Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding...

[Lightcycle]

After that long-*** hike, we retire back to our apartment just outside the city for some much-deserved rest and relaxation. Our host is an older lady and when we checked in, she was delighted that Neda spoke Croatian! Usually her guests are German or Italian or sometimes English, so she struggles with communicating with them. But when we showed up and Neda started speaking Croatian, she treated her like a favorite niece that came to visit!

Relaxation for Neda means soaking up some sun and starting up a new cross-stitching project

For me, I'm pretending to work on the blog. I'm soooo far behind.

Although our pace is fairly slow, it has also been constant. We've been on the move pretty much since we left Chiang Mai and between all the planning and riding and hiking, that hasn't left me with any time to update the blog. I am petitioning Neda to opt out of the next hike so I can procrastinate some more...

Here I am procrastinating with these neat Russian Matryoshka dolls.

 

[Lightcycle]

Shy kitty: "If you don't Gnome me by now..."

So many cats hanging around our apartment! And when they crawl under the covers of our motorcycle for the evening, they smell the cat pee that's been left behind by all the other cats on all our previous stops (well, just on Neda's bike). So naturally they add to it to assert their territory. The problem just keeps compounding, every place we stop and every morning when we uncover the bikes, Neda get a whiff of fresh cat pee on her seat and gets very upset. She does her best to clean it up, but I guess the cats have a better sense of smell than Neda.

I'm so glad no cat has peed on my seat...

I'm researching ways to keep the cats off her seat. I've read that cats don't like the sound of aluminum foil crinkling under their feet. Maybe some cayenne pepper...?

Neda prefers turtles because they don't pee on her seat. Also they move slow. Like us...

 

[Lightcycle]

Okay, enough touristing around, we're going to do some riding! Neda scoped out the good roads around Kotor and she's planned to take us up a series of switchbacks called the Kotor Serpentine. Check it out above!

Glad we are not spending today in Kotor. A cruise ship the size of the moon has just dumped all its occupants into town!

Getting away from it all in Lovcen National Park

Up at the top of the park, we got an amazing view of Kotor and the bay. I wasn't kidding about the size of that cruise ship. It's larger than the town itself!

 

[Lightcycle]

Descending down the Kotor Serpentine

Yesterday, while we were hiking up to the Church of San Giovanni, we heard the sound of rally cars doing a hill climb competition up the Kotor Serpentine. It was very far away, but you could hear them all over town. Now we know what they were up to!

Out of the black, into the blue!

More switchbacks. I should probably put away the camera...

Pretty coastline of Montenegro below

And a mini-tunnel too!

 

[Lightcycle]

Heading back down towards Kotor

Neda takes an Instagram shot of me #nofilter #tbt (because #blogsolate)

Great day of riding!

We are departing from Kotor to explore more of Montenegro. As we leave our apartment, these two women walking by wanted to get a picture of our huge Round-The-World bikes!

Celebrities!

 

[statsman]

Looks like you're having a wonderful time. Keep these reports coming.

 

[Lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/322.html

We're leaving the Adriatic coast and riding inland to explore the mountainous region of Montenegro.

On our way out of Kotor

"Where are we headed to today, Neda?"
"Žabljak"

That doesn't sound *anything* like the way that it looks on the road sign. It actually sounds like:

"Ja-Blak", I attempt to parrot back at her.
"No, 'Ja-Blee-Yak'", she corrects me.
"Bla-Bleah"
"You're not even trying."

It's going to be a fun day of riding.

We follow the curve of the road along the Bay of Kotor

North of Niksic, the heavily forested roads become captivating. Switchbacks climb up and down the uneven terrain, giving us a great view of the mountainous roads ahead (and sometimes behind us). Endless curves toss our bikes left, right, left. The whole area north of Kotor is a paradise for motor enthusiasts, two wheels or four.

Here's a short sample of some of the great roads we took, heading towards Durmitor National Park.

[video=youtube;bqh21bT20_M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqh21bT20_M[/video]
Check out the new animated route map in the corner! Neat, eh?

 

[Lightcycle]

After some fun twisties, we take a detour to visit Nevidio Canyon

Road gets smaller and tighter

We do a mini-hike following the Komarnica River to get to the canyon

This is what I'd look like with a Mike Tyson tattoo on my face

 

[Lightcycle]

Feet hanging over the gorge

We're not really dressed for canyoning (need a dry suit), but we are dressed for photographing

There are tours that take you deep into the narrow canyon, where you can wade and swim down the Komarnica as it carves through that gorge ahead of us. Kayaking is also popular where the river is more open.

