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In this issue: Me getting pulled over by montenegrian police, the venetian gondola ride, chocolate-flavoured suncream, home-made montenegrian booze and an excuse.
First I start with the excuse: I have forgotten the cable which can connect my camera with a PC and it is really hard finding a PC which has a SD-memory card slot.So right now I am unable to upload any of these awesome pictures I take every day.And sry, I lied: This post isn't from Montenegro, it is from BiH already. But it is about Montenegro :P.
Let me try and summarize all the week: Ok, I took an overnight bus from Ohrid in Macedonia to Budva in Montenegro. It didn't take 12 hours as expected, but only 9. So I got to my hostel at 7 in the morning and could watch everybody slowly getting out of their beds. The hostel keeper told me that there is a boat cruise planned for this day and, after some consideration I decided to join. It was actually organized by a neighbour of the hostel, a funny old man and his wife. I call him the „captain". The captain welcomed us on his boat with some home-made loza (montenegrian grappa) and we all had to take a sip. He then cruised around the bay and we all had a wonderful time: picnic on the beach of an island in the bay, swimming in the adriatic sea, fishing (or lets say: we tried) aaaaaaaaand cliff jumping. I did it back in Ohrid (7m) and here we had two options: 7m and 15m. I was the first one to leap from the 7m one, and subconsciously looked at the 15m one again and again. I talked to a welsh guy, Gavin, and he said that he would join me. So we started the climb up the cliff. During the climb you already get shaky knees because one false step and you slip off the cliff and do god-knows-what to yourself. The holiday would be screwed. Two locals actually followed us and wanted to give us advice. In reality, they were joking and smoking on the cliff while we were sitting there, shaky, adrenalin-pumped. We wanted them to jump so we could eventually do it ourselves. Right before they finally jumped they crossed themselves (5 times!). Not very encouraging... There is nothing else to say: We jumped at the same time and the moment when you step off the cliff and see nothing but water 15m below you is simply amazing. Some other boat cruise participators took awesome pictures and even a video, but... you have to wait. After I got back from the cruise I went to the old town of Budva, which is quite enjoyable. After getting back to the hostel, everybody decided to go out this night, including the hostel owner and the hostel keeper. So we went back to the old town together and enjoyed the evening. In the morning I organized myself a paragliding trip. Gavin joined again. Harry which Ive met in Sofia and Ohrid arrived at the hostel. You meet the same people again and again if they travel in the same direction. Oh yeah, paragliding: I have to say, the view was awesome. We started at 800m above sea level and smoothly glided down to the sea, eventually landing at the beach. My pilot did a sick spiral over the beach. It was no real adrenalin thrill like the cliff jumping thing. Somehow I had total trust in my pilot and just enjoyed it. I could see car wrecks all over the mountain and my pilot just said: „Yes, people die everyday on the streets of montenegro". This is quite a shock considering that this tiny country has only a population of about 700000. After paragliding and still not getting sunburned (quite a surprise for me, I must say), I decided to do a quick trip to Kotor at the southern-most fjord of Europe. It has a real real nice old town and ruins of a fortress rising above it. Of course, Ive climbed up. It was like a huge playground for adults. And I tell you what: On the descent I met Phil (from the Ohrid hostel) and he talked me into renting a car together with Gavin and go up to Durmitor National Park in the mountains of Montenegro. He really didn't have to convince me, I actually planned that myself but now we could go together and share. Sweet. And I was the only one with a drivers license. In the evening I went to the „captain" and wanted to buy some of his Loza. All he said was: „Sit, drink" and he poured me a shot. Then he told me that his 20l living room tank of Loza is empty and he has to go to the cellar to get some new (while pouring me another drink). Then I got the whole tour: In the cellar there was his whole distillery and approximately ten 50l tanks of his schnapps. I got my half litre bottle and after having to drink a third shot I could finally pay him.
So the next day we met again, hired a car and started our journey with one of the most beautiful drives of the world through Lovcen National Park. There were lots of serpentines and you could not go faster than 40km/h or sometimes 50. But you could get a very good idea why people were dying on these streets. Anyway, we got safely over the mountain (thanks to my superior driving skills), passed by the old royal capital of MN and the new capital (probably the most unexciting capital of the world) and hit a montenegrian „highway" (basically a road without many serpentines). It just meant that you could actually go to the speed limit of 80. Driving serpentines for hours can be quite exhausting so I was happy about that bit of easy drive. I then had my „yaaaay"-moment when I overtook two cars with our small Toyota Yaris (at the same time). Thats when the police stopped me the first time. He called me to his car. He smiled at me the whole time, even drew me picture of what I had done wrong. He asked me for my profession, where I was going etc. He tiredly pointed at the formular he had to fill out because of me. Then he smiled again. I was holding the 20€ bill, ready to „give" it to him, but still played the stupid tourist. In the end he just said: „Welcome to Montenegro" and we could go our way. Did he want some „extra money" or not? I really dont know. The second time I got pulled over this day was because my lights were not on. No problems this time, too.
