Adi and I approached his home from the rear passing through his vegetable garden to the front veranda where they were drying tomatoes. Adi is in his 40s and lives with his parents, brother, sister-in-law and two nephews. They once owned a farm with land they could cultivate but it was taken from them and redistributed many years ago.
Inside, Adi translated for his family and myself, they were fascinated as to why I wanted to see their town and visit Albania. They showed me incredible hospitality and prepared a feast for our arrival. Olives, Burek (a fried pastry typically filled with ground meat or cheese), tomatoes, cheese stuffed peppers and sour dough; it was wonderful. Almost everything on the table was grown by the family and Adi's brother Shefit produces a homemade sparkling rosé and Rakia, a traditional spirit made by fermenting and distilling plums. First up was a Turkish coffee and glass of Rakia.
Shefit, Adi and I were left to talk and indulge. Shefit's mother came in at around 1am to tell him not to drink too much; it doesn't matter what age you are, mums will be mums. They presented me with a small bottle of Pekmes, it is a honey-like syrup produced by reducing the juice of plums into an incredibly concentrated form.
In the morning, after 5 hours of sleep, we woke at 7am and my bus south was due for 8am; I was sure I would miss the only one of the day. After morning Rakia and coffee Shefit drove me to the bus stop. We were too late. Now what happened next was a miracle of the Albanian local network that would never happen in the UK. Adi called the bus driver and asked them to stop 10km outside of town, he then called a second driver to divert them to where we were and drive me towards the minibus. Now out of town we exited the vehicle and ran through a street market in the rain avoiding the pooling water on the ground, we weaved through cattle and made it to the bus. I thanked the driver profusely and the passengers looked rather confused. I was amazed. The rain did not dissipate and gave a rather gloomy introduction to Sarande, but I made it.