Ah the joys of night buses. Wonderful inventions. Cramped up, rammed in and intermittently snatching any sleep you can. Normally its a bad thing when a bus arrives late. Not when its scheduled to arrive at 4am and it rocks up at 5am in the morning. Cracking. More sleep and we could pick up an early morning bus around the bay. We decided to push onwards to Kotor. Having arrived we studied the maps to see if we could hike to some of the national parks. There is no public transport, but one park was seemingly only 10-12km away. We had to wait a long time for the hostels or places to open up. I really needed a shit, so I had to sneak into a hostel and use their toilets anyway. We were told the hostel was full and we would have to wait for a guy to get a private room. He took ages and we were just hanging around. Luckily he eventually took us to a place to stay with a nice old woman. He told us not to fuck her around, because a Chilean couple had woken her up at 1am for a place to stay and then agreed a price of 14 euros each before changing to 14 for the two. He had got super pissed and thrown them out on the street. I reassured him that we were happy to pay and paid up front. She gave us the key and went out shopping. We wanted to leave and were now left with a dilemma. To lock the door or not lock the door. We opted for not locking and then bumped into the woman in the street, realised we should have locked it and dashed back quickly to lock it before she would find out. We asked the tourist information office about getting to the park, but apparently they 'only deal with culture'. Wonderful. Good to know their national parks are not cultural enough to be covered by the tourist office.
I managed to persuade Cannelle that we should hike to the National Park and see how it goes. We went up and up and up and up. Round the winding roads, getting steadily better views of the Bay, but seemingly no closer to our aim of reaching the park. We were just on the point of giving up, when a car stopped. An Israeli couple offered to give us a lift to the entrance to the Park. Fantastic. We told them about the park and they decided to come with us. Its a good job they did, because the Mausoleum is another 10-15km further into the park. Even on a solo hiking day that would have been a big ask for me. We drove to the Mausoleum and it was a steep climb. We hiked up and it was tough for the couple. They were an older couple with a lot of travelling experience. It was nice to see an old couple still travelling together. Hopefully Frenchy and I will be the same when we get to their age. We got to the Mausoleum and it looked a bit crap. 3 euros for the entrance. It looked too crap. We had come a long way though. First instincts said no. Long drive. Oh fuck it. We went in. It is a complete waste of money. Its worth coming to the Mausoleum for the view, but its not worth actually entering the Mausoleum. The couple had been en route for the famous ham and cheese of the local region and we came with them to the small village to sample some ham and cheese we would never have had the opportunity to if we hadn't been picked up. We were continuing our remarkable luck. It just goes to show that if you set off in a direction in life, even if it seems impossible, you are often assisted by people along the way. Fortune favours the brave or as my football club says 'to dare is to do'. They dropped us off in front of our hotel and continued to Croatia for their flight. They had confirmed that the national parks were worth visiting, but there seemed no way to get to the bridge in the north of the country and see the park in the east. There seems a problem with transport in general. There is only a ghost bus to Albania and we had to get further information on how to find it. We went out for dinner and I realised I didn't have my passport. Fuck. Not again. I ran back to the hotel and found it there. Luckily I hadn't fucked up a second holiday. After visiting Podgorica the day after, being stuck there would be worse than hell. We grabbed a 5 euro dinner from the hostel and it had clearly been designed to be a gypo meal for tourists. Cannelle was feeling a bit sick so we went to bed early. Bianca had got a B in the FCE, while Fernando and Natalia had got C's. I found out later that Meritxell had got a B and Carmen a C. 100% pass rate for my class. I was happy.
We got our passports back, even though they took ages to do that as well. We took a bus to Podgorica. Cannelle stayed in a cafe, while I went for an hour long walk around town. Total shithole. Not worth the hour. The menu said 80 cents for a hot dog so I ordered one, but they charged me $1. I complained and they told me I had an old menu and the price had changed. What the fuck. That angered me. The waiter called over a taxi driver to explain what had happened. I told him I understood, but I didn't agree. Damn it. It was like being in Croatia again. He said he didn't see what my problem was as it was only 20 cents. Its the principle of the matter. We saw Sveti Stefan and Ostrog Monastery from the bus. Both were decent but not worth travelling to. We met some French guys from Paris on the second bus and chatted for a while. They were going to hike in the park eating only one meal of rice a day. Sounded pleasant. Zabljak is a pretty litte mountain town. We decided to stay in our tent for only $3 instead of the hostel for $10. The owner gives you free shots of brandy and Cannelle had one. We met a Danish couple who had been staying there for a few days and decided not to visit the lake or we would have to pay the park entrance fee. We went into town and opted for a good meal as our accommodation was so cheap. I ordered a veal steak. After 15 minutes it arrived and it was chicken. I asked the waiter why it was chicken and he replied there was no veal only chicken. Ah well that's clear then. Why didn't he tell me when I ordered lol. Oh well. I managed to put sugar on my chips, because I thought it was salt. Wasn't too bad actually. We kept passing an old woman with a room on the road to the hostel. She was always there. She looked like one of those old witches in horror films that portent the impending doom. It really was a funky little campsite except for the man who snored incredibly loudly and one other thing. Cannelle had been scared shitless about the bears over this part of the world long before we eventually came here. In the night I woke up. There was a shuffling outside and what sounded like an animal breathing. Fuck. Was it a bear. Cannelle had started to make me paranoid. Just lie still. I could sense Cannelle was awake now. The problem was that she could sense I thought it was maybe a bear. Neither of us moved. Eaten in a tent by a bear. Despite the fact that only 2 people have died from bear attacks in Eastern Europe in the last 20 years I was now worried. We should have taken the bed. Still no moving. We weren't eaten yet. Cannelle eventually braved the night air to go for a piss. Nothing out there. Didn't sleep so well afterwards though.
