Got woken up at 22:30 by a bunch of kids shouting and running up and down the corridor – phoned reception to find out what was going on, receptionist was apologetic, said it was some kids – which I knew, but wondered if it was guests or trouble. Sounded like a school trip.
Got up at 05:25, downstairs and waiting at 06:20, mini bus turned up on time to our great relief.
Got joined by some others then left the city. The custom in Albania is for people to wait by the side of the road and flag down passing transport for a lift. We were joined by an old guy who went about 1 km, then stopped at a small village and picked up a bloke and his 3 kids. As we continued on, saw quite a few donkeys pulling carts and a guy taking 3 cows for a walk.
The bus travelled up and down hills, around a lake, and some of the roads were pretty rough and it was slow going at some points. Song pointed out that there wouldn’t be a normal bus service, the roads were too bad. Even though it was slow, the bus was owned by the ferry operator so we knew we wouldn’t miss it. Actually it turned out that the bloke and his 3 kids were the owners, the bloke the captain.
The radio was on and we listened to some of my favourite Albanian tunes.
The road wound around the hills, skirting a lake, presenting some great views once again, the early morning sun striking the hills and reflecting off the still green water of the lake.
It took 25 minutes to go the last 10km over very rough roads. We came out of a tunnel to the ferry terminal which was a very small jetty packed with cars parked all over the place, with a cafe and shop, and a very small ferry waiting to board passengers and cars, a mixture of tourists and locals.
As we got off the bus, the cold hit us – it was about 7c, but the sun was shining so we hoped it would warm up.
Song spent a lot of planning getting us here – today was the first day after winter that the ferry runs, so she did a lot of scheduling and rescheduling to get us here today.
We hadn’t had breakfast so went into the cafe but they only did drinks. There was a small shop that sold crisps and nibbles so we bought some junk food just for something to eat.
The ferry was packed, lots of nationalities.
I won’t spend much time describing the journey, I’ll just say it was really special. If you’ve been to Milford Sound it’s like that, only a lot better. 3 hours of travelling on still green water between sheer cliffs, tree covered hills, stunning scenery. Got chatting with a young couple, him English, her German. They were in their mid twenties and both had travelled extensively – Albania was his 49th country and he only started travelling 4 years ago. It’s taken me 45 years to do that.
Took loads of photos, Song and I agreed the scenery is better than Canada. There were quite a few houses on the hillside, I’ve no idea how they live there, it’s so isolated. They were farms, and we saw a few gravity-defying goats walking on the steep slopes. Every so often there would be a small boat unloading people who piled gear onto donkeys and headed up a narrow path to one of the farms.
The couple mentioned they were travelling to the same place as us – Prizren in Kosovo.
When Song was researching this leg, the travel was a bit iffy. It’s quite a way off the beaten track. There are a few blogs and Tripadvisor forum posts, but no bus timetables as such.
The plan was to get off the ferry at Fierza, where there are mini buses waiting to take people to Barjam Curri. From there we would get another bus to Djakovica. Get off that one and onto another to Prizren. Only about 90km in total, but probably looking at a 2-3 hour trip depending on how often the buses run.
Got off at Fierza, which was basically a bit of land for the ferry to stop at, with a small cafe and several cars waiting to get on – no buses waiting to take anyone. OK, that’s sort of a problem.
Song spoke to one of the locals from the boat who dashed into the cafe, and got the owner to call a taxi, said it would cost 50 Euro total. We spoke to the couple who were more than happy to share.
Taxi arrived in about 5 minutes, an old Volkswagen, but big enough for all of us and our luggage. The driver didn’t speak English but knew where we were going.
After about 30 minutes we came to the border with Kosovo – the guard asked if we were ok to have a stamp, which was good of him. If you go to Kosovo you might have trouble getting into Serbia because they don’t recognise it. We were through in about 5 minutes.
Just over the border we encountered a man taking his horses for a walk in the middle of the road. The driver put the radio on and we listened to some of my favourite Kosovan tunes.
The countryside was mostly flat with snow topped mountains in the distance, and it looked a bit poorer than Albania.
When we got to Prizren the driver nudged me to ask where we wanted to stop. ‘Avtobuska Stanic’ I replied, having read the sign in Kotor. He had no idea what I was talking about. I pointed to a coach – ‘bus. Avtobus. Avtobuska. Autobus’. He nodded and proceeded to follow the bus.
Oh well, I hoped the bus was going to the station. Luckily the others saw the bus station so we told him to stop.
Had a nice chat with the couple, parted ways at the bus station and went to buy tickets for the next day, but were told we buy them on the bus.
We hadn’t booked a hotel so needed to find a cafe with internet, plus food. The first one had wifi but just cakes. The second had food but no wifi. The third was a pizzeria that had wifi. Yay.
Sat down in the empty restaurant and the 3 staff looked at us as if they didn’t expect anyone, so I asked for the menu which spurred them into action.
I looked at the menu – Pizza Normale – OK, boring. Margerita – yep, know what that is. Tuna – easy. Suxhuk – we’ll come back to that. Somun – nope. Lamaxhun – not a clue.
Song ordered tuna, I took a gamble and went for the Suxhuk. If it was sheep’s eyeballs I’d decline. Luckily it turned out to be salami.
Meanwhile the restaurant suddenly became the most popular in Prizren as 13 people turned up (and most started smoking). But they all had coffee then left after about 10 minutes. So we had 2 decent sized pizzas, a coffee, a can of iced tea, they gave me a juice without me asking, and I also had 2 scoops of ice cream. Cost 5 Euro, which was $7. SEVEN DOLLARS! Amazing.
Used the wifi to find a hotel that was close and looked decent, just turned up and luckily he had about 40 rooms free.
Walked into the old town, very small and busy, there was an old stone bridge and a few mosques, some churches and a fortress on top of a hill. Having climbed the hill in Kotor yesterday we decided against it. As we were taking photos of the bridge the couple we’d shared the cab with appeared. Had a brief chat then parted again, we wandered around. Tried to get into the churches but there was police there not allowing visitors in. We’d read there was an advisory that terrorists were going to target Christian churches in the Balkans over Easter, so probably just as well.
Walked back to the hotel and collapsed.
We were going to spend 2 nights in Prizren but have decided to leave tomorrow and onto Skopje in Macedonia. 3 countries in 3 days, a record for us.
Once again Song booked a fantastic trip, somewhere I would never have thought about. The ferry trip was just incredible scenery. I’d certainly recommend it, but you need to be up for a bit of uncertainty and mild discomfort, it’s not 5 star travel, and I don’t know if we were lucky with the taxi or they are always available.
