Posts from — April 2008

today’s distance: 38km
total distance: 2416km
riding time: 3h

Not an entirely restful night. I woke up sweating a couple of times, coughing quite strongly and with a good amount of clogging in my nose. So much for that. Easy morning I decided and enjoyed the scenery from outside my little apartment. Breathtaking. Clear blue skies. Very slow start and not sure where I would end up today. Headed for Kotor again, roughly 10km and stopped all over to take in the scenery. I was glad to have cycled back since I now have seen the brooding atmosphere in Kotor Bay as well as the sunny side. Both have their own very appealing characteristic I must say.

In Kotor I just wandered around for a while, bike included. Not so simple in the little alleys and certainly not as free as one would like to be.

Eventually decided to have a bite to eat and chatted it up with an American couple. They thought their hotel might be helpful and so I went to the Hotel Rendez Vous (their spelling). I asked whether they would have a place for the bike for a couple of hours and they did. So off I went to visit the fortress towering above the city. What a great climb. Still feeling sort of not 100%, but it was worth the climb I think. Great views of the Bay and of Kotor itself. Or so I thought. Met the couple again before heading out of Kotor and thanked them for their suggestion. Great guys.

So … then came something different. I had been in touch with Montenegro Travel before the trip and Kirsi had suggested to not go to Podgorica via the coastal route, but instead use the inland route through Njegusi and Cetinje. So followed her advice and I knew it was going to be uphill for a bit.

Remember yesterday I told you about the cliffs falling straight into the sea? Well, today I went the other way, straight up into the sky. At first I thought the road was looping around the other side of the mountain. I had seen a couple of light reflections up on the mountain, thought they must have been some local traffic of sorts. That was not to be. Turned the corner and saw this:

(clicking on the picture will let you enlarge it, you can see the road better)

Yep, the road. Kirsi, what have you gotten me into??? I thought I was sick and shouldn’t do this. But it was not steep and so far I had felt good. I also thought that I had covered a good deal of it already. I was so wrong. Up and up it went, not steep but without a break. The views however got more and more spectacular. It was simply amazing and exhilarating. I pedaled and climbed slowly - a good number of cars beeping their horn in encouragement (except for one guy who was not pleased at all to have me on the road). When you look up halfway through the climb, you see the road pretty much straight above you. But thankfully the road remains at a constant relatively low grade. Good stuff.

I arrived at the top and just took in the view. Coming down on the other side, the scenery was yet again totally different. A high altitude (I was at 1000m now, starting at sea level) valley lay in front of me, the sun was just about to disappear behind the mountains. I could have moved on to Cetinje, but my guidebook said there wasn’t much in the way of accommodation there any way. So I decided to stay where I was. Asked in the local bar and the owner said, just pitch on my ground. Feeling alright (sort of again) and hopefully without much of a fuss during the night.

Falling asleep was sort of a classic - the movie they had watched in the bar was Cocktail featuring Mr. T. Cruise and the music was positively the same age: INXS - beautiful girl, Soul Asylum - Runaway Train, The Clash - Rock the Cassbah, you get the drift …

This time, there are many more pictures on the flickr site.

today’s distance: 77km
total distance: 2378km
riding time: 5h

I woke up several times during the night, sweating intensely and feeling the onset of something bad coming on. Fever. Slight one, but still. I had figured that something was wrong already when I went to bed. My nose had clogged up entirely. Not good. I must have caught something a few days ago as I had felt a slight itch in my throat on the rest day. The two days of battling the rain and wind didn’t help much.

At any rate, on the bike I went and I figured that I could at least make it to the first major town in Montenegro. Wind from the front … what else is new? And up the hill to climb what is known here as the thick mountain. It is also where the Croatian border crossing is located. Not much of an uphill, but I could feel that I wasn’t 100% for sure. Made it up and arrived just after having been passed what seemed like a convoy on a mission consisting of four BMWs of various models hailing from Zurich.

When I got to the top, all was well I thought and the treatment at the other border stations must have been an exception. I was wrong. The first guy I looked quizzically and he motioned for me to pass. When I did looking around for someone else, someone in the booth to the right barked at me. Did I mention it rained right there and then? Crewcut guy with nothing to do in his booth tells me to get in line behind the cars in the other lane. He was reading a magazine. The line was no longer under the roof. It was raining, I think I should mention that. I said “Can I stay here and wait?” “No!” Me: “You’re joking, right?” “No!” Me: “You do realize it’s raining right now?” Shrug. Shrug on my side also. Stepped back two meters, plunked my bike right there - not in anyone’s way and looked to see which car was the last one and thought I would wait my turn. Barking behind me. Didn’t want to turn around. Out he came and snapped “Passport!” - I gave it to him and he disappeared for 10 minutes in the booth where the cars were lined up. A bus driver behind me had seen my passport and asked what was wrong and I said that I didn’t have a clue. Turns out it was a bus full of Kosovars and they didn’t get the royal treatment either. We struck up a conversation, they thought I should go through Kosovo and shouldn’t worry about anything. Nice invitation, I might just go! We passed the time by them asking me about the trip when eventually Mr. Crewcut comes back and presses the passport on my chest. My cheery “Thank you!” didn’t leave much of an impression with him. The Kosovars only raised their eyebrows and shook their heads. They wished me well and off I went. Not sure how much longer they had to be up there.

