Ok so this isn’t so much a major story with a plot as just a small fun anecdote about this ferry in the image above. If you go do the famous three-day hike in the Albanian Alps you may encounter this Frankenstein boat when you try to cross Komani lake. It is essentially just a barge on top of which they welded the top half of a city bus. It has an actual steering wheel for a rudder, there’s bus seats inside and little bus curtains in front of the windows.
The ferry stops at dozens of different locations along the lake shore, apparently wherever people just happen to be standing after having descended the mountains. Often times the ferry would slow down and look like it was trying to run aground in a random spot only for people to suddenly appear from the bushes and trees. At such stops whomever was at the bow would let down a rusted gangway that did not look sturdy at all.
Nonetheless the locals used this ferry to transport anything and everything from pigs and chickens, giant bags of watermelons and an entire washing machine. Though the number of people on the ferry varied along the trip at some points one had to just marvel at the Albanian ability to fit so many people into what was essentially just a small bus. My hiking buddy and I looked inside but decided to stay on deck because we had the distinct impression that if the ferry ever got in trouble from overloading and capsized and we were inside we wouldn’t ever get out again (besides the weather was great anyway).
Taking this ferry feels like watching the Scrapheap Challenge tv-show in real life.
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