Map of the Journey

This is a post for Andre.

The red marker is our trip so far by bike * The blue marker is our trip by train, bus and in Montenegro, in the car of a couple of Dutch Nudists. (You can click to enlarge).

We're in Durres, Albania! The roads are something special, from lovely pavement to utter dirt, potholed nothingness, and then back again. Cement trucks have dropped cement on the road that has dried into ridges and mountains, manholes are missing, and there are sheep, cows, goats, people, mopeds, donkeys and carts, and lots of Mercedes from America. ie with license plates that say "New York." They sure drive like Albanians though.
One old man in one such car, all hunched, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he approached us on a dusty, deserted dirt road in southern Montenegro. His car slowed. "Hey guys," he rasped. "Hey, how you doing?" And then he drove on.

About the Cycling

Our camping place...Look how big these thorns are!

After 1,000 kilometers of cycling, we have had 15 flat tires. The heat combined with the amazing amount of thorns in these regions, has had a disasterous effect on our inner tubes. More than once I was lured off the pavement by delicious blackberries, growing thick over the rocks and fallen fences along Skoeder lake in Montenegro. And more than once I was pulling thorns from my wheel, while Michal was once again applying another patch to the inner tube, both of us cranky.

In Serbia the hardest thing was the heat. We woke up early, sometimes as early as 4am, and then cycled until 10 or 11. The heat hit hard around noon, with the cicadas screaming from their shady trees, and it hung around until 6 or 7pm. So we would laze about during the hot part of the day. We visited Monastaries and public swimming pools, ate giant watermelons in the park and sat in air conditioned, smokey cafes. Then in the evening, as the sun set, we'd put in some more kilometers, often cycling into the dark, finding a spot to put up the tent and then fall asleep.

Well, fall asleep is rather a bad way to put it. Camping alongside corn fields, on old broken roads, and by the side of the Danube (worst night of our life. A story in itself. Barges, fishermen, and one very hopeful and protective doggy, who wanted us to adopt him), it's more like dozing and waking, dozing and waking....Since we've reached the sea coast we have had to pay for more and more camping, as there are more people and less corn fields. At least there aren't anymore late night tractors, blaring up the road.

The heat wave broke while we were camping on the Boca Kotorska bay in Montenegro. Clouds rolled in, and sat heavily, looking like rain but never following through. Suddenly, it wasn't 40 degrees celsius anymore! There was a breeze! It became a perfect cycling climate. We proceeded to cycle up a lot of mountains after that, so it was a wonderful thing, this new weather pattern.

Finally, sometimes it's a question of low moral. For example, we started one day in the town of Murici, which is rock bottom sea level, on the side of Skoeder lake. And low and behold, as we climbed, we realized we were biking up a mountain. (Not a greatly detailed map, we mused). We rose 916 meters in 20 kilometers. I was really lagging, kicking and screaming, like a child. It's not til we got to the top did I sort of calm down, and think, cool. I'm glad we did that. (I also saw a viper on the side of the road that was trying to digest a big lizard, but the lizard was only halfway in its mouth. It was hard to know who was more dead at that moment, the lizard, the snake, or me).

The view from Montenegro

We have been in Montenegro for six days or so, and it has been the most exciting, interesting and difficult cycling yet. From campground on the Boca Kotorska, to the mountain city of Cetinje to Lake Skoeder, to the sea coast at Ulcinj, it has been mountains, water, rocks, goats and donkeys.

Konjic, Bosnia

We took a local train through the mountains to Konjic, a small town in between Sarajevo and Mostar. I'd read an article about Tito and an underground bunker he'd built here, capable of housing 350 people for 1 year, in the event of a nuclear war. Recently, they had turned the bunker (already a tourist attraction) into a gallery of contemporary art. So the article said...

