The question was: would there be a boat still running in the wintertime to ferry me across Komani Lake and coastward? The internet didn't have a clue. The Montenegrins were sure that there was no such winter ferry. On the Albanian side of the Accursed Mountains, Bek, who fed me in the afternoon after I crossed Qafë Vranicë and fed me again the following morning, was certain that there was one, but didn't know the timetable. I would just have to find out at the dock in Fierzë.
It's midday, I see no signs of life at this dock. Further down the road running along the river I spot a small, two-story building with the word "Hotel" painted on the side facing the road. Three young men sit inside, smoking and playing cards. One of them knows a bit of English, it seems, so I ask him about the boat. He confirms Bek's surety - there is one, but he also doesn't know when it will next depart. He picks up his phone, makes a call, there's a brief back and forth in Albanian, and he hangs up. "Boat at six tomorrow morning." He gestures that it will pick me up just here by the water. I'm relieved. Not only is this nearly three-hour boat trip down Komani Lake touted as one of Albania's natural must-do's (though the lake is artificial), but also, more importantly, it will rescue me from a very hilly and very painful sixty-mile detour on the way to Shkoder. See, my knee was still tender after smacking it on Volusnica, and the sheer effort required to hike myself and the bike up Vranicë had only aggravated it further (it would take another five weeks to fully heal). I ask the man, who by now I'd gathered was the hotel proprietor's son, if I can sleep on the ground outside tonight. He nods.
Not needing to go anywhere else, I pass the rest of the day in and about the hotel's first floor, an area for socializing, with a bar in one corner, a fireplace in the other, and a television, centered on the wall in-between, running through an endless playlist of modern Albanian music videos. The sun comes out in full force in the early afternoon. And here, much lower in altitude, the air is a comfortable temperature. It is the first time in over a week that I can just sit outside and bask in the warm light. So simple, yet such a gift. I pay for lunch but am treated to Flija, a northern Albanian specialty, for dinner while I keep warm by the fire as newcomers, friends all, drink, play cards, and chuck their empty cigarette packs and beer cans into the fire - clearly a typical Sunday night at this riverside establishment. We overcome the language barrier with laughter and smiles. Come night, three very hungry, stray dogs scavenge around the hotel grounds, so the owner's son generously offers me a bed. Two meals and a bed in one day - the legends of Albanian hospitality were true!
Loading starchy cargo
Too heavy for me!
It's nearly six o'clock and I see no boat here. I cycle back up the road to the lifeless dock I'd passed earlier. It's pitch black out, but I begin to see some lights. A pickup truck carrying some cargo has just pulled up. An older man sits in this truck just some meters from what appears to be the "boat." He motions me inside, a kind offer of shelter from the sharp teeth of the morning's winds.
Sat in his passenger's seat, with his poor English and my non-existent Albanian - though by day two I had nailed 'fallaminderit,' 'thank you' - we chat as best we can about snowfall in the mountains and about what we each studied in school.
A short while later, the crew arrives, and it's go-time. I volunteer to help him transfer his cargo, six massive sacks of potatoes, from truck to boat. I have dragged my twenty-six-plus-kilogram loaded bike through snow, carried it up seriously steep mountain tracks, hoisted it above my head in order to clear fences and fallen trees, but lifting this man's potatoes proved a feat too Herculean for me. Humbled by potatoes, it becomes apparent that this seventy-year-old man didn't need my help anyways. Ah well.
Technically speaking, this top-half-of-a-bus-welded-onto-a-buoyant-rectangular-metal-platform thing, counts as a boat - but only just. Ten euros apiece, I'm told. Ten for me and ten for the bike. Fair enough, I think - man and machine are surely of equal worth in this traveling duo.
We set sail with five of us (bike included!) down the river Drin, which eventually opens up into Komani Lake. The boat regularly stops to pick up new passengers and by the end it is nearly a full bus. When the new arrivals board, some of them take my hand or grab my arm with a smile as if to say, "You look lost, far from home - but welcome!"
Those who inhabit the mountains around Komani Lake live beyond the reach of any road. To get anywhere requires a long hike or this Frankenstein bus-boat, and still, one might have to hike up to two hours on rugged trails to even get to the boat. It is a shockingly impractical way to live, but it is immensely appreciated in a world of atrophy inducing comfort and convenience.
The sky slowly awakens, and the sight of mountain ridges frozen atop fiery, autumnal forests is a marvel of the nascent winter. It is my third day in Albania and the fantastical landscape has me quite sure that I will soon be tasked with chucking a ring into a volcano.
Three stunning hours later, we disembark before a massive dam. The "road" to Shkoder is a collage of textures ranging from perfect asphalt to severely cracked and potholed concrete, to just some rocks. I am grateful for my traveling companion's plush three-and-a-quarter inch tires.
