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| Swimming spot by the bay in Kotor. |
Leaving Belgrade we jumped on a bus to
Kotor, Montenegro. We were travelling on the cheap, so an overnight bus was the
cheapest option (as well as cutting out the expense of staying somewhere
overnight), but being that we’re both fairly tall, we got uncomfortable pretty
quickly. After a few hours of trying to sleep I gave up and resigned myself to
being a pillow for the next 18 hours, which then proceeded to drag by with a
pace best associated with that of a sleepy snail. By the time morning came and the bus crawled
down the million bends toward Kotor, I’d sworn a thousand times over that I’d
never again take an overnight bus. Never. Ever. Again.
After sneaking in a swim in the amazingly
clear water of the bay, we picked up Uli (a friend of ours who runs Zbulo), who we would be travelling
with for the next part of the journey.
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| The view over Kotor and the mountains from our friend Martin's terrace. He's a talented photographer from Slovakia who's working in Kotor at the moment. You can check his work out on his blog here. |
We spent the night at Slovak photograher Martin Kmet's place, and he showed us through the old city the next morning before we got on our way to Shkroder.
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| The passages through Kotor's Old City provided no hiding place from the heat! We came, we drank expensive coffee, we left. Beware of tourist prices here! |
Making it across the border into Albania
was our next step and with a bus and a (less than legal) taxi we made it to
Shkroder, one of Albania’s larger cities. We only had the evening to explore,
but a walk through the city center gave us the impression of a vibrant city. One
interesting thing we noticed here was how separated the men and women were. It was
probably 8pm at night and there were hardly any mixed groups; the men sat at the outside tables drinking and smoking, and the women tended to stroll in groups (and very well dressed groups at that).
We crashed the night in Shkroder and headed back to the bus station in the morning, feeling much more rested. It's amazing how much difference a good night of sleep makes! But it didn't prepare me for what was about to happen. Not at all. Ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, i'd like to present to you: The Great Discovery! On the way to the bus station we wanted to stock up on supplies for the long bus ride from Shkroder to Gjirokaster (8 hours, completion of new road should bring it down to about 4 hours) Uli suggested we try byrek. Amazing suggestion. So so amazing. But of course i didn't know that yet. We bought a variety of different byrek, and hopped on the bus. I tried one, slightly sceptical at the mess of sweaty pastry in my hand. But it was love at first bite! The flavour explosion was intense and immediate, and i knew it was just meant to be. And do you know what's even better? At about 25-30 cents a slice, you can't really spend more that a Euro on a meal, even if you're a starving 21year old with hollow legs! You can get them filled with just about anything, from spinach and cheese, to yoghurt, ham, egg, or green lead veggies. Super tasty, and also super morish! Watch out, you'll get addicted for sure!
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| Byrek: A gift to hungry travellers on a budget! (P.S this image is not mine, i stole it from Edita Alibrandi. Click on the link to check out her stuff, it's great! |
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| The way so far! |
Before i sign off for the day, I thought i'd include a map of the way so far. Looks like a long way huh? We thought so too, by the time we got on the bus to Gjirokaster we were all so K.O that we slept nearly the whole way!
As they say on TV: That's all we've got time for folks! Check back again soon for the low down on Gjirokaster, Albania's first Shisha bar under construction, and lost peace core workers!
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