The old man on lake Skadar

The old man didn’t know English at all, French or any other language.

And yet he managed to say one word during the few hours he took us and a French family all over the lake. At some moment, he raised his eyes and pointing to a distant location, he said: „Albania!”

I almost fell from the boat. If we were on land, we would have run. And the French too. He pointed to Albania like being a place where you don’t want to go, where danger was at every step.

After a few minutes we recovered, only the French remained a little scared. They could see themselves on TV, kidnapped in some Internet movie. After exchanging some words in French, they seemed a little better.

But what is Lake Skadar?

Lake Skadar is the greatest lake in the Balcans. It provides shelter to over 260 species of birds and is one of the few places in Europe where you can see pelicans. They say it is the last, but we came from Romania and we knew we have a lot more pelicans in the Danube Delta.

During the time on the lake with this French family, we took many photos with the camera using the zoom lens.

We also saw an old Turkish prison, now in ruin, which was on a little island. We could have taken a swim, but the French were too scared after seeing how close Albania was to us.