Welcome to travels with Todd

Our stop in Lezhë was necessarily brief because we had a date for lunch on our way to a boat ride across Lake Koman (Liqeni i Komanit in Albanian) and up to the Shala River (Lumi i Shalës) where we’d spend the next two nights. (Also, I don’t think there’s much more to do or see in Lezhë beyond the Skanderbeg Mausoleum.) Whether you would or wouldn’t consider the road to Lake Koman long is subjective. It’s windiness much less so. The roughly 135km from Lezhë to Koman required a drive of nearly four hours (excluding our lunch stop) meaning our average speed was about 38km/h (23 mph for my American friends). Admittedly, the road’s condition – mostly unpaved and rife with potholes and other obstacles contributed to our leisurely pace. We stopped for lunch at the family run Ledi’s Place

where we had some time to wander the grounds and take in some lovely views

before we were treated to a traditional meal.

Since it was Sunday, there was no work on the construction project aimed at improving the road. (I don’t begrudge these steps. Improvements are necessary and it will certainly make this part of the country more accessible but, looking through the other end of the telescope, it’s one project among many that will lay a veneer of western inauthenticity to Albania in the coming years.)

Once we neared the lake, we had to disembark from our bus and, either towing or carrying our luggage, walk through a tunnel that I’d estimate was 500 meters long with vehicular traffic approaching from the opposite direction. (I don’t recall any cars traveling in our direction.)

[From Mindtrip]

I think this was necessary because our bus would have struggled to turn around at the ferry port where we’d board our boat for the ride to our Shala River resort. (Or maybe it was just a part of the adventure.)

Komani my house, my house

Albania has approximately 247 natural lakes mainly formed through karstic or glacial processes. These include the tectonic lakes Lake Shkodër (which is also a karstic lake) and Lake Ohrid and Grame Lake. The last is proglacial. In addition to its natural lakes, Albania also has more than 800 artificial reservoirs. Lake Koman is among the latter.

In the early 1960s, Enver Hoxha denounced Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a “revisionist” and “anti-Marxist.” This prompted Albania’s exclusion from both the Warsaw Pact and Comecon but Hoxha had only begun the process that would result in the country’s near total isolation. Thus, when construction began on the hydroelectric dam project that would form Lake Koman, Albania had the aid of French engineers and financial backing from China.

Construction on the dam began in 1978 and created a lake across the Drin River which itself is fed by the Valbona and Shala Rivers. The lake covers an area of 34 km² and its power station is a critical piece of Albania’s infrastructure. It’s estimated that 95 percent of the country’s electricity is sourced from hydropower and the Koman project supplies nearly a third of that power.

The lake is named for the nearby town of Koman that’s even smaller than Lezhë but that also might mark a critical inflection point in Albanian history.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Alexandre Degrand, a former French consul in Shkodra, was the first to unearth graves and artifacts in the settlement called Kalaja e Dalmâce located within modern day Koman. Dating to the seventh century with a mix of Christian and Pagan elements, they serve, at the very least, as a bridge between the Illyrian civilization of late antiquity and the early medieval period and some Albanians see this as a crucial waypoint in Albanian history. They maintain that the Koman culture provides the first evidence of Albanians becoming distinct from the Illyrians and that it’s symbolized by the ancient tale of the legend of Koman or the legend of Dragon Rock. The perduring legend in which a Drangue defeats a Kucedra symbolizes battles of elemental and supernatural forces. (The mythical multiheaded Kucedra or Kulchedra is found throughout the Balkan region but the stories around Dragon Rock have a particularly Albanian character.)

I know I’m gonna love you any old way

Once we finished our walk through the tunnel, we loaded our luggage and boarded a multi-passenger skiff with an outboard motor for the ride up the Drin to the Shala River. As nearly as I can reckon it this was our route.

This section of the river passes through a series of gorges that I’d estimate ranged in width from as narrow as 50 meters to as wide as several hundred. The heights of the gorge walls were similarly impressive along what I’d guess was about a 15km ride that lasted about 40 minutes.

Curiously, we were at a much lower altitude than I would have guessed based on the seeming ascent of the drive north from Lezhë. The town of Koman is 330 meters above sea level and the dam at our embarkation point a mere 115 meters. The nearby town of Nanbli has an elevation of 184 meters. I point this out to note than any guess I might make regarding the height of the surrounding slopes would almost certainly be wildly inaccurate so I’ll leave that estimation to you. (Apply this same caveat to my estimate of the distance we traveled between the bosky banks.)

We arrived at our riverside resort late in the afternoon but I had enough time to wander about the immediate area without straying too far because supper soon awaited.

You can see the boat we road up the river or one very much like it in this photo (and if skiff is the wrong descriptor, please feel free to mockingly point that out). Hidden by the riverside bar, is a spot where, at E’s suggestion, we’d gather around a fire pit after our meal. It provided a chance for me to become a little better acquainted with my fellow travelers. There were a dozen or so in the group and, while I’d managed to engage in a quick series of introductions, I’d been largely absent when many of them had met for drinks at the Hotel Livia in Tirana the previous night.

I should note that, while E was the only person who got it, this was the first time on the trip I had the chance or need to wear my “Bite the Knife” hoodie. (Thanks to MC for inspiring it.)

I’ll wrap things up here. For now, here are a few more photos pertaining to this and the previous post you can look at if you’re so inclined.