Montenegro

After enduring the 6 hour bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik and then the 3.5 hours or so the next day, I arrived in Budva, in Montenegro. Montenegro is a country of only around 650,000 people, 15,000 or so of whom live in Budva. The number of tourists vastly exceeds this and all the beaches are privately owned and absolutely rammed full at this time of year. Here's a section of beach to give you the idea:


Here's a shot of Budva's old town, with a beach on the left and the surrounding mountains in the background:


The hostel here, Hippo Hostel, is the only hostel in Montenegro and is really cool. Being off the beaten track a bit, it attracts a more interesting breed of traveler. Also, it has a convenience store across the road which is open 24/7 and sells cold beer. Perfect. I've spent 6 nights here in total and could easily spend longer, it's great fun even though the town itself isn't that brilliant.

Among the things I did during my first four-night stay here was go on a paddleboat expedition around Sveti Nicola, the island a kilometer or two offshore from Budva. The expedition was led by Dave, who together with his partner Nadja owns and runs Hippo. Here's a shot of our group taking quick refuge from the sun in a cave:


I also went on a daytrip excursion in which myself and 3 others were driven around by an English expat called Marcus. Among the places we visited were the immense Lake Skadar, a creepy and bat-infested old Austro-Hungarian barracks, a farm where we purchased and ate some local cheese, prosciutto and wine, and a village in the bottom of a valley, with no roads in or out, with a population of 4. And some goats. We bought a kilo of goat's cheese from them for 5 euro. At one point in the trip we also got a nice view of Kotor Bay:


I had received word the day I arrived in Montenegro that my planned three day rafting trip was cancelled. After some deliberating about whether I would be able to make it to Bosnia, which everyone I've talked to has been enthusiastic about, I decided it would not be possible and I would just have a couple of days in the north of Montenegro and the rest at Hippo Hostel. On Saturday the 16th I headed north to Zabljak (JAH-bluck, with a soft, French-style "j"), a small town located just near Durmitor National Park and the Tara Canyon. I had to go via the capital Podgorica, which would have to be one of the ugliest cities I have ever seen. I had the fortune to have made friends with Christina, a Canadian girl who headed up to Zabljak a day earlier and booked rafting and a shared room for us. Here she is with Zabljak in the background:


That night we headed out for a meal and ran into a Finnish couple who had been staying at Hippo. We all went out to a local bar, which was mostly full of Serbians. Montenegro is about the only country in the region which doesn't have a mutual animosity with Serbia. They were a loyal member of the former Yugoslavia, which eventually devolved into "Serbia and Montenegro", from which Montenegro became independent following a 55% vote in 2007. Montenegrins voted for independence not out of dislike for Serbia, but because they wanted to fast-track membership of the EU, towards which Serbia has a much more equivocal stance. Later in the night we were accosted by a good-humoured and extremely drunk Serbian man, who tried to impress on us that Serbia was not as imperialist and bloodthirsty as it might appear on CNN. "We HATE Albanians", he explained, "but a month ago I go on holiday to Albania. I do not kill them, they do not kill me. Great success!". I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of his argument.

The next day Christina and I got up to go rafting on the Tara river.


I was well aware that there'd be no adrenalin thrill ride available. In fact, I was so sure that I wouldn't even get wet that I had my camera clipped to my lifejacket. What I was there for was sightseeing:




The country was nice enough, but I was expecting a canyon and what I got was essentially a valley. It was definitely not unmissable or anything like that and I think Slovenia has much more beautiful places to visit. It was nice enough though and the area surrounding Zabljak was pretty and had a tranquil feel. That night Christina and I climbed a small local hill to watch the sun set.



The next day I parted ways with Christina and headed back to Budva, where I spent last night. I have tonight here as well and plan to actually get out to a bar or club, which I haven't managed to do at all despite 5 nights here, generally because spending all day in the sun is exhausting. Strange as it might sound to you guys back home struggling through winter, I've had enough sun. Other things I have had about enough of include non-English speaking countries and crap, unhealthy food. I'm still having a great time at this hostel, but I'm also looking forward to getting in to Edinburgh tomorrow night.

Hrvartska

Which is the Croatian word for "Croatia". The country became independent following a war with the Serbian-led remains of Yugoslavia in 1991-1995, one of the seemingly infinite number of Yugoslav wars. Although not yet part of the EU, Croatia is reasonably pro-Western. My roommate on the sailing trip was from Pennsylvania and told me that a number of his countrymen were convinced that Croatia was a dangerous place for Americans to travel. This is odd because Croatia is one of the more reliably pro-American states in the region. Although NATO didn't intervene in the Serb-Croat war itself, they did launch Operation Deliberate Force against Serb forces in Bosnia in 1995. Croatia was of the view that they'd take any bombing of Serb forces that they could get. On one of the islands I visited, there was a shop selling those unfunny alcohol joke shirts (stuff like "One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor"). Nestled inamongst these shirts was one emblazoned with the legend "Don't worry NATO...", then a picture of a warplane, then "CROATIA is behind you!".

Anyway I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here. I flew out of Valencia to Split via Rome and arrived quite late Friday night. I was worried about whether I'd be able to find any food so late, a worry which turned out to be ridiculous when I got into Split, which was buzzing with tourists and had about 8 million restaurants still trying to ply their trade. It wasn't surprising that I knew almost nothing about Split. My travel preparation has got so lax at this point that I landed in Croatia without even any clue what the local currency was. I just went to an ATM and asked for 1600 something somethings, which turned out to be "kuna". Based on the publicity each city gets, I was expecting Split to be small and Dubrovnik to be large, but it turns out Split is 5 times the size of Dubrovnik. Oops.

Anyway, I made it into Split and hit the sack in preparation for my tour the next day. My hostel had a bunch of jerks in it, the type where everything they say or do is designed to make themselves look cool, and I was dreading spending 8 days with those type of people. However when I boarded my boat the next day, we turned out to have a really good group of people, all pretty easygoing. The places we visited were:

Hvar - The rich people's playground. I wandered up to a fortress on the hill behind the town and got a great view of the harbour, but I forgot my camera so that will have to wait until I get the pics off someone else. At night we visited another fortress which had been converted into a nightclub. I and several other sailing trippers stripped down and went swimming in their big indoor fountain. They were cross.

Mljet - Very small township with a national park at the back with a couple of lakes. Pretty without being all that stunning.

Dubrovnik - Old walled city, very pretty.



Korcula - Also known as "Mini Dubrovnik", another walled city. Nice but nothing special.

Makarska - Huge tourist town on the coast, lot of partying. There's a nightclub inside a cave on the edge of the ocean, so you can go swimming mid-party. Really cool place.

Omis - An old pirate island. Not a lot to do so we had a pirate party on the boat. I purchased a sword which at the press of a button lit up and made "CHING!" noises. This was a hit.

Pretty short summary, but then there's not much to say about endless swimming, sunbathing, and beer drinking on deckchairs. I had a great trip - this is the kind of thing tours are built for, visiting towns where you really only need one night to check the place out. The whole trip was drama-free except for the last night where our (female) guide drank way too much, for reasons I won't get into, and was sick. I was looking after her and came pretty close to getting into a fight with a drunk Italian guy who started trying to feel her up. Interesting times.

Today I'm heading to Dubrovnik where I'm spending a quiet night to break up the trip to Budva in Montenegro. I have 4 nights there before heading on my rafting trip down the Tara canyon.