The Blue Eye

We gave ourselves a well-deserved sleep-in, although this was once again interrupted at around 9 a.m. This time, however, it wasn't because of an annoying checkout deadline. We were actually excited to get up. Today was the Women's World Cup quarter-final, with Australia facing France, the former champions. It was a high-energy, incredibly stressful match that had all three of us screaming at the TV at the top of our lungs, probably much to the frustration of our neighbours. The match went all the way to penalties, and after an unbelievably stressful and heart-wrenching shootout, Australia eventually beat France to progress to the semi-finals. It was one of the longest and most intense penalty shootouts I've ever witnessed. By the end, I was just glad it was over. My heart couldn't take much more.

After the game, we headed to one of my biggest bucket-list items from the trip: the Blue Eye near Sarandë. I'd heard incredible things about the crystal-clear water that springs from deep beneath the earth, and it had been something I was particularly keen to see. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we discovered that it involved a 2km walk to reach it. In the heat we were experiencing, it was a bit of a slog. But when we finally arrived, it was absolutely worth it. The water was even more colourful and beautiful than I'd imagined from the photos I'd seen. It was almost impossible to believe how clear it was. We soon learnt, however, that you're not actually supposed to swim in the water. There were plenty of people doing it anyway, but we felt like swimming in the main areas took away from some of the experience for others. So, naturally, we found a quieter spot where nobody could see us and jumped in anyway. Despite being freezing, it's hard to describe just how pristine it felt. The water was so clean and clear that it genuinely looked like something you could drink straight from the source. After walking around in the heat for so long, though, the cold water was actually very welcome.

Unfortunately, the photos do a terrible job of capturing the clarity of the Blue Eye. You need to be high enough above the water to properly see the colours and patterns on the bottom, meaning that most photos taken at eye level look nowhere near as impressive as it does in person. I managed to get a few decent shots, but nowhere near enough to properly capture how beautiful the place actually was. It was a fantastic experience and definitely something I'll remember forever. That being said, the Blue Eye isn't a massive area, and after a few hours we'd seen pretty much everything there was to see. So, we headed back to the car and drove towards our accommodation in Sarandë.

When we arrived in the hills above the city, we quickly realised we'd become very lost. The roads were basically dirt and rocks for most of the way, and eventually we pulled up at a location we thought might be where we needed to be. A man walked out, so we figured he was probably a good person to ask. He didn't speak a word of English, but he somehow understood when we said "Villa Mehmeti", the place where we were staying. Without being able to communicate with us at all, he simply got into our car and started directing us towards the villa. We were very confused but decided to trust him.

Eventually, through a combination of hand gestures, grunts and pointing, he successfully guided us to the right place. When we got out, we tried to offer him a lift to wherever he was going. It turns out, however, that he was actually heading to Villa Mehmeti himself to meet his wife and have a drink with the owners of the hotel. The exchange between the husband and wife as he got out of our car was hilarious. Neither of us spoke a word of Albanian, but somehow we understood the entire gist of the conversation. After that little adventure, we headed to the shops and made ourselves a cheap noodle dish. It wasn't anything special, but it was decent enough to keep us going.Read more