Day 9 Blue Eye adventures

Beautiful Albanian country side with a mysteriously marked mountainside.

I slept very soundly and woke up excited for the day, even though it didn’t include diving, we got to go to Blue Eye (Syri i kaltë)!  For breakfast we enjoyed our fried dough and briefing prior to heading out. Today we students snorkeled so our gear was considerably lighter and easier to pack into two taxis.  It is a beautiful hour-ish drive from Saranda to Blue Eye winding into the hills.  Derek pointed out a long horizontal line across one of the hills, asked us what we thought it could be and promised to tell us later.  Even along the road the glimpses of the river that flows from the Blue Eye impressed us, so clear you could clearly see all the way to the bottom of the riverbed.  Along the road there were areas where water poured from the mountain and the locals would stop and fill their water bottles as we had in Cold Water on my first day in Albania.   Upon arrival to the Blue Eye proper we were all wowed, what a dramatically beautiful landscape nestle in a lustrous forest.  After a short hike to the spring itself through a lightly wooded area, we were graced with a breathtaking experience. The spring bubbles up out of the ground forming a pool, which swiftly flows away becoming the river.    

One of the numerous dragonfly in the area.

The water from the Blue Eye is the water the locals drink and it is delicious.

The Blue Eye

Effie enjoying a frigid dip.

The water in the inner part of the spring appears very dark blue, like the pupil of an eye, and the outer ring a lighter blue, like the iris, giving the impression of an eye, hence the name.  There are dragonflies and frogs abound near the mouth of the Blue Eye.  Though we didn’t dive today Derek and Chris did, they headed about 20 meters down in to the Blue Eye to replace and check on sensors they previously placed.  We watched and waited, the locals visiting were confused and amused by us.  One woman showed up after Derek and Chris descended and was swimming in the pool, the look on her face when Chris surfaced first, coming out of the cave that forms the mouth of the Blue Eye was hilarious.   We waded a bit but I was a wimp and suited up in my wetsuit prior to fully submerging.  The mountain water was frigid!  The water is also so clean and refreshing we could just drink it as we swam.  After the guys surfaced and got out of their gear we all, including Michael Blades, snorkeled from the mouth of the Blue Eye down the river for a few minutes to where the restaurant is.  The water was swift and clear and we just let go and went along for the ride, grouping back up a few times at turns in the river.  Everyone else was cold but Cameron and I wanted to stay in so we swam around in the wide area the river formed that was fairly lacking in current.  There was a lot of algae and we swam through it finding frogs and Cameron found and caught a water snake.  

Cameron with the snake he caught.

 We headed back in after about 20 minutes and showed the snake off before changing and joining everyone else for lunch.  We ate outside right next to the river, there was plenty of glorious salad and tzatziki and I had a delicious pork chop.  The water was so good I just couldn’t stop drinking it and the waiters just refilled out pitcher straight from the source.  After lunch we chased lizards and frogs, and took many more pictures of the copious dragonflies and headed home.  Derek finally told us the story of the stripe on the mountain.  Local legend says that a dragon lived in the Blue Eye until the day he emerged kidnapping a local princess and flying away with her.  As he flew away his claws scratched into the mountainside leaving the mark we still see today.  Though the dragon is long gone he left behind his children, all the beautiful dragonflies.   On the way back everyone napped, purposefully or not.  After we returned and hung our essentially very well rinsed gear to dry and rested a bit.  Tonight we had dinner with Alma and family.  They made delicious side dishes including an amazing pepper dish, we provided a bunch of pizza and we feasted all together on the ground floor patio.  After dinner there was much singing & dancing, they even ran in to town and grabbed a new cd of traditional Albanian music when theirs wouldn’t play.  We all learned some traditional Albanian dances, watched the girls beautifully preform others and then taught Alma and the girls some goofy more modern dances.  We all laughed, and danced and laughed some more until we were all exhausted.  Sadly tonight we bid farewell to Michael who is returning home in the morning.  It was really nice to meet and get to know him and will take up his offer of a visit if I ever make it to Key West, Florida.  So tired I barely had time to jot some notes down and download the hundreds of pictures I took today before falling into a deep sleep.

One last shot of the beautiful river.