Part 6: Dubrovnik to Athens and everything in between

 Heading South from Dubrovnik, I was already missing the rhythm of John's ukelele and our spontaneous nonsensical and often inappropriate songs. But my new friend Andrea from Austria was a great travel companion ready to explore a new country. Andrea's involved in a peace studies program where she has been learning about conflicts around the world and the ways that nonviolent resistance has influenced or shaped those conflicts. As the grandson of one World War II B-24 bomber pilot, and another pacifist who refused to fight, I've always been interested in peoples views on war and when, if ever, violence is a justified means of resolving conflict. So Andrea and I argued about the U.S. role in international conflicts (there's not much for me to defend in that respect) and we talked more generally about people's motivation for acts of terrorism around the world.

The rocky Montenegrin coastline

Montenegro's short coastline offers dramatic cliffs and  wild mountains resulting in long hot bus rides winding around every little inlet and bay. Our first destination was Budva where we learned that you can't travel for too long without accidentally coinciding with a major festival or holiday. It turned out that it was Montenegrin Independence day and the beach was littered with tourists, tacky state fair style booths and lots of fireworks. I was on my 7th town in about 8 days so I wasn't exactly up for the party but it was quite a spectacle. Montenegro is booming with visitors and it seems to be the beach destination for many Russians and Serbs. Away from the main drag we found a nice cheap restaurant serving fresh fish and we had our own little independence day celebration. A table of four guys that seemed to be there just to enjoy a drink suddenly stood up, fetched their instruments, and began playing some traditional songs to a lone diner who clapped along and sang every word. That night just a few doors down I fell asleep to the sound of the accordion and the occasional bottle rocket.

The next bus south was a real beater that gathered passengers at every intersection it seemed until no more could squeeze in the door. Our destination for the next night was Ulcinj (yeah I know they just throw that "j" in at the end like some cruel trick...I never did quite figure out how to pronounce it). Granted I only saw two towns in Montenegro but the beach culture was a bit intense for my taste. Everybody seems to want a sandy spot where they are surrounded by a thousand other people with approximately four square feet of their own space. The pop music always seems to be blaring and there's not a sign of shade for miles.

Where the moon meets the ocean

Me and Andrea looking South towards Albania

This spot felt like the end of the world

Luckily Andrea and I were on the same page and we had an itch to walk further in the hopes of finding a deserted piece of coast. After an hour walking past the nude beach and the women's only beach and the cove full of trash with no swimmers and several private beaches, the trail headed inland for a bit and finally popped out on a wide expanse of rough dark rock without a soul in sight. It was like I was seeing Montenegro for the first time in a way, and the quiet of that spot was just wonderful. Back in town the moon was finally full (it was just a sliver when I left my family in Italy) and the people watching in the center of town was superb.

Downtown Ulcinj

Finally the moon was full, it was just a sliver when I left my parents in Italy

Sunset from the top of the old town

Crowded Market with wonderful dried fruits and nuts of every variety

The next morning our bus took us across the border into Albania. I had no idea what to expect because most of the travel books skip this country. It's the poorest country in Europe and the only one with a Muslim majority, depending on how you classify Kosovo. According to some teenagers in Montenegro that couldn't understand why we wanted to go to Albania, once you cross the border someone will try to steal your organs! We took our chances, interested to see how people really lived in a place that is a blank spot in the minds of most outside the Balkans.

The most evident differences right away were the piles of trash lining the roads and the abundance of horse drawn carts. The roads deteriorated and the traffic jams were more bikes and carts than cars. Pollution clouded the sky above the city of Shkodra but soon after arriving I heard the enchanting sound of the call to prayer echoing through the streets. I read about a remote national park called Theth in the north and I was determined to find it. Andrea was starting two weeks of volunteering with a camp for disabled youth followed by another couple of weeks working with the Roma community (Gypsy is not so politically correct) in Kosovo, so we said our goodbyes. Hopefully our paths will cross again in the not so distant future. Most of the passengers were heading on to the capital city of Tirana but two Argentinians and a Swede had no plan and were interested to follow my lead to this mysterious national park.

