Ferry ride across Lake Koman

The best impression of this truly great and adventurous ferry crossing is probably obtained by looking at the photos... Nevertheless, I still want to tell some anecdotes here :) Because there are plenty of them...

It all started with our arrival in Koman. Since we didn't have ferry tickets yet, we wanted to drive to the pier and buy them there, and also inquire about how and where the ferry departs the next day. Koman itself actually consists of only about 5 houses and a huge quarry on the mountain, as well as the hydroelectric power plant (with decommissioned French turbines) in Lake Koman. The path to the ferry pier leads over an unpaved road through an unpaved tunnel and looks rather unremarkable... Since we were standing somewhat perplexed on the street, an Albanian car immediately stopped with a young man asking if he could help. 'Yes, we want to go to the ferry.' 'Yes, perfect, follow me, I'm also just going there.' When we arrived there, it turned out that he was the captain. He offered to drive our car onto the ferry right now, so that we wouldn't have any stress tomorrow and could sleep there right away. However, since we still wanted to eat something and hadn't even finished planning our trip, we declined for now. He sold us the tickets (45 euros with the car), which we couldn't even pay because we didn't have enough cash. No problem, we'll settle it when we arrive in Fierze, he said. We drove back to the village together and had dinner together at a small restaurant that fortunately had Wi-Fi. We spent the night there in front of the door (protected by several stray dogs who lay defensively in front of our car) and planned the rest of our trip in the evening. Actually, we wanted to hike in the Albanian mountains: from Valbona to Theth or drive this route by car. But after our research, it was clear that there was no road there. Only an absolutely unpaved path, which we didn't want to subject Winniefred to, as we already knew the condition of the official roads in Albania. So how would the unofficial dirt roads look like? So it turned out that our ferry crossing was actually a dead end. So should we cancel the ferry ride? No way. We didn't just drive 40 km of bumpy road through the mountains for nothing. Or go back and forth with the ferry, back to Shkodra and then to Montenegro across the border or just go into the Albanian mountains and well... uhh.. stay there. Hmm. No. Hard to believe, but up there there really are hardly any roads. Another option that we only considered later was to take the mountain road through Kosovo. That was actually never our plan. But why not. It seemed to be the best solution for us. And according to the internet, it was also the best solution for Winniefred, as the road was supposed to be well developed. So, then. A new completely unplanned country on our trip. Kosovo.

After that was settled, we fell asleep. The ferry left the next day at 9 a.m.... We arrived at the pier around 8:30 a.m., where it was already damn busy. The instruction to board the ship was really unfriendly. Floh had to listen (as 3 people gave different instructions at the same time): 'You are not the driver.' Finally, they drove the car onto the ferry themselves, a real masterpiece, as we only had about 3 cm on each side and about 2 cm space upwards. However, the 2 cm upwards disappeared completely when the pedestrians also went on board, so Winniefred was completely wedged in there. Poor thing. Hopefully, the roof box can handle that... But luckily it did.

The ferry crossing itself was really great, breathtaking landscapes similar to Norway and many nice people from all over the world with whom we started conversations.

Mooring was also funny. There was no pier. The ferry simply approached the mountain where some gravel had been piled up, the ramp was lowered, the edge was smoothed a bit with the feet, and then we could drive down. Really adventurous, the whole thing. But somehow funny too. Since we still had to pay, we were told to simply follow a passenger transport to the next village, which would take us to the ATM and then give the driver the money. Anyway, it seemed to us that everyone in the region was related to each other or at least friends. So that's how it was done and we found ourselves in the middle of the Albanian mountains.