Montenegro and Bosnia

Hello all! We are currently in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, after spending about a week in Montenegro. Montenegro is officially the newest country on Earth, having just gained its independence in 2006 from Serbia.

We spent some time on the coast, in an old walled city called Kotor. Scott kept singing "Kotooorrrrr" in a heavy metal voice, since it does sound like a heavy metal band name. Kotor has an amazing old fortress wall that extends way the hell up the mountain its next to. We hiked up to the top one day and had a great view of the city, the bay and a surprise rainbow from the brief rainstorm we experienced. We stayed in the old city itself, which is actually quite small. I may or may not have experienced contact with a ghost in the old walled city. The apartment we were staying in was thousands of years old, and had the remnants of a carved stone door in it. One night, I awoke to a tap on my shoulder, a very distinct feeling. It was clearly not Scott since he was about a foot away. It scared the crap out of me, and I'm still not sure what it was. Perhaps my overactive imagination...

After Kotor, we took a bus up the windy mountain roads to Zabljak, near Durmitor National Park. The bus ride itself was an experience. Here, buses operate a bit differently. You can board at the bus station, or just stand by the side of the road and the bus will pull over and pick you up- your choice. The bus drivers all smoke while driving, and tend to answer their cell phones while turning the full bus around a hairpin curve. There are official bus stops, plus any passenger can stop the bus when its convenient for them and get off. This happened quite a bit in the countryside as passengers would randomly stand up and get dropped off in what appeared to us as the middle of nowhere.

On this specific bus trip, Scott was annoyed by a rather loud passenger behind him interrogating a fellow passenger. It was in another language so he was forced to imagine what they were talking about. It was one gruff deep voice, and one meek whispered voice. It kind of sounded like:

Deep voice: shmovish kantokosh?
whispered voice: dobro
Deep voice: cevapi danas ylrjo zelort?
whispered voice: nema

and then the Deep voice (dv) would do something to fill the uncomfortable space between lines of questioning that sounded a bit like "shooooshoooo shooooooo."

But Scott imagined they were saying something like:
Deep voice: Do you live nearby?
wv: maybe
...
DV: How far do you live in kilometers?
wv: not far
...
DV: Would you say it was greater than 10 kilometers?
wv: could be
...
DV: Would you say it was greater than 20 kilometers?
wv: I guess so
...
DV: How many steps do you think it would take to walk there?
wv: I don't know
DV: Shooo shoo shooooo shoooo

Anyway, we've been laughing about it ever since.



Durmitor National Park was lovely. We met a fellow traveller on the bus and teamed up with him to do a 30 kilometer hike the day after we arrived. We walked around the lake called Blake Lake there, and then walked up through the forest to the edge of Tara Canyon, the second biggest canyon only after the Grand Canyon. There is really no infrastructure, you just follow a road on the map, and end up stumbling upon the canyon when the road just ends. The walls of the canyon were incredibly steep. Scott and Colin (our new friend) walked all the way up to the edge, but I couldn't do it. We also laugh thinking that some day, it'll come up in casual conversation: "Hey, do you know what the second biggest canyon is after the Grand Canyon?" And we'll say, "But of course, it's Tara Canyon!" (Or the information guy was really enthusiastic and misled us).

On the first part of our hike that day, we were accompanied by a cute dog. He walked with us and kept us company for a good half hour. Then, as we walked deeper into the woods, we came upon a veritable pack of dogs- about 10 of them. They all immediately got up and started walking with us too. They were friendly- most likely some or all had been pets at some time. They walked with us for almost an hour- and we couldn't shake them. It was an experience we still laugh about.

We took the bus from Montenegro to Sarajevo yesterday, and it took about 8 hours. We arrived, took a tram to the city center, got a hotel and went out for dinner and a few drinks. We immediately loved Sarajevo. On the bus, we were befriended by a couple of teenagers who helped us navigate and practiced their English. They both had surprisingly good knowledge of Heavy Metal bands from the US. That night, we also met some Brits who are working at the embassy here and a nice Canadian guy who is working in a hospital.

We're excited to explore this city!