The town of Konjic is a hidden gem, just as pretty as Mostar with its own arching stone bridge above the utterly teeth clenching cold river. (8 degrees celsius). It isn't on the tourist radar however, so it has an absence of terrible souvenir shops and harassing women trying to persuade you to stay at their house for ten euros. The tourist office, when open, seems to be operated solely by 15-year-olds taking advantage of the free internet.
"Where does the bus leave to see Tito's bunker?" I asked the boy that seemed to be in charge behind the front desk. He looked at me. "I don't know," he said. "It leaves from the bus station," I said. "Where is the bus station?"
"There are two bus stations," he said. His friend giggled next to him, and the boy looked uncomfortable. He offered me the office phone, but it didn't work. "I can show you the bus stations," he finally offered, but I knew where they were. Only I needed to know what bus station. He shrugged.
In the end, we called from Michal's mobile phone. We should have just followed the giant hodge podge of a crowd, grouping up in one part of the road. Women in headscarves mixed with a German family, an Arabic speaking family and then finally a group of Belgian scouts. Where else would we all have in common besides Marshal Tito and his bunker?

The bus took us through the small town of Konjic and into a military area sectioned off by barbed wire. "Danger, landmines" was written everywhere. Bosnian soldiers ushered us into the front room of the entrance, and produced a map of the bunker. (See first photo above). A soldier then proceeded to explain everything in Bosnian, while an apologetic guy ("sorry for my English, I'm not speaking good") translated into English, and then the leader of the Belgian scouts proceeded to translate into French. It took a llllooonnnggg time. People got bored, and they were talking. "Quiet!" Shouted the soldier. We all followed him into the dark, cold underground, where the tour began.

A strange place indeed. You could feel the fifties and sixties everywhere, old orange carpet, gray linoleum, cheap desks, and old rotary phones. Once you got deep enough, past the air filtering systems, the water reservoir, and heating, you could see the art exhibits. The apologetic fellow was trying his best to introduce people to the art, though it sounded like this: "This unit is made by German artist, and he is trying to say uhh umm...he is meeting the time of Communism and uh he is saying he can't live in it." The Belgian scouts, all teenagers in soft canvas shoes (is this a scout thing?) looked bored. There was a soldier in the back, trying to get our giant group to walk more quickly. "Quel est son problème?" one scout asked another.

Offices, living quarters, endless hallways, unexplained abstract art displays, the tour was exhausting. When we got to the living rooms, most people sat down blankly on the tweed sofas and stared at the wallpaper, all vintage. When we finally emerged back into the sun, the apologetic fellow was thanking people for visiting. "It's not a museum yet," he was saying, apologetically.
"Oh, will it be a permanent exhibit?" I asked.
"We hope so. We must talk to the municipality and agree on it."
"So it's in transition?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, happy that I had given him the right word. "In transition." Then he added quickly, "Just like Bosnia-Hercegovinia." He laughed. Our big group got back on the hot bus, and drove back to the road side station. Then we all went on our separate ways.

Meeting the Sea

The Adriatic coast is like the jewel on an Empress's finger. Big, bold and sharp blue, the sun flares off this aquamarine and the world looks better in its light.

First, we got to Slano, a small village turned tourist spot, its modest stone homes somewhat dwarfed by the new monstrous hotel, square like a prison and fenced in to boot. It was a horseshoe town built around a quiet bay, popular with yachts and small tour boats. We were hot and bothered, having cycled a whole hell of a lot up hills and down from the first Croatian border town of Metkovic. We managed to muster enough energy to cycle around the bay to a camp ground full of Polish people. "It must be a cheap one," said Michal, grinning. And, after our next campsite in the elite Dubrovnik, we found that it most certainly was! We were told to put our tent under a tree, which had lots of sticky stuff under it. We blew up our mattresses and promptly fell asleep in the shade. After a lazy afternoon of doing nothing in the shade, we were approached by a Polish woman. She asked where we were from, and then incredulous, she asked: "Don't you like the sea?" Indeed, we laughed afterwards--it must seem strange to these people who had traveled many hours away from their windy Baltic coast to this turquoise paradise, that we had rented a campsite next to the water and then stayed away from the sea. The truth was we had swam before 9am, and then cycled on for another four hours, the sun parching our skin and turning my nose a lovely scarlet color. There was no respite from this deep, strong heat, and I couldn't face sitting on the beach.
"We've been cycling," I said, lamely. "We're tired." The woman nodded, and walked away. Probably to the beach.