Every year during August Hiking Njeri holds a fantastic event called Camp'N' Hike. And so forth, this time was with 17-18th of August, the sixth edition was fantastic as ever. This camp was held in Brod of Dragash, near the Hotel Arxhena. From this wonderful place we created so many memories, had fun and saw joyous moments. We saw wonderful peaks, we met hikers from Macedonia and the highlight of this adventure!
We came here one day before the event together with Ben, Arsa and Toni. We settled the camp, prepared the tents, installed the sound system, and took the electricity from Hotel Arxhena. The first night was very cold, I suppose it was somewhere between 5 degrees, that night I slept with two sleeping bags even though they seemed to be warm enough but sometimes the mountain can be very cold. Thus, the next day we woke up and went to drink a coffee, we started to work again on our tents and prepared 15 more tends. We turned the sound system on, and prepared wonderful songs for them. After a few hours the hikers all around from Kosova came to join our event, we first accompanied them to their tents, afterwards we finished building up the tents and settling them in and time flies when you are having fun!
Some were playing volleyball, some were still unpacking their stuff, after a short time we introduced our games for the camp. The first game was the volleyball league, the second was Tug of War game, a game which requires a rope and 6 persons, the last but not least was the jumping bags competition.
 |
| Tug of War game, pic taken last year from Ben Islami. |
After the volleyball teams were decided we started to play our game, I was in a team with Shpend, Ali and Laureat and we decided to win the league, hence the others were meant to go down in flames (fail spectacularly). We beat everyone with no big effort and won the final game, and were the champions of the Camp N Hike volleyball games.
Thereafter, the Tug of War game began, my team failed spectacularly this time due to some strong guys out there. Finally, the jumping bags game started and everyone was having so much fun. Considering everything, people were hyped all the time, there were only positive vibes, loud music, it felt almost like we were in a festival. Time flew and it became dark, Engjell and Gent started to collect wood for the camp fire, they left no stone unturned, shortly others started to help them.
 |
| That's how the camp looked like. This picture was taken from Ben Islami. |
Henceforth, the night came, it was much colder and we started the fire, and listened music and told campfire stories.
I was staying with a wonderful group of math students, they were very friendly and humble, I was having fun together with them, they showed me how to play Uno.
 |
| Sharr Mountains. |
We woke up in an early Sunday morning, it was a bit chilly though but we did have a fantastic night. When you are in an Military academy your first task of the day is to make your bed, so our task was to pack our tent into its own bag and prepare for the long hike. So almost everyone completed their task, some needed help in order to pack it properly however each one of us was able to grab the tents and put them in the bus. Thus, we waited for another bus to arrive from Prishtina, the bus came without delay and we kicked off around 9:30 am.
The second day we went hiking, together with a big group hikers we hit the road toward the Man's peak. The elevation gain to go to this peak is somewhere between 1200 meters and the peak itself reaches 2658m, two meters higher than Gjeravica that is in the Accursed Mountains. The peak is also called Rudoka by its original name. From the start of the hike I was staying with a great friend of mine Rinor. During this hiking trip, we were very nostalgic, we recalled our past adventure that we did in the Sharr mountains, were we stayed for 6 days in the wilderness. Hence, each step that we did was a wonderful feeling, we were walking and saying do you remember this and that... After some minutes we did the first break and took some pictures. Later on, we met the group of Dafina and Monika, they were enjoying the moment with a wonderful view in front of them, I went there and asked them if everything is going well, and they gave me a banana to eat I'm very thankful. The people looked very strong and ready to go all out.
When you are in the mountains all your problems somehow fade away, you don't have that kind of thought like when you are in the civilization. Also, the weather was fine, and very warm, the sun was shining and the wind was howling a cool breeze. We were hanging out together with Fleta and her sister, Engjell and his brother, we were talking about how they felt during the ascend, as they say nothing ventured, nothing gained - if you don't try something and test yourself you wont know your own potential. We were at the spring of Qelepina and the water was so cold and refreshing, people were in the seventh heaven. We did this hiking trip last year, but the weather was colder and foggier however the aura was the same.
 |
| Black Lake 2170m in the right side (Liqeni i Zi), Macedonia. |
We were in the heat of the moment, almost reaching the top of the mountain, we could hear our mountaineer friend from Macedonia Ismet Surban, shouting Beni Beni, when we arrived at the top we saw Ismet waiting for us, our group was a bit slower compared to his group. During that time we could see an endless chain of mountains, it felt like a sea of mountains, I even could see the accursed mountains in Albania. Make a long story short, we reached the top around 15:30 pm and we stayed there and Rinor made some coffee for us and I had some chocolate biscuits, as well we enjoyed the view.
 |
| Rudoka / Man's Peak 2658m (Maja Njerit). Kosova |
Now we are getting closer to the main highlight of this article that I'm about to share it with you. What happened to us in a certain moment, out of the blue?
As always Rinor is the one who calls for adventure, he showed us a great spot to make some wonderful pictures on the Macadonian side of the mountain. In addition, we went there with Engjell, Blendi, Fleta and Flutura to some cliffs, they descended even further and I stayed on a cliff with Fleta and Flutura and took some pictures. I went there and screamed so I could here the echo, during that moment the echo disturbed to Bears and they were a bit scared from the sound of the echo. They weren't very far away from me, when I first saw them I was surprised and a bit scared, also hyped because I never had seen Bears in the wilderness, so I returned to Fleta and whispered to them to be quiet, because I wanted to see them, so in that moment I shouted to Rinor start recording because I can see two bears and he was as hyped as I was. This was the best part of this adventure, we were able to encounter two bears, one was a little cup. We are thankful that nothing happened to us, shortly after that we returned to the summit and stayed there for another 15 minutes there and eventually returned back with Ben.
This video was recorded by Engjell, I had the best chance to record them because they were only 5 to 8 meters away from me but I forgot about my camera or my phone when I saw them.
 |
| Lake in Rudoka. |
Comments
Post a Comment