Treat Time

Tuesday 24 September 2024 

We’re hopefully done with the dusty, off-the-beaten-track dirt roads in Albania now so we treated the van to a €10 sudsy ‘lavazh’ (wash) this morning. We’ve also treated ourselves to the same in a rather smart campsite on the outskirts of the town of Shkodër. It has a swimming pool, cafe-bar, restaurant, steaming hot powerful showers, lovely clean toilets, laundry and cooking facilities. The latter are particularly welcome as we’ve just run out of gas and are unlikely to find a replacement cylinder in Albania.

Having recovered from the trauma of the narrow twisty tarmacked road up to Theth in the Albanian Alps we, perhaps foolishly, decided to try the road to Koman. Lots of blogs recommend the beautiful 2 hour ferry trip from Koman to Fierze to experience the stunning scenery along the River Drin. First though, we had to negotiate 13 miles of unpaved, potholed, rutted dirt road - a very slow dusty torturous journey. 

We were undecided as to whether/when to do the ferry trip because the weather forecast was for thundery storms. On approaching Koman we felt quite pressured by a number of sales agents vying for our business to buy tickets for the trip. As foot passengers the price was reasonable but the camper would have cost quite a bit, and presumably earned them a reasonable amount of commission. We drove past lots of parked cars and minibuses on the road leading to the ferries before arriving at a single width, roughly cut, dimly lit tunnel which we innocently drove through. 

At the other side was the ferry ‘terminal’ and we were met with the usual chaotic double parking of scooters, cars and minibuses and absolutely nowhere to park or turn around easily. With two cars following us through the tunnel it was a bit like that Rush Hour traffic jam logic puzzle to try and turn round and head back through the tunnel away from the stressful melee and yet more ticket touts. We felt we had probably already seen a small glimpse of what we would see further upstream on the drive up so we decided to give the ferry trip a miss.

We wild camped half way back down the dirt road, lit our mini folding BBQ and sat out enjoying the peace, tranquility and dark skies. The photographs won’t do it justice but the stars and the Milky Way were just amazing.  

From the campsite in Shkodër we walked up to Rozafa castle positioned high on a hill overlooking the town. It’s an extensive site with sections dating back to the 4th century BC. The views from the castle in all directions were beautiful, whether looking west towards Lake Shkodër and Montenegro or looking south at the confluence of the three rivers that surround the town - the Drin, the Kir and the Bajana. 

We’ll head south from here over the next three days making our way towards, hopefully, a more organised ferry terminal in Durres. From there we will take a 10 hour overnight trip to Bari in Italy and start on our trip back home.