My new Argentinian friends Nico and Coco wondering where the hell I was leading them

We packed 8 into this 5 seat car

Chris, Nico, Coco and I at the top of a high pass on our way to Theth

Cheese and Sausage dinner on our first night in Theth

A couple hours later we were piling 8 people into a five seat car loaded with stuff. Nico, Coco, Chris and I shrugged our shoulders as if to say "who knows?" and we dodged potholes and horses all the way out of the big city. The three and a half hour drive to Theth crosses a large winding pass (no pavement of course) and the driver was just narrowly missing herds of sheep and donkeys all the way. The crosses at some of the sharper corners were grim reminders of other careless drivers.

Finally we were escaping the heat from the coast and the fresh mountain air was a real revelation. The valley below is one of the most remote places in the country where only 8 families live through the snowy winter when access is limited to a hard hike with snowshoes. The traditional stone houses and 20 foot haystacks are set against a backdrop of steep rocky peaks and the borders of Kosovo and Montenegro or within a hard days walking distance. Our driver Palin invited us to stay at his house. We wanted to sleep out under the stars so he directed us to a neighbors field and said we were welcome to join them for any meals during our stay. We drifted off that night excited to explore a new place and a new culture.

An early morning walk up the valley

I rose at dawn to the sound of a farmers scythe cutting the grass just over the stone wall in the adjoining field. Chris, from Sweden, was getting an early start for his hike over the pass to Kosovo so I joined him walking up the road. The mist was low on the river and the sun was just hitting the tops of the highest peaks above. After Chris's trail split off I continued on where I met an old woman tending her flock of sheep. I think we only had two or three words in common one of which was America, but we talked with our hands and our eyes and we got on just fine. I had my camera so I could show her pictures of Prague and Budapest and my family in Italy which brought a bright smile to her face. And then I took a picture of the two of us which made her laugh and laugh. Like many older people in Theth, Katerina had probably never left the valley, and knowing what I know about the rest of the world, she has a pretty good spot to be. It's a simple life with the water flowing pure and clean and the cows, sheep, goats, chickens and the other plants providing all that's needed to live and to live quite healthy as well. Wars have come and gone in the Balkans but places like Theth have been mostly absent from the action. And someday soon, electricity will flow to this spot and the road will be paved and things will change rapidly. The fact that I was there describing to Katerina in gestures how I flew all the way over the ocean and traveled by bus and car to get to this spot meant the change had already begun in Theth.

My new friend Katarina

Wandering

Back down at our camp, Nico and Coco and I, on our hosts recommendation, set off for the day in search of a place called "The Blue Eye," a spring fed ice cold pool with a mossy gorge dropping a waterfall in from above. It sounded magical and when we finally found it several hours later, it really was. The water was that kind of cold that makes you gasp when you come up for air and cry out in shock. By the time you reach the edge your feet are almost numb and your eyes are wide.

The Blue Eye

The potato farmer who's backyard we were swimming in

In the jungle above, a single stone house and a field of potatoes perched on the hillside. The owner came down to the pool where we swam (his backyard really) and invited us up for something, we weren't quite sure what. Up above he offered us shots of Rocky, the local moonshine made with local plums and other fruits. It's strong stuff and for some reason he poured me twice as much as the others, including himself, so I was floating a bit as we ran down the trail back to our camp. We stopped for another warmer swim in the pot holes of a limestone canyon where it narrowed to a slot, which evoked great memories of other canyon adventures in the sandstone deserts of Utah.