Neda asks me, "Do you know what 'Ne vidio' means in Serbo-Croatian?"
Neda knows I love trivia! "Lay it on me!"
"It means 'Not Seen'. They say the gorge is so narrow and deep that even God can't see inside."
"Cool story, Neda."

The mountain peaks of Durmitor National Park provide a dramatic backdrop against the town of Ja-Blah... Blah-Blak... Bah.

Žabljak (I can only spell it correctly) is a neat little alpine town that comes alive during the winters because of its location near the ski resorts of the Durmitor. In the off-season, only a smattering of tourists visit, mainly for the hiking... and motorcycling too! We passed a bar full of locals, old men inside were getting drunk and singing songs. This is a very European thing to do. We stayed away from the bar for fear of being accosted by a drunk old man. Or worse - being invited inside to join the singing! ("Sorry, I don't know the words!")

 

[Lightcycle]

In the middle of town we find a nice restaurant that serves Montenegrin cuisine. The mountain region serves up a lot of meat, cheeses and milk dishes, not unlike Croatian food. The menu here was total meatfest, lots of grilled lamb and veal! We were kind of hungry, but not *this* hungry:

OMG! I ate so much I think I have to Bla-Blak!"

If Neda looks a bit angry in the photo above, it's because she was. She ordered something off the menu and it wasn't what she thought it would be. It was hot dogs. She ordered Montenegrin hot dogs... I so totally won. I graciously gave her some of my grilled lamb and veal, like any good winner would.

After lunch, we waddled back to our bikes. The suspension on our BMWs sagged as we hefted our new-found weight back on top of the seats and we rode just a couple of kms outside of town towards our AirBnB place that Neda had found for us online. It was a cool wooden house with steep sloped sides, like most alpine buildings in Europe.

It looks like a little ski chalet

We had the upper floor and the "attic", which was our bedroom, was accessed via a trapdoor. Very neat building!

It rained the next day, so we stayed an extra day to wait out the wet weather

Despite the waterworks outside, the weather has been amazing since we got back to Europe. This is only our 2nd day of rain in nearly a month here. Not bad for this time of year!

 

[Lightcycle]

In the morning, we find out someone else has sought shelter from the rain under our bike covers

Damn cats! This time they were stealthy. We didn't even see them when we came in! I leaned in... and my seat passed the sniff test. From the way she was cussing, Neda's seat was a different story.

We leave Zabljak behind us and we head further north into the mountains of Northern Montenegro.

Half an hour outside of Zabljack is the Đurđevića Tara Bridge overlooking the Tara Gorge

We're 365 meters above the Tara River which runs all the way to Serbia

Proof that I was here

 

[Lightcycle]

Close-up of some buildings and farms right alongside the river. Not even enough of them to be called a village

Back on the bikes. Where to next, Neda?

Many more twisty roads later, we find ourselves in the border town of Gusinje

We need to get some food for the evening, so Neda hops off to go grocery shopping while I guard the bikes. These two Montenegrin kids are very curious about me and the motorcycles, and it takes no time at all until they are surrounding me and peppering me with questions in Serbian. My Croatian is so poor and they grow frustrated with my non-sensical answers to their deep and probing questions.

They leave before Neda can come back and satisfy their curiousity. Sorry, kids!

Neda booked us a place just outside of town (because it was cheaper)

We didn't realize how far outside of town it was. The owner had to meet us by car and we followed him over 10 kms towards the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, and the lodge was very nice, but it was incomplete and the promise of wi-fi turned out to be false. Not that we're addicted to Internet, but for the last few weeks, we've been winging it day-by-day, with no plans or idea where we'll be the next day. Now that we were crossing over into a new and unknown country, we needed to do some research on things like visas, currency, roads to take, places to sleep.

 

[Lightcycle]

Back to Gusinje, we knock on a few doors and manage to find a cheap hotel for €20. Not bad!

So before we leave Montenegro, here's some trivia. The mountains in the background are an example of the "Black Mountains" to which the country is named after: Monte means Mountain and Negro means Black. The name was coined by the Venetians, and it's said that the pine trees on the mountains were so dark that they looked black. Monte Negro.

So this is why the hotel was so cheap...

