In the spring and summer of 1996 Robert Carver made a remarkable journey through remote Albania. He travelled by bus, by foot, by mule and horse, staying with Albanians and sharing their grindingly poor lives. He met Vlach shepherds and village intellectuals, Tirana film-makers and Bektashi dervish babas, ex-Communist Special Forces officers and juvenile heroin smugglers, missionaries with jeeps and light planes, and ex-prisoners of Enver Hoxha who had spent 45 years in the Albanian gulag. His journey in this mysterious mountain land is recounted in this lively travel narrative, involving high adventure, danger and comedy alike.