Eva Rrasa swirled the grainy remains of my Turkish coffee around a dainty ceramic cup. She then poured out the last of the liquid into a saucer and observed the leftover granules clinging to the sides.
“You're being followed by a man whose name begins with E,” she told me while holding my gaze. My eyes widened upon hearing the news, and she quickly moved to reassure me. “But don't worry; he doesn't want to cause you any harm. He's just watching you from a distance.”
Together with her husband and children, Eva had welcomed me into her home in the rural village of Babunje, within western Albania's Divjakë-Karavasta National Park. My visit – and impromptu coffee reading – was part of a community-based travel experience. By staying in the secret corners of Albania, I'd hoped to gain a deeper understanding of its traditional ways of life, while also making genuine connections and memories with the people who call this beautiful country home. The idea of a mystery man watching me from afar certainly wasn't part of the plan.
The drive for responsible and local tourism experiences like this comes at an important time for Albania. The Balkan nation might have been closed off from the world during the 46 years it was under communist rule, but that ended in the early 1990s. A record-breaking 10 million people visited the country in 2023 – more than triple its entire population. Today, with the vast majority of visitors flocking to its Adriatic coastline for a budget-friendly beach break,
