Amerika Hotel Kukes

... were quite basic, but the folks running the place were very friendly even though it was difficult to communicate. The few people here who don't speak English typically know some German, so a knowledge of German is pretty useful here. Of course between the two of us we only speak English and Spanish.

We started exploring the town and were immediately impressed by the preserved Ottoman buildings with their upper stories ...

... away, it was truly a different world,. Gracanica is a Serbian enclave where the Serb minority lives. Our taxi driver wasn't thrilled about taking us there, and upon arrival it was clear we entered a different zone as all the signs are in Cyrillic and the Serbian flag (as opposed to the Albanian, US, or Kosovo flags) waive in the breeze.

We entered the monastery and were very impressed with this Serbian landmark ...

... curieux de savoir d,ou je venais... la ville ioci porte encore les empruntes de la guerre et le sujet est chaud... y a des soldats de l,onu partout... le pays fonctionne mais il y aurait un nettoyage des chemins a faire; on semble avoir laisse les depotoirs partout sur la route... j,ai vraiment quitte le monde slave car ici ce sont les albanais qui sont en majorite: autre langue, autre culture, autre nourriture... il ne ...

With a few days left before our flight across to South America, we had felt the need to prioritise one last "see it or regret it" place to go. Getting to Enver Hoxha's crazy legacy that is Albania was going to prove an overly complex commute, but heading down to Kosovo (and then a hop to Sofia for the flight) looked easy enough. It was the timing that made this potential genius or idiocy: the province of Kosovo is now just days or weeks away from declaring ...

... the monastery, he insists on giving me a tour of the gorge stretching out behind it. We drive alongside the river at the bottom, mountains covered in four to six inches of snow shooting into the sky around us. The scenery is fantastic and his car nice and warm. I had wondered how he could afford a car (I don't imagine bus ticketing pays well) but his revelation that his father runs a driving school explains everything, especailly the extra pedals by my feet. I manage to ...

... selling vegetables, only men talking on street corners, only men behind the counters of the stores I pass. In my whole time in Tetovo, I don't see a single woman working. It's a shock at first, but after ten minutes or so, my eyes adjust to this new reality, and I don't notice it any more. I set off first for the Sarena Djamija mosque. The town is full of mosques as the majority of the Albanians are Muslim. The mosque would ...

... to discover that unlike Pristina, virtually no one here spoke English. The KFOR troops in this part of Kosovo are German or Turkish, and there are no English-speaking tourists, so we stumbled along with our mangled Albanian, two words of German and enthusiastic hand gestures and managed to get a local kid to take us to a hotel near the bus station. The owners of the hotel seemed surprised to see us, but were very friendly ...

... stream (close to the source) so we all filled up our waterbottles and had a water fight, before climbing a bit further and seeing cows drinking further upstream... nice. Lucy, Jamie and I were at the front for a lot of the journey, so waited for the others in what we thought was a field. Couldn't understand where the swarms of flies around my ankles and horseflies biting away were coming from until later we realised it was a swamp. Figures. 3 ...

... to pick someone up, and discussed how dogs can die if left in hot cars for too long. We were literally cooking alive in this minibus! Also before we left, I noticed 2 of the Albanian guys kissing each other on each cheek- have seen a couple of people do it here is a bit different to England! Anyway we got the pool, and had a bit of a run in with the changing room assistant. Heeding the advice of covering up, we'd all brought full on swimming costumes and still ...

... and even Peja. The Turkish influence is heavier here than elsewhere and - despite the compounded damage from Serb militia in '99 and Albanian rioters in 2004 - it's retained a good deal of its architectural stock. The mix of churches and mosques attests to its multicultural history and even today the population remains more mixed than many other places in Kosovo. Unfortunately, that multiculturalism is under severe threat from ascendent Albanian nationalism, so whether it will ...