Slovenian
winter gave us a big kick in our asses, we had no water, no snow, a completely
dry winter was a nightmare. I was just waiting for a good early kayak trip. The
Balkan countries apparently had a promising snow package that in some areas it
was a record in the last 50 years. I heard stories about Albanian`s exotic (discovered and undiscovered) rivers, some of
them were still under the question because of
hard access. All the rumours about Albania just fired me up, soon I
teamed up with Janez Cizman, Jonas Savsek, Luka Stricelj, Bety Brabceva, Dejan
Sirme and Miha Kricaj for the Albanian trip.
We headed down south on tenth of april, overloaded with two
Off-roads. After a 12 hour drive and no sleep, we came in Herceg Novi (Monte
Negro) where we turned east for some warm-up paddling on Tara river. Later that
day Janez Cizman made a few phone calls and soon we were astonished about Monte
Negro hospitality. Mico the owner of the apartment village at the exit of lower
Tara, arranged us dry beds, lots of food and Rakija!
Next day
we turned our compass to Moraca river but snow on the road forced us to go back
and forget about paddling that day.
We
turned towards the Albanian border and (inspired by Monte Negro stereotype
citizens) we took it easy towards our goal.
At
first, crossing the Albanian border, filled me with a strange feeling, my first
impression was a chaotic mess of Mercedes-Benz cars, the roads were like Swiss
cheese and full of dirt, plus the celebrity of Albanian mafia made me sceptical a little bit. On the way to Skhoder, the sun was
setting and a rain storm followed us from Monte Negro…
Adventures
and mishaps followed the next day with rain, traffic jam and navigation
problems, but we made it to the first Albanian river Kirit (Kir):
Lower Kir
is a nice river just 1h from Skhoder town (if you find the road), with nice low
class IV-V canyons, even the road is good and landscape is impressive! That day
the rain was soaking us all day long, the water was on the high side but the
crew was impatient to go paddling. Fired up we did the first strokes and found ourselves into a good warm-up river, that was just
getting better and better. The highlights of Kirit are the low canyons that are
more or less class 5. We had some high pushy water, probably with normal levels
is more of a drop and pool style. There are
several rapids that need to be scouted and safety is really welcome. Anyway it
is a good warm-up that can be easily scouted from the road!
The same
day after some planning, we headed towards Valbona valley, because of a bad
weather on the east-northern region. We drove to Koman lake to catch the
morning ferry, surprisingly to us, this was the
first year that the ferry started operating from may 1st on. Disappointed
we were forced to make a different plan. The next morning we drove back through
Kirit and went over a 1300m high mountain pass that was leading to river Shala
(Shales).
Shala is a
river trapped into a remote area, almost with no civilization. There are two
roads leading into the valley, one from valley of Kir, and the other one goes over
Teth which was full of snow. Neither of the two roads are good and required a
4X4.
I will
divide the upper part of the river in two sections. one is step, fast and bony,
the other one is juicy, open and clear. It`s a mix between different styles and
it offers some nice technical rapids. At the end
there is a canyon with some challenging rapids. Shala was a special experience
because of it`s wilderness and preserved nature, it made the paddling even more
interesting.
The next
day we did the upper Kir which was not a hard run but a good option to make up
for the previously wasted day due to the ferry schedule surprise.
Since we
entered Monte Negro the rain did not stop once, the rivers were full on and on
the high side of good. We wer soaked to the bones, we felt a little depressed
and the desire to paddle was trying to leave us.
Anyway we stuck to the plan and drove to Valbona.
Valbona was the highlight for me and is the hardest and the most
beautiful river in Albania. The valley is already high and it had a big snow
package, at the start we had rain and snow, with high water level. Temperatures
were cold, anyway we got dressed and went into the first rapid. We paddled
several great class 5 rapids, lots of scouting was necessary. We were portaging
like crazy because of high water, luckily there is a path on the right of the
river. We could not do the lower half of the river because the rocks were just
buried under the water. Rapids that we did paddle were powerful but in one way
friendly and manageable.
We ended
our paddling on Valbona and in the next days just cruised over Kosovo and Monte
Negro trying to get some sun and have fun. Albania was a positive cultural
experience, people were super good, friendly and willing to help. It is probably
not the safest country and there is more than one thing that could go wrong,
but it is all part of the adventure. In towns the hotels and food are cheap,
camping in the mountains is probably even safer.
Their rivers
are very familiar to me because are similar to our Soca river, steep,
fragmented, and technical. One thing is for sure, I would go back again…
Text:
Andrej Bijuklic
