Even my picture books get wordy

When I began this blog, I had grand plans of making at least one post per week. I did pretty well in the beginning, but I have been slipping lately. I don't think that I'll be able to make a post with any substance in terms of writing until next week, so for now I thought that the least that I could do would be to post a few pictures.

Last week, I took a long weekend and made a whirlwind tour of southern Albania. One of the great advantages of being a peace corp volunteer is that there are other volunteers living in just about every place you could ever want to visit in your country. Traveling is a pleasure when friendly faces (and free spots on a couch) await you at every destination.


The sun sets on Leskovik


Day two took me down one of the windiest and most beautiful roads that I have ever had the pleasure to see. Our bus spent the better part of the morning following a crystal clear river through this stunning valley. The picture doesn't even come close to capturing the scale of the mountains that you see on the other side.

These are some of the ruins of the ancient settlement of Butrint, located just north of the Greek border. Just how old is the site? Caesar made a couple visits, and Homer mentions it in the Aeneid. And to think that I once called my 80 year old rental house "old."

I spent most of the weekend in Ksamil. The town went from a small agricultural village to an up-and-coming tourism destination in the last couple decades. Unfortuantely, most of the developers forgot to get permits for their sites. The government has been gently reminding them of that mistake by knocking down all the non-permitted buildings. Cleaning them up? Not so much. The town is littered with scenes such as this:


So why would anyone ever want to visit it? Well, they also have a bunch of this. Contrast: Albania excels in it.