Julian Wiethold

Dear Ricardo,
Dear Jona,
Dear Endrit,

here is some more personal reponse to your request of rating our experience with zbulo!

Everything worked very well and we were completely satisfied with the trip organisation and our guide Drini, who was a nice and helpful compagnon during hiking. He informed us a lot about Albania and its people. He offered with his approach and translation services very nice contact with our hosts and other local people we met during our hike. He was also well
experienced in difficult terrain, especially during the Korab trip.

We felt always being in goods hands and little difficulties he managed in the background effectively. We would definitively like to go with him again! We do hope that Drini also took some pleasure guiding us during this trip. A feedback is also wellcome.

The transfers worked all very well and the hotels were perfectly fitting to our choice of small, but comfortable hotels, especially Tirana, Kukes and Skhodra.

The following are some of my personal remarks and points of view.
We liked very much the homestyas in the Peshkopi region, especially in Hinoske, Rabdisht and Cerjen. For us it was a good decision to have an additional night at Cerjen before climbing Grama pass. So we had time to more contacts with the local people and the observation of local agriculture. We’ve been also invited by other people from the villages .The hosts were all very nice and we felt very wellcome. The simple accomodation
in Hinoske and Cerjen was no problem at all and I think there is nothing to be improved concerning our hosts and the facilities. Try to keep it in this simple way. I even guess that it will be possible to advertise a Diber region hike staying in these villages for less sportive people or for families with children. An additionally day on High Scardus would be also a
good option for groups to discover the region in more detail.

The stay at Grama was simple, but we expected that, so again no problem. Impressive landscape and nice contact to the shepherds….

Food was always very good and sufficient; The only thing we would suggests to improve are the beds at Caje, which are a bit like torture with extremely thin and uncomfortable matresses; sleeping was a bit difficult here because you could feel every wooden part of the subconstruction of the beds. So if there is additional funding or subventions, give something to
the Caje host to improve sleeping facilities.

A special reward goes to the very nice hotel in Kukes and its owner, who picked us up at Shishtavec. The hotel was perfect and we enjoyed the food and especially the breakfast with a lot of home-made things. He should be also recommended for future groups.

The additional nights at Tirana and Skhodra were appreciated. For us the hardest thing of the whole trip was the bus trip to Peshkopi
when we got stuck for about one hour with the minibus in the traffic between Tirana and Skhodra and temperature reached about 50°C in the minibus (40° outside), which had no working climate condition…. we survived completely soaked but, ofcourse, it was an experience!

We had also some difficulties in Skhodra to organize our transfer to Ulcinij, as the minibus announced in the internet was not
running….finally we organized ourselves a taxi – so no real problem.

That’s it, It was a very nice trip with a lot of experience (human,
sportive and cultural) – I would enjoy to come back again in spring to see more flowering plants…

I will write also something of Tripadvisor and sent you some photos you may use for your webpage and advertising; but this will need few days.

Thanks for everything and all the best for future groups on this trail.

Julian & Jana