As the sun was setting over the Black Mountains, loud techno-pop music was blasting from the lobby and restaurant below us. We peered out our window and it looked like the local high school was having its graduation dance here tonight! A crowd of teenagers were gathering out in the parking lot waiting to come in. The older kids were all dressed up while their younger peers had to stay outside and peer through the windows at the party inside with envy!

Not so far away, a Montenegrin farmer herds his sheep down the main road in town.

Do you notice the Bla-Bla-Black Sheep at the front of the herd?

So we don't have a kitchen in our budget hotel room. Neda improvises! We feel so ghetto...

Tomorrow, a brand new country to explore!

 

[statsman]

That food is crazy.
I hope you asked for the leftovers to go.
That should keep you going on the road for a week.

 

[dragonrider]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/322.html

We're leaving the Adriatic coast and riding inland to explore the mountainous region of Montenegro.

On our way out of Kotor

"Where are we headed to today, Neda?"
"Žabljak"

That doesn't sound *anything* like the way that it looks on the road sign. It actually sounds like:

"Ja-Blak", I attempt to parrot back at her.
"No, 'Ja-Blee-Yak'", she corrects me.
"Bla-Bleah"
"You're not even trying."

It's going to be a fun day of riding.

We follow the curve of the road along the Bay of Kotor

North of Niksic, the heavily forested roads become captivating. Switchbacks climb up and down the uneven terrain, giving us a great view of the mountainous roads ahead (and sometimes behind us). Endless curves toss our bikes left, right, left. The whole area north of Kotor is a paradise for motor enthusiasts, two wheels or four.

Here's a short sample of some of the great roads we took, heading towards Durmitor National Park.

[video=youtube;bqh21bT20_M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqh21bT20_M[/video]
Check out the new animated route map in the corner! Neat, eh?

Thanks for the video and the music. It's amazing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Brian P]

Yep ... Stunning. From looking at the map, the whole country of Montenegro isn't very big, but it looks entirely full of spectacular scenery!

 

[danp]

Great pics! Can't wait to see more.

By the way I heard the cops in that region are corrupt, especially if they hear you are from a rich western country. Have you had any problems with them?

 

[yodude]

hopefully, y'all have more on the go, than gta whatever..

 

[Lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/323.html

There are certain places in the world whose names, for whatever reason, conjure up images of remote wilderness and mysterious lands that modern civilization has yet to take over: Timbuktu. Kathmandu. Deepest, Darkest Peru. Pretty much any place that ends in a "u", apparently... But also Albania. I admit to knowing absolutely nothing about this country, except that it sounds remote and mysterious.

Surprisingly, Neda also had little to offer despite her living just a few hundred kms away.

So let's discover Albania!

I like to start off the riding day by taking a sheep shot

We're starting fairly early because there are a couple of unknowns for the day: a border crossing and some variable terrain ahead of us. The morning weather is a bit chilly up here in the mountains, but it's looking to be yet another nice day for riding!

7 kms later and we find ourselves stamping out of Montenegro. This is the last time Neda will use her Croatian for a while.

In No Mans Land heading to the Albanian side of the border. Mirsivini! Our first Albanian word!

We read up on Albania last night and the language has no relation to any other in the world, it is it's own branch. The guys at the Albanian side speak a little bit of English and they are very curious about our bikes. I don't think there are a lot of people crossing the border up here in the mountains. The main highway is closer to the coast, and these border control buildings look more like shacks!

This is such a remote outpost that they don't even offer the mandatory vehicle insurance here. They just told us to purchase it when we got to a larger city. *shrug* Okay, cool. This border crossing was so laid back. I can't remember if they even looked at our passports! *shrug*

 

[Lightcycle]

And not 100 meters after the Albanian border, the road turns to gravel. We stop to air down our tires for better grip in the loose stuff.

We had read that the roads in Albania were very bad. Many of the secondary roads were unpaved and the ones that were were broken and full of potholes. We're prepared for some adventurous riding!

The "road" that we're taking is called SH20, it follows the valley of one of the mountain ranges which define a natural border between Albania and Montenegro

The mountainside is dotted with these bunkers

These bunkers were built during the communist era, from the 1960s till the fall of the Iron Curtain. The country's dictator at the time, Enver Hoxha, had 750,000 of them built all over the country, even up here in the mountains. We read that on average, there is one bunker for every 5.7 square kms. The construction was a huge drain on Albania's resources, taking money away from housing and roads. None of the bunkers were ever used for their intended purpose.