DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro    

Author: Natalie      

Greetings from Montenegro; my new favorite word is "kleptocracy". I miss Nick, but the remaining three of us are enjoying our further travels up through the Balkans, where the women get hotter and the pizza more expensive as we continue north. (Though I predict those pizza prices will dip again in Sarajevo). I haven't been offered anything resembling a dumpling this whole trip, which leads me to conclude that we are technically NOT in Eastern Europe. Andy's post covered our arrival in the coastal town of Budva, so all I will do is reiterate that the bus ride along the coast was ab-so-lute-ly beautiful. The seaside is framed by mountains and lined with craggy rocks. Budva is quite a bit more developed than I hoped - it's kind of a Montenegrin Wildwood - but today I had an adventure on a mellower beach. Andy went off on his boat ride, and Sam and I started out on foot. Based on an aerial photograph I had seen of the region, I decided that we could "hike up to the highway, walk over the ridge, and descend down to the water via this path through the woods here...". Not long into our hot, dry, sunny hike, we decided it was a better idea to cab it. Good thing we did - the hike that I had estimated as 3 miles was more like twelve. And that "path through the woods" terminated in a fifty-foot cliff at the water's edge. So, in conclusion, it's amazing how much you can't tell by looking at an aerial photograph. Sam and I had a perfectly lovely day on the beach, swimming and scrambling over jagged rocks, looking at sea urchins and live sand dollars, gazing at the mountains in the distance, and eating pizza at a little cafe. We've been getting along so well on this trip; it's really nice. I was happy to be there for the second of Sam's major motor vehicle adventures on this trip: last week Nick and I taught him to drive a stick shift in the mountains of Kosovo, and today I suggested that we hitchhike back to Budva, which he had never done before. We were quickly successful, and enjoyed the company of a nice Russian man who spoke not one single word of English. Not one word. Through the use of hand gestures and the occasional unexpected Slavic cognate, we determined that he was a mason by profession, and that he believes Montenegrins are very hard workers except for the ones who do nothing but drink and smoke.