wooden bench on it, where its operator sat under a handheld umbrella. We handed him the coins he requested and he carried us across the water.
Our plan then was to head back north around the lake and eventually make it to Gjirokaster on foot in 4-5 days. But we soon were to abandon this plan…
We followed a beautiful trail along the lake’s southern shore, aiming to take a shortcut off our planned route. But an hour later or so, our way was obstructed by impassable shrub and marsh. We had to turn all the way back to the beginning.
Insane amounts of water were falling out from the sky by then, to the point of reducing visibility to a mere couple of meters. Water was penetrating our multiple waterproof layers and we were soaked to the marrow. In short, we were dispirited.
We sought shelter in a ruined shack and worked out our new plan. 100+ km to Gjirokaster was too much to walk under these meteorological circumstances.
We waited out the worst of the storm and got back across the canal. The new plan was to walk back Ksamil, whence we’d head to Delvina by public transport to resume our hike to Gjirokaster from there.