Downhill a truck overtook me and right on his tail one of the BMWs … and this guy was positively insane. Narrow mountain road, truck doing 60km/h downhill, was doing OK, but it was curvy and the guy tries to overtake. Truck moves to the left, signaling to stay behind. Sharp right hand turn. Oncoming traffic. Truck moves right, BMW just barely makes it behind the truck. I reach the Montenegro checkpoint a couple of minutes later, see the truck driver still shaking his head and overtake the Beamer at the control post. Family of four in a BMW X5. Couldn’t quite believe it. Montenegrin border guard gives me a cheery hello when he sees me and the bike, asks me where I’m going, figures I have gone nuts when I give him the answer, but sees me off with a smile and an honest-sounding good luck. Wow - what a difference to the higher altitude Croatian border guard.

I reach the first town and see this “institute” and just when I snapped my picture encounter two Dutch guys who happen to heal some ailment in the “institute”. We chat it up for a bit, they warn me from all the traffic.

Buckle down I thought, but turns out it is like BiH sort of. Much more relaxed. Much more space - for the most part. There is the occasional idiot of course. Headed into Herceg Novi, updated the website and now the sun is coming out a bit more. Visited the center, which is quite nice and relaxed there for a bit and eventually move on. I figured that I would either go to Kotor or find something on the inbetween.

The scenery that I encountered was breathtaking. The fjord is downright gorgeous, steep cliffs seeming to fall from the skies straight into the water. Some towns and a decent road clinging to the edge of the water. Nice towns, not fully renovated - but enchanting. More smiles on the faces of people, big hellos. I decided to go all the way around the fjord instead of taking the ferry and thus the shortcut to Kotor. It was so worth it. And I also came across what must be one of the best basketball court locations in the world.

My system was alright, I took it slow and the scenery was so worth it. At a town about 8km before Kotor I got something to drink and when I asked about a place to stay one guy struts off with me to his friend Dusan. Speaks excellent German, his mother was German, his father Hungarian. Just came out of surgery the day before. Wanted to go home and not stay in the hospital. Turns out that Montenegrin hospitals have sort of closing hours … along the lines of “You can get sick from 6 am to 7 pm on weekdays, all other times, there are not meds in the hospitals and any medicine you need you must buy at the pharmacy.” So, he went home and said that he was glad to have done so. I wasn’t sure about whether to stay or not. Headed into town and looked around - all accommodation was booked out or not available for a night or not for a biker. There was one place … But I decided to head back the 8km I had come from and we chatted the evening away for a bit longer talking about the EU (Dusan doesn’t like it), his daughter (8 years, with excellent German), life in Montenegro (getting better) and the building boom that is setting in here right now (look around ye will see).

Still not feeling all that great … will to see what the situation is tomorrow and decide whether to stay and wait another day to move on.

Promise to be shorter from now on. Rambling on too long.

And as almost always, there are more pictures on the flickr page.

today’s distance: 86km
total distance: 2301km
riding time: 6h

This is what I was going to write: See yesterday’s entry.

Then the day changed in more ways than one. Wind and rain - not quite as bad when I woke up and so I set out with a determined look on my face thinking that this will be doable. Left Neum in good spirits and then the pummeling that I got yesterday started all over again. For the first km things were alright - crossed into Croatia again and something clearly hit the fan. And I mean big time. Wind coming from all front angles, rain beating down hard. Crossed the border, the power of the small man in that a border guard waved me over beaten as I must have looked and just before I pulled out teh passport as he had told me to do waved me over to his colleagues. Not a good start into the day peoplewise. The rest is quickly told. More of the same. I became stoic and just took the beating as it happened. When it got too much I took cover and then started anew. Eventually I passed Dubrovnik without seeing much of it. Didn’t feel like stopping and so wanted to move on to Cavtat. Passed the now closed and bombed out hotel where I stayed as an 8-year old kiddo and just before pulling up the hill to get to Cavtat I met Marko. Another Marko. It had stopped raining now - I was happier again. He asked what I was doing in this weather on a bike. Where I had biked from. Turns out he used to work in Germany and now is back in Croatia. Worked in Heidenheim and told me all about it. Then he invited me for tea into his place which was a few km further on. Figured what the hey and went along. Great family, three kids - one daugher speaks good German from watching cartoons on German channels that I had never heard of. Sunshine by now. Then Marko said, we will find a place for you. We went all over, turned up empty. Fully booked, not wanting someone for one night or completely out of price range. Mostly a good combination of 2 and 3. Marko was distraught … said that the whole area had become insane and that all you can afford these days was a birdcage. Went back and had wonderful homemade salami and meats, pickled peppers and other good stuff. More phone calls and more running around … still nothing. I opted to bike a few more and am happily writing this in a dry tent in a not-yet-dry meadow a few klicks behind Cilipi. This means that the idea of visiting Dubrovnik had to be discarded. Pictures on the web abound though.

