Avast, phenomenal mountain range in Albania’s north, the Accursed Mountains, draw their name from the legend of a woman and her two children who fled from the Ottoman Turk invasion in the 14th century. The more they walked, the higher the mountains rose. Being July, the hottest month of the year, the snowfall had melted and there wasn’t a drop of water in sight. As the sun beat down, their lips became cracked and burned. The children begged for water but there was nothing the woman could do to relieve their pain. Before they perished she cried out: “Mountains, may you never have water! May cloud darken you! May flame burn you!”
Nearly 700 years have since passed but the curse still grips the Accursed Mountains and all who dare cross them today, as I discovered during a recent 10-day ride through the country. From the moment I crossed the border at Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia in the east, my trip was plagued. I was lucky just to have made it out alive.
From the lake, I rode west on a sealed road that curled like a coiled snake through jagged, bone-dry mountains where, as per the legend, there wasn’t a drop of water or shade in sight. And while there were lovely breezes by the lake in North Macedonia,
