Visual Rhapsody
Departure from ELBAZAN on September 26, 2022.
We leave ELBAZAN, its ruined fortress and its wooden mosque which welcomed us with a lot of simplicity and consideration …
The rest of the day was quite different. The road took another dimension. It was hilly and sometimes twisted, the green took intensity in the hollow of each bend.
Always the same activity along the road. Herds of goats followed by stray dogs, countless fruit, vegetable, and other spice vendors, and as always, soapy car washes where you can see all the Mercedes models of the past in a gleam that would make Parisian master drivers blush.
All these constants are exactly the same since the first kilometer, the rhythm of the visual melody on which we progress doesn’t move , perhaps the secret of Albanian life. The road rises, and each panorama at the end of a curve is a surprise. We wonder what we can find next.
Suddenly, the road changes widen and become clearer, a dark blue stretch of water, surrounded by greenery, to which the white clouds embroider a necklace, a natural beauty.
The lake of Orchid- Natural border with Macedonia.
The deepest tectonic water area in the Balkans. It is believed to be between 2 and 4 million years old and is home to the eponymous sponge that can also be found in Lake Baikal.
We walked along the shores of the lake until we reached the point where we stopped. The light was very special. I walked around and found a kind of inner peace growing with every step I took.
I would start tomorrow, by seeing the sun rise over the lake. Here is a testimony of it.
Eric Lepeingle