Until now, I was almost a bit disappointed of how well organized everything was in the Balkans. Buses were always on time, everything was really clean (I did not see one hole-in-the-floor toilet yet), everybody knew at least a couple of english words. Tourism is a major income factor for Montenegrians, and it isn't much different from Croatia. The first real thing that was „more like it" were unexpected roadworks on our way to Durmitor. They said, they'd open the road again at 5pm. We used the time to find a restaurant in the lonely mountains of Montenegro. We found one and even here they had an english menu. Jaja...How should you learn the language if you don't really have an opportunity to learn it? Back in Ohrid I at least tricked a waitress. She thought I am from Slovenia, because I speak her language quite well (??!!?).
We arrived in Durmitor in the late evening, and in summary it took us about 9.5 hours to get here from the coast: Only 270km!! This was of course because of the roadworks, but mainly because of the sick roads, which weren't allowing anything above 40! Awesome drive though, I must say. A pleasure. Nobody died. After asking some gipsies if we could camp in their yard (they wanted to charge us 10€ per person), we found a place at Mr. Grumpy Old Mans house („They have fun, I have to stop it!"). It was cheap, so we stayed.
Durmitor NP has an Alpine mountain range and the second deepest canyon in the world (after the Grand Canyon in Arizona/USA). For the next day Gavin and I booked a rafting tour through this awesome canyon. It is an amazing scenery (sorry again, I will definitely upload pictures asap). However the rafting itself wasn't very exciting. That's why I compared it with a „Venetian gondola ride". Phil was hiking in the mountains, and Gav and me decided to have a small hike too, maybe find a spot to have a swim to cool down a little (the weather is the best I can have... everywhere I go!). We stayed until 6pm and then started our return journey back to the coast. We split up with Gav, because he wanted to stay another few days in the NP. But he also had the car papers!!! Don't ask why. After driving 30kms (which is the lot in these mountains), I noticed and we had to go back and get them. Still, we did half the way to the coast this evening and decided to drive on as soon as the sun was up in the morning. By the way: Half of Montenegro was indeed „black" this evening because a huge thunderstorm seemed to have caused a power failure. However, the radio stations were still working :D. This is a funny story too: Most at the time there is one or no radio station available when driving throughthe mountains. So you let the radio tune for half an hour, listen to music for five minutes, let it tune again, etc etc.
After the second night in the car (for me), sun had risen at 5am already and we continued our journey. We got to Budva at 7am in the morning and hit our former hostel for a shower, a quick peek at the bus timetable and a few minutes on the internet. Nobody noticed :D.
We went on to Kotor again and returned the car at 9am in the morning, I looked at the town of Herceg Novi at the mouth of the Bay of Kotor and then continued to Dubrovnik/Croatia. In Herceg Novi I bought some home-made suncream from an apteka. Right, it is chocolate flavoured and I think it really works. I still have the New Zealand home-made sandfly (nasty moscitos) repellent with me :D. Home-made stuff seems to be good, had not bad experiences yet!
Dubrovnik: I have to say, the town has a lot of „wow"-moments... but somehow I didn't really like it. If you don't have the money then you can't really enjoy it. And if you have, you still might think that it is ridicously overpriced. I eventually decided to treat me with a scoop of icecream (for 1,50€), but then the bloke told me, that the waffle costs extra. I laughed and walked away. And it was just crowded with tourists. If you are disappointed because in Montenegro even village restaurants have english menus, here comes Dubrovnik with menus in 10 different languages. Weather: 29C and 70% air humidity. It made you sweat just sitting somewhere. Sorry that I am just ripping D apart, but somehow I feel that less famous places can be way more enjoyable (and relaxing). I stayed overnight and then I fled into Bosnia and Hercegovina. Now I am in Mostar. Here it has 36C in the shade, but it is not humid at all. It is way more bearable then Dubrovnik. It is cheap and the atmosphere is extraordinary. The hostel cant be called hostel anymore, it is more a home to the exhausted traveller. The history of this region is really really interesting (though everybody has a different point of view ;)) and today was the first day on my journey when I visited some tiny museums, traditional turkish houses and a few mosques. Mostar is also the city which apparently was damaged the most in the 90s conflict. You can see bullet-scarred facades and ruins everywhere. But as explained, the atmosphere is extraordinary. It is peaceful, and everybody seems to know how valueable life is and how to enjoy it. Mostar actually has a 500year old 21m high bridge, which you can jump off into the river. I was tempted to do it too, but you have to pay 25€ to the local divers club (or gang ;) ). They usually jump for money, and if you do it for free they hunt you down and throw you off the bridge (on the wrong side), where you will die. I'm joking.
Alright. Thats enough for today. There is so much to tell, but I will finish for now. And this is probably my last blog post for this journey, if I dont find time to write some more. You will definitely see some pictures sooner or later.
Ciaooo, Stefan.
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