Montenegro: Kotor

Montenegro was a breath of relief and a gorgeous little country. Between the upcoming filth of Albania and the empty glitterati of Croatia, it was a little slice of peace and sweetness with quite stunning scenery. We took a bus down along the coast to Kotor which is an old walled city along the banks of a fjord jutting up onto the steeply rising mountains. The mountains are dramatic and they rise right up from the water with only a small bank of development. We arrived into this new wonder quite late, something always a bit daunting as a backpacker with no place to stay. At the bus station we were approached by a few locals offering accommodation. After an unfortunate offer from an older woman who showed us a dingy and expensive room while telling us spiteful lies about other private accommodation we went back to our first offer at the bus station. Marco, a quite and unassuming elder man, offered us a place within the walled city which we followed him to as he showed us the sights with single-word descriptions and casual waves of his hand. Luckily he was very relaxed and gave us our privacy, broken intermittently by his shouting "Marco, Marco!" to let us know he was coming around. If only we had had a pool, it would have been like playing that game all the time.

We passed our time in Kotor pleasantly. We hiked up to the fortress behind the old city and watched a donkey herd goats while sitting next to an abandoned little church on the side of the mountain. All the while listening to the hootings of an old shepherd woman and looking at the lovely, though somewhat hazy, view of Kotor and the surrounding mountains. We tried our hitchhiking luck for the first time (an experience soon to become very complicated when tried in Albania) and had an overpriced but gorgeous dinner a little outside the town. Looking at the menu we were "thrilled and delighted" to find that fish was only 5 Euro so we ordered brandy and wine and fish and felt like kings. Of course, it was that price per kilogram and our fish happened to be 6 kg. Eeek. The rest of Kotor was wiled away in walking through the old city, introducing Matt to figs and desperately searching for fuel for our camping stove. A search which resulted in nothing but the extreme merriment of the local Montenegrins and us resigning to diesel which stunk up the whole neighborhood when we used it. We did enjoy a Montenegrin mall though, which consisted of a very large room sectioned off by piles of various objects and bored looking men and women chain-smoking.

But, despite the charm of this small place, we felt we had to move on. That strange draw of the road which can sour the beauty of some quiet home. We pushed on with hopes of beaches, sun, and the excitement of new things.