We found warmer swimming in the potholes of a limestone canyon further down the valley

A little piece of Utah canyon country (minus the red stone) in Albania

Looking back up toward the jungle valley of the Blue Eye

Kids tending their families goat herd

With only 15 minutes to go to get back to camp I ran ahead of Coco and Nico with delicious food on my mind. Palin and his family greeted me with wine and watermelon (a treat from the city) but Coco and Nico never showed up. I hiked back twice, once at dusk and again by headlamp after dark but I found no sign of them. That night I went to bed wondering and worried where they were with just the clothes on their back and maybe a little water. At 6 a.m. they returned, waking me up with shouts of joy, looking ragged from their night out.They told me how they followed the wrong river up up and how they scrambled over large boulders with the night coming on. They built a small fire where Nico scorched his shirt trying to dry it and they slept a cold restless sleep curled up around the dying fire. It was a hilarious and joyous moment.

Nico and Coco at Breakfast the morning after their unplanned night in the wilderness

Other highlights from my time in Theth included:

-Being convinced by some local boys to mount their horse only to have one of them immediately whip the horse in the ass with a big stick so it bucked and bucked until I was thrown to the ground which brought waves of laughter and an invitation to try again...I declined.

-Waking up the first two mornings to the sound of the farmer cutting his field with the scythe and then waking on the third morning to see the same farmer standing over me offering a shot of rocky (the local moonshine and the traditional way to start the day)...I accepted.

-Helping two farmers 81 and 84 years old respectively pile a giant haystack. The woman (who wore a tie-died Pokemon shirt) would gather the hay in a pile the size of a small car which she would then strap to her back and carry up a big hill. I would pass the hay up, one pitchfork load at a time to the man who would stamp it down as it grew slowly to a height of 20 feet where he teetered precariously.

-Watching the moon rise over the mountains from our campfire on an island in the river.

Helping the neighbors with their giant haystack

I hope I can lift huge loads of hay on my back when I'm 85

It was the height of the hay harvest during our visit

The field where we camped with our hosts house on the hill in the background

 

The view towards Kosovo on my solo hike

I tried to climb the mountain in this picture

Our last feast of a dinner with some backpackers from Kosovo

Nico tending the fire

The only lowlight of my time really was the sickness that took over on my last night (too much rich unpasteurized cheese I think) and stayed with me through the bumpy three and a half hour car ride and for a couple days afterward. But even so I can't wait to go back some  day.

Goodbye Theth, I'll be back

Back in the city of Shkodra, Nico, Coco and I caught a bus to Tirana, the capital city of Albania. There we stayed for two nights but I cant say we saw too much of the city. We were in desperate need of a rest with ravaged digestive systems and little energy for sight seeing. Mostly we lay about in our little apartment listening to music and recounting our time in the mountains. But we did venture out a bit and one of the highlights was a brief visit to the Et'hem Bey Mosque in the center of the city. It was such a stark contrast to the innumerable churches that I've visited during my travels. In a religion where any depiction of Allah is blasphemous, the holy space has a completely different feeling. All the imagery was animals, plants, and natural landscapes. The human faces that watch over you in churches were gone and the result was a place with beautiful silence and peace.

The view from our apartment in Tirana, the capitol city of Albania

Spying on our neighbor tending his rooftop garden

Street art in Tirana

Nico had a flight to catch and I had to make it much further south in a hurry so we caught a 14 hour bus from Tirana to Athens...we only stopped twice! The border controls to Greece (which also serves as the border of the European Union) were very strict and slow but in the end we made it to the big dirty swarming anthill that is Athens.

Southern Albania from the bus window

The three musketeers on their way to Athens

I wonder if Athens was the original tourist destination, it certainly has been catering to visitors longer than most places. There was so much that I wanted to see, but not the proper time, money, or energy to see it. What's more, my final night with Nico and Coco was thrown for a loop when, in the middle of their dance lessons for two Greek girls in a central square, Coco realized his bag with his passport and all his money, was gone!! Yes, just one minute unattended on the bench just feet from where I was sitting and the thieves had swept in. It was a stark reminder of how quickly you can find yourself in a royal pickle. Needless to say, there was no finding the valuables. 