Marko made all the difference in the world. Thanks a million. It’s people like him that make the trip what it is.

today’s distance: 83km
total distance: 2215km
riding time: 5h

LEFT MOSTAR STOP DID NOT MAKE IT TO DUBROVNIK STOP STRONG GUSTS AND RAIN PREVENTED MADE RIDING UNSAFE STOP PULLED OUT IN NEUM STOP AWFUL DAY FOR RIDING STOP

today’s distance: 0km
total distance: 2134km
riding time: 0h

You wake up in the city of Mostar … to a rooster doing its thing. That would be fine, but the rooester didn’t sound like what you imagine a rooster to be (and of course it woke me up way too early). The image in my mind wasn’t one of a proud and strong rooster, but of a scrawny and weak one. And it kept going at it for a long time, so there was some endurance at least.

What a day … it is hard to put it into words and I’m sure I won’t do justice to it. I pretty much roamed about where my feet would drag me. The city is an interesting conglomeration of buildings and has been torn apart by the civil war. No lecture intended, but here is the gist: after defeating the Serb forces together, the Croats and the Bosniaks (Muslims) fought each other in the city they had been living in peacefully for hundreds of years. The frontline went right through the city and there are still a large number of visible scars remaining after more than 12 years.

It is just hard to fathom what happened and while I have been involved with the issue for quite some time, it was still a different issue to stand in a city that had been almost entirely demolished at one point.

I eventually made my way past an open air market and a number of mosques, squares to a museum depicting what Mostar had been like during the years prior to the war.

The movie was extremely powerful and moving. It frames the history of the city around the old brige, which had been a symbol for the city for centuries. Kids had been diving from the bridge into the cold water for centuries and all of this went on even during the war. The bridge was destroyed during the war through grenade fire from the surrounding hills. What struck me was the fact that this was actually banned on film in such a clear fashion. Several accounts surfaced, one being that it was pure chance (hard to believe given that the war went on for years), another that he was informed of the attempt to shoot the bridge for good, the third that he paid money for it (hard to believe also, but in the realm of the possible). Eventually the bridge was rebuilt with again the divers playing a major role in the celebrations.

I went to the bridge to meet up with Milos, a couchsurfing host who had offered a bit too late to host me (my mistake for getting in touch with him so late) and when he texted me that he would be late a bit, I started talking to the jumpers and divers who were wooing people to pay them to jump off the bridge. It was an intersting conversation complete with a short tour of the inside of the old bridge (Milos figured that he had been living here for most of his life (except for the time of war) and still hadn’t been led down there. Dzenan, one of the divers told me about the dangers of jumping, of the oldest person who has jumped off (about 65 years), only to spend a couple of days in the hospital. And about the competition that takes place on the last Sunday in July, attracting participants from all over former Yugoslavia and even beyond. Out of tradition, the jumpers even carried on this tradition during the war he said and it was clear that he felt proud to be a member of a small group of people (roughly 10 people) that jump from the bridge consistently.

Coffee with Milos was great. We talked over coffee about this and that, idenity in tihs somewhat strange political entity and how it feels for him as an ethnic Serb to be living in this city. The good thing is that it doesn’t seem to matter much any longer. Sure, there are signs of anymosity around (and actually quite visible I thought - such as the “my cross on the hill is bigger than all of your mosques combined” which to me looked placed just right to annoy people who happen not to be Christians; there may well be another explanation though).

It was a great pleasure to talk with Milos - thanks for taking the time on a busy day and I hope that all goes well with your job plans.

Milos suggested that I walk to the Partisans’ Monument while in Mostar. This I did. It is an eerie place with at least one shady person (not the guy in the picture), but well worth visiting. It is Communist architecture galore. To me it felt like a gigantomanic nondescript piece of architecture, an amalgamam of shapes that didn’t really seem to have anything in common. A strange, but somehow fascinating place. Maybe that’s what it was designed to be.

On the way back to the city, I encountered these guys playing their daily round of boccia. They seemed to have tons of fun.

And of course this would not be complete without a picture of the bridge in all its glory.