Chillin in the mountains, Montenegro style
Trip Start
Unknown
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Trip End
Ongoing
Zabljak, Durmitor National Park, Montenegro
Monday, September 6, 2010
Hope you are all well, wherever you are on the globe.
We are fine, having moved on from Greece through Albania to Montenegro. Albania was quite an experience, one we will never forget! It is a rather odd country, having been repressed under soviet rule for so long, it seems they are now consuming themselves into the 21st century. For a country that has a lot of natural beauty, it is such a shame that they must throw all their rubbish out their door which then covers it up. I have never seen such filth before, and the people are now at a stage where it doesn't seem to bother them. They are quite happy to swim, sunbathe, graze their animals etc in it. It is just so gross for the most part, that we just kept driving. It got to the point where we were looking for somewhere to pull over to make lunch, and every parking or rest stop was filthy that we just kept on driving for an hour or more. We ended up having to grin and bear it. Apparently under soviet rule the country was quite clean – probably because they had nothing! Now that imports freely come and go, it appears that all the rubbish that comes with it has had no where to go. We saw two rubbish trucks the whole time, and about as many bins. And it is all sorts of waste, from household to builders left over bricks, timber, rubble etc. For miles. And it stinks.
We checked out a couple of places that Andy, Gem, Jeremy and GT suggested, Borsh and Derhmi. Borsh was a small party beach, with bars all the way along it. It had beautiful clear water and a stony beach. A big cesspit behind the road, rubbish from the bars and shops all over the beach and animals freely picking their way through it. Without the rubbish, it would be lovely. With the rubbish, it was gross. It is tipped as being a real hotspot, but I can’t see it until they sort the big mess out.
Our next stop was Derhmi, and it was largely the same. A lovely spot, with great beach, and hotels all around. We didn’t even get out of the van, due to the filth that was all over the town and beach. It was too the point that hotels didn’t even bother doing anything with the rubbish, it just piled up where every they could throw it. Eew.
In saying that, the people where lovely. We tried to track down Nick, the infamous cocktail man that the Hemi crew got chatting to at a bar. Unfortunately we missed the last day of the season by 5 days, which meant that he had gone home, and entrusted the awesome looking bar to young chap, who was doing his best to get through the left over coffee beans and a red bull rep. We had a beer, then went back to the van to admire the sunset and cook a corker tea.
As we drove north, we saw more and more of the bunkers, trenches and pillboxes that were left over from the war that ravaged these parts as late as the 90’s. There are thousands of these things, at a lot of beaches, rural intersections, railway lines etc. I managed to climb into one or two, and it really does feel odd looking out the small machine gun slot down an innocent beach.
We headed north for Montenegro, and came across a reasonable sized town, by the name of Schkoder. We wandered the markets, had a coffee and bought some food for lunch. The roast chicken was lovely, especially on fresh bread baked bought from a hole in the wall of a filthy side alley. We saw alsorts in this town, carpets being sold next to a lamb carcass strung up on a concrete fence being butchered to customers requests, lambs spit roasting over coals on someones driveway, donkey and carts everywhere (even at the petrol station hehe!) and a massive array of goods. Driving through was quite trickey as the road disintegrated into a track, with lumps of tarseal – it was usually smoother just to drive in the dirt. The hoardes of Mercedes seem to handle it, although we saw many cars being repaired on the side of the road. Trev handled it fine, which was great as my Albanian car linguals are not quite up to scratch.
The border crossing was uneventful, and after buying van insurance and taxing the van (which I am sure was a complete con) we left 80 euro lighter, but keen to explore this new country. The hype was all there, in the travel books and to all that we had spoken to. Well we certainly weren’t let down. What a contrast to its neighbour, Montenegro is clean, tidy, orderly, and even the drivers seem ok, something we haven’t seen since we left the UK. Our first stop was Sveti Stefani, after driving through a national park and enjoying lovely views of the mountains, lakes and then the coast. We swam at Sveti Stefani, and then carried on to Budva. It was an awesome place, plenty happening and a great old city to explore. We parked the van in a chav housing estate, and ate a feast, then drove back into the town, parked up and explored. It was quite neat to do this in the evening, as the lights came on and everything looked rather idyllic.
The following day was one of the highlights of the whole trip. We left Budva, and headed inland into another national park, Lovcen. We approached from behind, and headed up the mountain. After a quick cuppa in the morning sun, we scaled the summit, and began the descent on the coast side. We were immediately hit with the stunning views of the Bay of Kotor, which had stunning irredescent blue water (reminiscent of Capri), and many small towns dotted around its edges. The mountain we were on simply dropped into the sea. The road headed down its sea side edge, with no less than 25 hairpins. Trev got another workout but ate up the miles. Kotor itself was a nice town, fairly touristy, but with a fairly intact old city, it was inevitable. We didn’t have the energy to climb the mountain with craggy city walls wiggling their way up to the church and palace at the top, so had lunch and just enjoyed the view.
From Kotor, we made our way around the Bay, and then headed north to Ostrog, where a monestry sits perched amongst the rocks, in carved caves. It is ultra religious, and we wandered in on a Sunday evening, when all the pilgrims where heading in. A monk/priest was in the tiny chapel (which held about 6 people) and directed them where to kiss after they had crossed themselves in Orthodox fashion. We didn’t know he was in there, and wandered in, and felt like real intruders, as people were so sombre. After getting a reasonable view, we backed our way out, hopefully without offending anyone. We climbed up the stairs and found another chapel, this one unoccupied, so we could have a bit of a better look. The colours and icons were rather bright, painted straight onto the uneven stone surface. The people wandering around were crossing themselves all over the show, and kissing all sorts of things, pictures, doorways, ornaments etc. We were well out of our depth, so managed to sneak out, again hopefully without offending anyone. We camped that night on the slopes of the mountain, about half way up. It was rather pleasant.
From Ostrog we headed north to Durmitor National Park, where we are currently parked. We opted for a bike ride today through the park, and found the Black Eye, a big black lake. It poured, so we spent the afternoon in the van, in anticipation of our rafting trip tomorrow. It should be awesome!
Our next stop is Bosnia, for a couple of nights, then we are on a mad dash to Split, Croatia to catch our boat on Sail Croatia. Finally a chance to put our feet up and let someone else decide where we are going!
Chris and Keryn