As an aside: the last I heard, Coco was making progress on a new passport and had spent eight nights in Stigmata square (the place where protesters have been camped outside the parliament building for months in response to the debt crisis) and Nico had safely returned to Argentina.

The Acropolis floating

A scene from Stigmata square outside the parliament building where protesters have been camped for months

The next day, I meant to see some sites but many other little things got in the way and by evening I was sitting on the deck of a large ferry boat steaming out of Athens on my way to the island of Crete. It was a sad goodbye to my South American friends, they taught me much about bartering a good price, not sweating the small stuff and finding laughter and joy at every bend in the road. But I was very ready to slow down and set roots for a short time. My next destination was a volunteer stay at a nature park where I could lend a few hours of work a day in exchange for a tent to sleep in and home-cooked food. That night I drifted off on the deck of the boat watching the moon, now just a slim waning crescent, descend over the water.

Self Portrait on the ferry boat heading to Crete

Part 5: Venetzia to Dubrovnik (Island Hopping)

The adventure continues as I'm heading steadily East and South.

A final sunset at the agriturismo where I stayed with my family in Greve, Italy

After leaving Italy and some wonderful family time, I took the train to Venice where I met up with my college buddy John. For those of you that don't know him, he's famous for his masterful handstands, his dual love of meditation and gangster rap and, (this one was new to me as of this trip) his catchy renditions of pop songs on the ukelele. Put that all together and you get a perfect travel companion!

John strumming the ukelele on our patio in Venice

Crossing a canal near the Jewish Quarter in Venice

 Already in Venice, John earned some serious gold stars when he found us a free apartment to stay in. With our own kitchen and courtyard we started off with a level of luxury that I'm not bound to see for some time. This was my second time in Venice on this trip but after two more days there I knew I still saw only a tiny fraction of what there is to see. We wandered through some less traveled neighborhoods during our time and we gathered information about the next leg of our journey: Croatia and the innumerable islands waiting to be explored. But still we had no real plan by the time we left except to take the train to Trieste and follow our nose from there.

Our first swim in the Adriatic

 Trieste is a wonderful place where you can really feel that you are at the border of a different culture and landscape. The city has a rich history of inspiring creativity with writers like James Joyce and Ranier Maria Rilke spending time there while they composed there famous works. Trieste was also our first taste of swimming in the Adriatic which would be a daily habit for the next two weeks. The water is very salty and buoyant and warm and the Mediterranean way of slowing down and taking some time for the beach and the sun each day was evident immediately. We made fast friends with four French girls staying at our hostel and before I knew it I was in John's lap crammed into a tiny car with my head out the window like a dog, heading into town for dinner.

The joy of meeting others in travel is hard to overstate. You can get to know people in just a few hours when at home you may pass a neighbor every day for years and hardly know a thing about them. Hearing other peoples stories as you cross paths in travel adds deeply to the experience. This was only my third night with John but already we were sitting down to dinner with new friends discussing the pros and cons of Foie Gras and explaining that, contrary to international belief, Americans do actually eat vegetables sometimes. By the end of our time together John and I would meet friends from: France, Italy, Spain, England, Slovenia, Germany, Austria and of course Croatia as we worked our way through the islands.

Sunset in Pula, Croatia

The next day we caught a bus to Pula, Croatia without a hint of what we would do when we got there or even how we would make it to the islands beyond. But after a bit of wandering and no luck inquiring about places to camp, we met Antonio, a Spanish circus artist on a tour of Eastern Europe in his van, and after that, we needed no plan.

John with our new friend Antonio

In addition to unicycles and juggling pins and elaborate costumes, it turned out that Antonio also had musical instruments and climbing gear in the back of his van. In no time we were touring the night life of Pula sampling the strange local booze and playing even stranger music from the back of Antonio's van with John strumming the ukelele, Antonio, plucking an odd Brazilian guitar of sorts and me doing my best on a mini breath-powered organ keyboard sort of thing. Before we knew it we were lost in the outskirts of Pula searching for the mysterious Club Zen (we never found it, I think the locals made it up actually) and it was 4:00 in the morning. Needless to say we slept as late as we could the next morning before we were baked out of our tents by the hot sun.