In the morning we went hiking. The weather was a bit crappy but we only had one day here. I wanted to go to the summit and the ice caves. We set off and at one point scared a Chamoix, that made us crap ourselves as we thought it was a bear. There was too much bear fear now. We went the wrong way right at the beginning, so be careful with the signposts here. Fucked us up, but we would not know it until much later. The weather got rainier and rainier as we climbed. Cannelle hated it. Both the weather and her gripping bear fear were taking their toll. I kept insisting on going just that bit further and just that bit further. In the end I pushed her too far and all the while we were on the wrong trail so we weren't going to find the damn ice cave anyway. The park is pretty, but it was difficult to really enjoy it in the torrential rain. We met a group coming down from the mountains and they told us to turn back as the weather was nasty and can be dangerous up there. I eventually conceded defeat in my aim to make the top and headed down. On the way down we heard screaming from a man. Bears. Damn it. We slowed down, but Cannelle was happier we were now 7 people as safety in numbers. We saw two girls coming up the path and they told us it was a man struggling with his cows and not a bear. Bloody bears. We went back. At one point I went flying and landed on my rucksack. Only later did I realise I had landed on the water bottle and had split it. Everything was wet. Not great. The rain eased off as we got back to the lake and we had a picnic while we dried off. We took it as a chance to hike around the lake, involving some off path scrambling and walking through the ridiculously green reeds. We got some fast food and noted how so many of the locals were dressed like chavs in tracksuits. There was a French family who couldn't decide where to park their car and took about one hour of constantly moving it around. We reluctantly took to El Crapo again for the night, knowing that we would have to be up around 4am to make the bus to Albania.
We limped out of bed at 4am and packed up the tent only to be greeted by howling wolves in the distance. That made Cannelle certain we were now going to be eaten by wolves. Thank god we hadn't seen the film The Grey yet. So we hiked to town to take a bus at 6am to Niksic with some retarded English guys. We drifted in and out of sleep on the way. At Niksic we made the connection for a second bus to Podgorica. In Podgorica we elected to take the train down to Bar as it was the cheapest option. We shared our carriage with a very friendly Montenegran family who didn't like Clinton or Blair, but loved Diana. 'Blair, bomb, bomb, NATO, catastroph' was their feeling. They also simulated that when Clinton swam at Budva they would have liked to drown him. Its interesting moving around the countries in the Balkans and seeing how on one side the British are loved, but on the other they are hated. They seemed to like France more. They also said how prices had been pushed up by tourists. In Kotor we had been told that one bar, very popular with locals, doubles its prices in the summer months and so locals can only use it for 9 months a year. We learnt the word in Serbian for bear was medved, so Cannelle could ask anyone we met if there were any bears nearby. It was a nice intercultural exchange with limited language. The bus to Ulcinj was late and full, but it was our fourth bit of transport that day. We arrived and the bus to Albania was there. There is one a day and it goes at 12.30pm each day from memory. We made a mammoth journey to hit this bus, but we wanted out. The queue was fucking mental to get to Albania and we were stuck in it for well over an hour. They didn't stamp our passports on the way in, which I thought was odd. We also had to listen to the biggest dickhead Belgian I have ever met. He talked crap to loads of people and seemed to be regurgitating exactly what he had read in a guide book. He states the standard 'I thought Sarajevo was like Istanbul', then later in the same conversation 'I've never been to Istanbul'. Then how the fuck can you compare them idiot. The biggest pain from travelling must be the amount of totally retarded shit you hear from people all the time. Anyway Montenegro is like a giant park. Pretty, but the people are fucking annoying like Croatia. Come out of the tourist season. Onwards to Albania.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment