March 13. Everyone knows what that date signifies. Sure, it may fluctuate a bit from country to country, but everyone in the world had a mutual experience at the beginning of March. I don’t need to get into it.
For me, March 13 is the day I was told to not come into the office. Lockdown measures had spread their way through every corner of Albania and the proceeding days had seen schools, restaurants, and public transportation coming to a halt. Now, it was our turn.
I spent most of the lockdown working from home building a website. Filling spare time with lots of YouTube, podcasts, Netflix, and the occasional chat with a roommate that spent his time in online school or playing video games. I would sit out on the balcony of my flat soaking up the sun as I watched the police on the street stopping passing cars and pedestrians, checking for the proper paperwork. I watched as groups of teenagers rode their bikes up and down the road, not worried about the policemen. I wish I could be as carefree, but I wasn’t willing to risk a fine just for a casual stroll. The most that would happen to those high school kids was a cop telling them to go home, which would likely result in the group just moving along to a different part of town, unbothered.
As I sat, my mind would inevitably wander. I would day dream about what life would be like if I was allowed out of my house for more than just an essential run to the grocery store. I sat for hours and stared into the hills that rise up behind the apartment buildings across the street. Day after day I scan the hills, noticing little dirt pathways crisscrossing their way to the top likely formed by herds of goats as they wander around the mountains. As many of the surrounding hills that I’ve been in, this one is an exception. My calves haven’t felt the burn of this incline. I haven’t seen the view from this peak.
That’s when I decided. Not necessarily on a particular day, but during the long hours of lockdown, the long hours of staring at the hills as they turn green with the coming of spring while we sit inside waiting to be allowed to wander without penalty. I decided that as soon as it was possible, I would climb this hill and again truly appreciate the freedom of being outdoors.
Again, the exact day escapes me, but when the lockdown measures eased up a bit we were allowed out with fewer restrictions, but with a curfew of 5pm. I didn’t let the time go to waste, and the first chance I got I was out the door. Calves burning, nostrils finally reintroduced to the smell of dirt, I climbed the hill. After the first five minutes weaving through alleyways between stone houses, I found the pathway that I had been staring at for the past four weeks.
As I climbed I kept looking over my shoulder as the city slowly grew smaller. I didn’t plan to take any photos, so I was hiking without the weight of a backpack on my shoulders - a rare occurrence for me. I followed a few goat trails until I stumbled across what seemed to be a service road for the electrical lines that rose and fell through the hills around Pogradec. The road wound up behind the peak I had been eyeing for a month and I lost sight of the city.
Rounding one more bend in the road, I noticed a rocky pathway that was either a goat trail of a runoff for water. I didn’t care either way, it was heading north, which is the direction I wanted to finally have a different view of the town I had been locked in for 30 days.
Within two minutes I came over the crest of the hill and was welcomed with what I would argue is the best vantage point of Pogradec: a panoramic view of Lake Ohrid, sparkling in the morning sun, surrounded by hills and mountains on all sides. The red roofs of Pogradec below by the lake shore provide a contrast to the fresh greenery of spring. Huge clouds float lazily by blissfully unaware of thousands of people below that are finally able to appreciate the blue sky yet again.