Some old rusted machinery buried in the woods

Antonio and the makeshift climb on the quarry wall

Following another set of dubious directions, we went in search of a rock climbing area nearby and just as we were going to give up hope we stumbled upon an old quarry with stunning walls of limestone carved away and the rusted out vine-covered machinery left behind. Antonio nearly put his hand on a rattlesnake at the top of one climb as he called out, "Ooooo, there is a serpent up here!"Hearing him describe the snake's hooked nose and coiled position made me climb very carefully after him. But all was well and as the sun set there was Antonio juggling his five pins against the last light on the quarry walls. That image will stick with me for a long time.

Antonio's van was a real work of art                         I love how the pins match his shorts

 We would have traveled on in Antonio's van for longer, but his vacation was nearly over and he had to make it back to work, and by work I mean a street arts festival in Marseilles, France. But our ferry was in the same direction so Antonio drove us to the landing and we had one final glorious swim in the Adriatic before parting ways. We climbed barefoot up the sharp rocks and jumped from high cliffs as we saw the boat already heading for the dock.

Nomadic breakfast

Looking South toward the islands

 Somewhere along the boat ride, John and I realized it was the 4th of July and we halfheartedly celebrated the occasion. But we had no large American flags to wave, which was lucky for us because it would have been a good way to lose any potential friends on our boat.

The harbor in Cres town

The next two days were spent on the island of Cres, dodging German tourists and large naked sunbathers. It was all quite nice but not the least bit remote and we were keen to get a bit further from the crowded scenes. So eventually we just walked out of town in hopes of hitching a ride to another ferry boat and a new island. Some nice Germans saved the day on a long hill in the grueling heat and the next thing we knew we were floating towards Rab island on another boat. It was a very idyllic scene save for the Croatian pop music (some odd mixture of Techno beats and Mariachi-style instrumentation and vocals) blaring from the loudspeaker.

Quick dip waiting for the ferry

John looking like a genuinely All-American!

On dry land and without a guidebook a lucky recommendation and a Slovenian gesturing toward the woods led us to our next adventure. With the offer of a tent to sleep in, a kayak to borrow and a reasonable price, we were sold. What we found after a thirty minute walk, was a hidden world. It turned out that the campsite was a Slovenian commune of sorts with many children running around naked and families cooking elaborate meals over hot coals. The shirtless proprietor showed us where we could pick out fresh vegetables and fruit and where we could get beer on tap. It was all on the honor system with each family keeping a tally of their purchases and paying the final total at the end in a wooden box with a hand painted sign, "Bankomat". John and I knew we had discovered a real gem of a place and we celebrated with a simple home-cooked dinner and our first one dollar pints of beer.

Enjoying our Slovenian commune experience

We took the kayaks out to find some cliff jumping

We shared this kitchen with many other families

We settled into the slow pace of life on the Lopar peninsula, getting in the kayaks early before the heat and learning as much as we could about Slovenia from the other families in the afternoons. Milosc, a particularly talkative guy from Lubljana told us about his country's nostalgia for the communist years under Tito and the sense of community that he said capitalism was gradually snuffing out. All the other families were worried that we weren't getting enough meat so we were constantly being offered grilled fish and pork and chicken and anything that was being cooked. It was a delightful community and a paradise for those kids running amok from dawn until dusk inventing new games all the time, rolling in the dirt, catching cicadas, leafing through books about dinosaurs, gloriously carefree!

Three days passed and it was time to move on, with many miles to go to Dubrovnik where John had to catch his plane on the 13th of July. So we hitched a ride from our friend Milosc to the next town and waited for a boat to take us to Pag island.

