Komani Ferry

Yesterday we did the Komani ferry. Pretty shocking that we've been in Albania for 12 years and this is the first time we've ever done this. INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL!

If you're considering doing it, here's the info about what we did to help you make your decisions:

• We left Tirana at 5am and arrived there about 7:30 with virtually no traffic. We did this because we were told you had to arrive at least 2 hours ahead of time to secure your spot on the ferry. NOT TRUE!!! The ferry holds at least 40 vehicles (50-60 might be a better estimate) and various people on the ferry told me that they never have to leave anyone. Some people called saying they were on their way and so the ferry waited until 10:30 instead of 9:30 to leave.
• If you leave Tirana later (as I would recommend) remember that our 2.5 hour trip was with no traffic. The later you leave the more traffic you will encounter. Nuff said.
• The earlier you get there the further back you are in line, apparently. Although the parking guy said he had been doing this job for 25 years and would take care of us. (He looks to be about 28 years old so presumably he started when he was 3.) But the later you are in line the further towards the front you are loaded which means you get off earlier on the other end. Doesn't really make a difference, but it is a motivation to be patient and kind... :-)
  
• The road gets worse and worse the closer you get. Don't stop on the main road to get a coffee because you think you're almost there. And the sign that said "Komani: 32 km" is a lie. Don't believe a word of it. (It was about 40 km from the Alpet station where we got gas a while after that sign.)
  
• When you get to the place where you cross the lake (just past the village of Koman) you will turn left at the end of the bridge. There may be a sign, but we never saw it. At this point you are within 2 km of the ferry.
  
• Weird, windy tunnel JUST before the ferry landing. Hope you're not claustrophobic. ;-)
  
• The ferry company is named "Sahhilba" and the administrator is named Ramiz Bardhi. His number is 06820-25535 or 06940-95555. Your mileage may vary on making them wait for an hour, but it's not bad to have the info.
• We had a couple fold-up chairs for a picnic later in the afternoon and that was really nice because seating outside (where you get the good views) is pretty limited (like almost zip).
• We paid 200 leke for some parking tax and then 2000 leke for our vehicle and family of 5 (the 3 boys are all 11 and under and we weren't charged for them - not sure what it would have been if they had been older).

The ferry ride itself was as advertised, about 2 hours of incredible beauty. The mountains range from rolling green hills to vertical rock precipices. Fascinating to see the number of individual homes and tiny villages -- very primitive conditions!

I've seen various blogs and web-sites saying that this is THE place to visit in Albania if you want to see the beauty of Albania. I would probably still say my absolute favorite spot for beauty in Albania is Siri i Kalter (The Blue Eye), but this ferry ride is definitely in my "Top Five"... (Hmm... the coastal road down by Himara, Siri i Kalter, some castle [Gjirokaster?], Thethi [haven't visited myself yet, but by photos & reports], & Komani -- if I've missed something big please comment below!)

The BIG disappointment was the trash. It didn't spoil the view because it's just under the surface of the lake, but if you look down under the water you see a constant stream of plastic bags, cigarette butts, plastic cups, pieces of paper, wrappers, etc. I SO hope that Albanians will recognize the untold damage they are doing to these beautiful locations and provide some negative community pressure against littering before it is too late. 10 years ago someone could have said that avoiding littering is a luxury for more developed countries and that a country like Albania had more pressing concerns, but Albania has now gone far beyond the point where she should be paying attention to this -- let's get some public service ads out there and see if we can't get a change in popular mindset, hey?!

On the other end we wanted to go to Bajram Curri and some up the Valbona valley. A little confusing which is the right road (a branch of 3 with 2 continuing as asphalt roads and ending as a driveway and the 3rd as a gravel road ended up being the real road) but a very pretty drive as far as we went. Our real goal was to find a swimming hole and we eventually found one, albeit after a somewhat harrowing climb down a steep hillside with loose rock, kind of a skree. The water was cold. I mean, really cold. Not quite like snow-runoff cold (of Crater Lake, Oregon fame in my family of origin), but still really cold. Once we managed to get in we had fun, but even my 3 intrepid and normally cold-proof boys were somewhat loathe to stay in for long.

Our chosen route home was to go to Kosove (yes, it means going NE to go SW), through Gjakova and Prizren and on to Kukes for the new road home. The idea was that a short distance on so-so roads in the wrong direction followed by a long drive on a good road was better than a long drive on so-so roads. [I'd be curious whether it would have been better heading SE or S to hit the good road at Kukes or somewhere - please comment if you have any experience with that.] (Note that you do *not* need green card insurance if you have Albanian plates and insurance.) Traffic going into and out of Prizren was horrendous with lots of construction and mile after mile of barely moving vehicles. We missed a detour sign (was it really there?) and ended up with a lot of Kosovare blaring their horns at us -- yes, we are the sole cause for the poor opinion Kosovares now have for Albanian drivers. :-) It took us about 2:10 to the Albanian border and onto the nice road (20 min to Bajram Curri, 30 min to Kosove border, 1:20 in Kosove). The tunnel has apparently had blockage going one way and so we had to wait a while (along with hundreds of others) while traffic flowed against us; then we were allowed to go through ourselves. That tunnel is VERY impressive if you haven't seen it. We recently did a vacation in Slovenia/Austria and saw some pretty impressive tunnels, but this one easily rivals them! (Although I suppose some of the squeamish amongst you might point to the fact that a tunnel collapse causing traffic to flow only one way is not necessarily a confidence builder... :-) Try not to get hung up on trifles.)

Once we were on the new road it was pretty amazing. There was a few kilometers that were still under construction, but in general we could zip along amazingly quickly considering the roughnness of the terrain over which the road is built. (In 1999 I took about 8 hours to get to Kukes during the Kosove crisis -- this time it was less than 2 hours!) The big question was whether the speed limit was 90 or 110 (how's one to know?!), but we got by without mishap.

Earlier in the year we attended a wedding in Peshkopi and along the way passed what looked like a delightful restaurant at a bend in the river near Milot. So we got off the main road for an hour or so to go eat there. The food was ... hmm ... well, let's say the food wasn't the main attraction. The restaurant itself is just about 5 km from the main road (just after passing thru the tunnel) on the right hand side. It has a nicely graded area with tables scattered on it that juts out into the river which is about 50 yards wide at this point. VERY beautiful place to relax as the sun goes down while the boys jumped into the river and swam around. But don't get the mish keci unless you have experienced severe salt depletion and need to get a year's worth of salt on a single plate... (Having said this, we will *definitely* be going back -- just too beautiful a setting to pass up approximately 1 hr from Tirana.)

So after the sun went down we got back to the main road and zipped on home through Kamez (it was nearly 10pm by this time and so the traffic was once again not an issue) and arrived home about 10:30. A delightful (!) day-trip which could easily have been expanded into 2-3 days if you preferred less driving and more sight-seeing, but definitely doable in a day.

Pictures later...