At some point in the past, we had planned to go Bosnia to visit Sarajevo. This began to seem less and less likely considering the mountains and the weather. We completely nixed it at some point in Croatia. Then when we took the bus, we realized we have a bit more time on our hands to go elsewhere. We had originally planned to take a ferry from Bar, Montenegro to Bari, Italy and then a ferry from Bari, to Patras, Greece where we would resume riding. But Albania was calling our name and to Albania we went to much satisfaction to date. Crossing the border was unreal. We felt as the feeling of being somewhere totally different. It is not so much the landscape or the architecture, which is certainly different than say the historical cities, like Ljubljana, rather the people and the culture seems so different here. Feels like we have left the west, so to speak. We have rode our bicycles down expressways along side horse drawn carts and a thousand large semi-trucks with mountains all around. People wave from three fields over and children race along side us just to say hello or ciao. We feel we have finally entered a different place. We once again found ourselves in a tight spot in terms of a camp site. Trash lined the lake and people were everywhere. We finally found a quarry with a few potential campsites. We saw a man walk into the adjacent home and called out to him. The whole family came out to se what we wanted and the young boy acted as our translator. He spoke very good English and was frank. “where do you want to sleep?”, “We would like to sleep on Grass” “Okay, you can sleep over there. Good night” . We cooked dinner while listening to the the last calls to prayer of the day coming from the distance Mosques.

The sea below our coastal cliff campsite

Our Camp site in the morning (photo by Tobias)

Our morning swimming spot

Refreshed after our morning swim in the sea

Town center - Bar, Montenegro

This woman and her husband gave us like 10 kilos of the best pomogranates and Persimmon (japanese apples they call them)(photo by Tobias)

Grizzley man eaten a Japanese apple. It tastes something between a mango and a papaya(photo by Tobias)

Jowita smashing her face into the ripe Japanese apple(photo by Tobias)

We couldn't figure out what the heck this donkey was doing here, just chillin, we suppose

Ugh, another dirty tunnel, guess through a mountain beats climbing a mountain

Jowita splits riding through a short canyon in Montenegro

Cute old woman who would lift her bottom off the bag she sits on to say tahnk you and hello (photo by Tobias)

This seemed like a really long day. The morning was really nice. The pictures speak plenty to the reasons why the bay is a World Heritage Site. However, the day turned when we set out on the main road and the 1.5km long tunnel out of the Old city of Kotor. Traffic was really heavy and dirty, but the other route led us up over 1000m into the mountains. The traffic really got to us, but eventually it eased a little bit. As 3:30 hit we realized that this was formerly our 4:30 cue to begin thinking about a campsite for the night and we found our selves in much the same position as the previous night. Fading yellow light and too many nearby homes along the coast. We had top switched our lights on but stumbled into one of our best and most unexpected sites to date. We made a campfire and stared into the lights of the town across the bay.

Our campsite in someones lovely bayside garden. (photo by Tobias)

Morning coffee at our campsite at the Bay of Kotor

Morning Silohuettes

Morning around the Bay of Kotor

The many churches of the Bay of Kotor

Chad standing over the Bay of Kotor

Archways in Kotor

Old city Kotor

Our friend in Kotor

Leaving Kotor through a very long, dirty tunnel...ugh (photo by Tobias)

Riding along the coast towards Bar, MNE

The clocks rolled back an hour and we were out the door by 7. The rode was pretty busy along the coast despite being a sunday. Lots of tour buses going from town to town, viewpoint to viewpoint. Chad became really nervous about his out of true wheel and decided to take a leap and reapair it himself. With a little bit of time the wheel became as close to straight as he could get it, while Jowita drew, deflecteing the curious eyes the tourists eyes that peered over her shoulder. Once we got past the tourist zones, the traffic eased and we had a nice ride. Summer had returned and we rode in shorts and short sleeves, and sweated to much relief.

We crossed the border into Montenegro. It seemed mostly the same as Croatia but quickly we began to take note of the amount of trash littering the beaches. It was pretty off-puitting to say the least. It was growing dark and the bay was full of homes and trash until we entered the World Heritage site of the Bay of Kotor where the traffic eased, the homes were more sparse and the perfect little private garden called us int to pitch our tent. The view was great and the sunken patio was a welcome kitchen for us.

Nice view from the climb out of Dubrovnik

Kiwis??? We have never seen how kiwis grow and here were thousands!