We only had a couple hours to explore the town of Rab, it reminded me of San Gimignano in Italy but with a seaside perch

 There was no way we could have prepared ourselves for the change in pace and scene that awaited us on our ferry boat. Hundreds of drunk teenagers dressed to the nines were packed into the strange boat that resembled a giant airplane on the inside, with the requisite leg room and lack of access to fresh air. It turned out that the party we had not been informed about was an all night concert on the beach hosted by Fatboy Slim (takes me back to 8th grade or so). After staring wide eyed and reading the strange English expressions on a lot of the trendy t-shirts (mostly unrepeatable phrases) John and I figured that our only real option was to try to catch up and so we did our best with the remaining half of our cheap bottle of wine.

That night we had a nice dinner with some new British friends, who we recognized as the only other backpack toting passengers looking just as lost as we felt. But then we headed out to see what the night life had to offer. We couldn't afford the ticket to the all night beach party, but we found a club on the main street that looked busy enough. And you know, we did our best, we really did. We bought some drinks and we tried to show the locals some American moves (otherwise known as bad moves), but the whole thing was very strange. Maybe we were missing some important cultural cues or something but we were the only guys dancing and the whole vibe was just strange. But it was an experience anyways and the late night kebab and fries was a great way to cap things off.

From Pag it was a long hot bus ride to Split where we spent a couple nights catching our breath and exploring the sites. We were beginning to get weary of the mass of tourists so we took it easy and even enjoyed a little t.v. in our tiny apartment. It turns out that Croatians have a channel that is solely dedicated to spearfishing. That's right, 24/7 underwater footage with sparse commentary of guys chasing after fish with their spear guns. Better than what the cable access channel usually offers I suppose.

The central square in Split

Densely packed neighborhoods beyond the old town walls

From Split it was another four hours on the bus to Dubrovnik, John's final stop and the southern-most city in Croatia. The Semester at Sea boat happened to be in town which meant 700 American college students swarming the streets. It was so startling to be surrounded by my own accent again. The youth hostel was full but John and I met a nice girl, Andrea from Austria, who was also looking for a place to stay, so we went searching together. We were rewarded with a charming room, our own porch and a grand view, all for less than we would have paid for a dorm bed at the hostel. What's more, we shared a round of beers with our hosts who didn't speak a lick of English but communicated all the important messages with smiles and the clinking of glasses.

The moon nearly full in the walled center of Dubrovnik

The view outside the city from the top of the wall

It was our last day together so John and I knew a swim in the Adriatic was in order. Andrea joined us on the cliffs below our apartment and we floated blissfully in the salty water trying to climb back up the steep rock and watching far more daring locals flipping and diving from 50 feet. After dark we finally ventured into the old city of Dubrovnik, a walled version of Venice without the canals but with the addition of many winding stairways and high vantage points. It costs to walk the perimeter of the wall and it had long closed anyway but we were determined to find a way up, and so we did. Tiptoeing along in the darkness with the turrets and massive drop down to the ocean below it was easy to imagine I was a medieval knight defending my home from pirates and would-be invaders. The moon was nearly full out over the ocean and somewhere below in a hidden courtyard, locals were putting on some kind of play. It was amazing to me that despite the crush of visitors and tourist traps, Dubrovnik was still alive with locals living simply inside the walls of the old city. It was hot night and we were still buzzing with the thrill of our adventure as we walked back so John and I couldn't resist one final moonlight swim. The water was silver smooth and we could have floated there all night laughing at the adventures we'd found during our time together. Those moments of sheer joy feeling the fullness of youth friendship, what more can you ask for really. And yet, it wouldn't have that same preciousness if it could last forever and so eventually we swam back to shore and called it a night.

A blurry photo but the best I could get of John and I with our new Austrian friend Andrea

Andrea was also heading South into Montenegro and Albania so the next morning we boarded a bus and I said my goodbyes to John. He wandered down the road with his ukelele and I headed on South across the border.