Lake Komani, 28 September 2012

Our little Danish group (Kurt,Birthe, Allan and I) and our guide, Naim Selimaj, gathered at 5 in the morning to take the minibus to Komani where the waterbus on the Komani lake starts. Lake Komani was created in the 1970s—the by-product of a massive hydroelectric project. The narrow, twisting and turning body of water is edged by sheer cliffs that have been there for thousands of years. Travelers compare this part of the world to Norway and its fjords. The two-hour ride on the car ferry is one the nature highlights of Albania.

Pig or pit stop, two nice pigs next to the café where we had a coffee stop on the way

The Lake Koman bus-ferry

Passenger with a sack of apples leaving the ferry

Another passenger

Lake Koman taxi

Albanian family on board the water taxi

The minibus type

Our waterbus: Dragoba. Some clever locals had taken a public bus and built a ship's hull around it. This is the local waterbus service that that ply the long, sinuous waters of Lake Komani

Waterbus passengers – it is our guide to the left

Two Albanian boys

The scenery

Where there is some arable land there are also houses

We passed many impressive haystacks

Lake Komani is a dammed lake, running some forty kilometres through the heart of the Dinaric alps.

Ferrybus-stop: The people living on the shores of the lake, almost totally cut off from the world around them, rely on boats to get anywhere and on the ferry to bring them any supplies or mail.