Friday, 3 March 2017 to Thursday, 9 March 2017
After deciding yesterday to cancel our aspirations of going to Herceg Novi we slept late, in essence wasting one of our few blue-sky days. After a late breakfast Adri went to town and I was hoping she would not do the same with the shopping. We agreed to meet up at the marina, just outside the old town at 16:30. At 16:15 I took a brisk walk down to the marina arriving a few minutes late. We sat on a bench watching life go by and perving at the mega luxury yachts moored

right there in front of us. On some of these one could see crew already starting to scurry around doing maintenance in anticipation of its mega rich owners arriving in a few month’s time for the summer holidays.

Growing increasingly thirsty from watching them work, we moved our bodies and sat our behinds down in our little Irish pub, but this time not at our usual spot. That spot had been taken over by another couple, and what a nice couple they turned out to be.

They were from Australia… no really, they were a nice couple. They were from Newcastle north of Sydney and in a roundabout way they were on their way to visit their daughter who works in the UK. They spent a few days in Dubai, then landed in Greece, travelled through Albania and now find themselves in Montenegro. From here it will be on to Croatia and the UK, thereafter they will take a barge down the Canal Midi in France and finally they’ll be taking a cruise to St.Petersburg in Russia. From there it will be back to Australia for them. We wished them well on their travels as they finished their beers and as we moved over to our rightful spot.

After we finished our large draughts of Leffe Blond we headed home. I was keen to watch a movie, it was Friday night after all, but Adri had a splitting headache, she would have no part in it so I decided to join her for an early night.

Adri’s headache started while we were sitting in the pub having our Leffe Blond but we could not ascribe the headache to that, it was not like it was the first time she had had one. The smoke in the little pub was rather overbearing tonight and we thought that might be what triggered the possible sinusitis she though she had.

One thing that we had to get used to in the Balkans is that smoking is allowed in public spaces, and the public does smoke. You cannot walk into any joint without walking out smelling like a day-old ashtray. In the last two months I have probably inhaled more secondary smoke than I had during my entire life. Be as it may, one does get used to it, still don’t like it, but got used to it. Must admit, we’re looking forward to smoke-free public places and spaces in Europe.

Adri woke up Saturday morning feeling worse for wear, thumping headache, nauseous, blocked nose, feeling les misérables (wretched). Was it something she ate or drank, was it sinusitis, low blood pressure, who knows. My offer of taking her to the hospital was met with scorn, she was not that sick.

We again contemplated renting a car today to go to Herceg Novi but it would have been a waste, Adri was in no condition to travel in any shape or form.

It was another beautiful blue-sky day outside so I went shopping for a few things… like beer, it was Saturday and another rugby day.

Even though the weather had not been perfect it was so much warmer than what we experienced in Belgrade. Since arriving in Montenegro we shed some skin, we were now dressing “normal” as we would have back at home, on a cold day of course. No more beanies, no more scarves, no more long johns, this was great! And as I left the building it immediately became apparent that the leather jacket was not required, not today in any case.

Back at home Adri’s status had not changed, she was still wearing that “worse” look, took another Nurofen, had a bite of a banana, took a few swigs of coffee and fell back into a deep sleep. I started watching the rugby.

The Sharks and Brumbies were first up at 08:45 local time. At 15-3 down I was expecting a runaway victory by the Brumbies but by halftime it was 15-13, game on. All locked up at 22-22, the Sharks scored an amazing try after the whistle went for full-time, final score 22-27 to the Sharks.

It was 11:00 when I poured myself another… and no, it was still too early for a beer, I poured my second cup of coffee which came to rest at my side… bliss, while Adri was still blissfully asleep.

The Southern Kings beat the Sunwolves and the Stormers beat the Warathas, so all looked good for the SA teams. It was somewhere during these games that a Jelen 1.5 litre plastic bottle of beer went phisssst! Its golden contents were poured into a glass where it was not given a chance to get warm. And while watching the rugby I received a text form Carl with a picture of the braai (barbecue) he was having, complete with boerewors and what seemed like a mean rump steak. That was mean!

Having said that, part of my snackies line-up today included crisps, as always, and this morning was the first time a found a flavour other than the plainly salted variety of the local chips brand called, not very original I’m afraid, Chipsy. And would you believe, the flavour was called “gril”, which means “grill” which means “barbecue”! It was a poor man’s barbecue, but a barbecue it was.

It’s not that Adri would not, she could not eat all day, she was worried she would remodel the walls with the colour of whatever she ate. And there always seems to be an orange tinge mixed in that batch, no matter what you ate, and orange is such an unfortunate colour.

When she finally did emerge from the bedroom she was still pale and still not hungry, but she had to eat something, else she would pass on from starvation and not from whatever it was that she had. After contemplating for a long while she finally decided that she could face tuna, nothing else. Weird huh! I went downstairs to Franca for tins of tuna which ended up as the highlight of a wonderful freshly prepared salad. After Adri had her fair share of the salad, like magic, her colour returned, her headache disappeared, and she was feeling almost normal.

I continued watching rugby into the evening with Jellen by my side and was happy to see the Cheetahs overcome the Blue Bulls by 34 to 28.

During the course of the afternoon the blue-sky day had turned cloudy with rain forecast for tomorrow… again. We just can’t seem to shake the rain.

Adri felt 100% Sunday morning although her ears were still blocked, maybe she just did not want to listen to my whining. After our first coffee, while the rain was threatening, we took a quick walk into town, not a terribly good idea. As we reached the first pharmacy, which happened to be a health type affair, the rain started trickling down. Adri explained her symptoms of yesterday and the lady offered a few alternatives. We bought some capsules that would ostensibly assist in clearing her blocked ears, so there will be no escaping my whining now. I must just make sure she regularly takes those tablets.

As we exited the pharmacy the rain made good on its threat and it came down steadily. We donned our cheap Thailand raincoats and shuffled home. The rain continued all day and into the evening and probably throughout the night.

We received great news today. Steve and Marina whom we met in Koh Samui will be visiting us this coming weekend. They’ll be driving down from Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, where they now reside. This road trip will take them from Slovenia, down though Croatia, then through that sliver of Bosnia-Herzegovina, back into Croatia and past Dubrovnik, from where they will finally enter Montenegro close to Kotor Bay. The last time we saw these two was when they visited us in Chiang Mai in February last year, just before they left Koh Samui for Europe. From there they returned to the UK for a short while after which they moved to Slovenia where they have now settled. We’re really looking forward to seeing these two again.

Adri was once again in the mood for spaghetti Bolognaise and built us a bucket load of the stuff after she picked up ingredients from Franca’s. It was not long before Bolognaise billows were drifting towards my snozzle which in turn made me salivate profusely at the gills. It was not long after I mopped the floor that supper was served, Bolognaise with tagliatelli, with ample thin slices of pecorino cheese layered upon the dish which soon enough melted into the ample contents… and then the fun started… amazing stuff, believe me.

It was past time for breakfast on Monday when I noticed that nothing was being prepared, and being decent, as I am, I said nothing… I just waited. I did not have to wait too long before Adri announced that we were going out for a burek breakfast… I should have seen that coming. But there were even more sinister forces at play… but I’m running ahead of myself.

Adri led me to the bakery, which is situated on the main road, where she obtained our previous bureks. Now normally these little bakeries are a buy-and-get-out-of-there affair, but this particular one had a few chairs and tables both inside and out. We ordered a slice of cheese and another of meat which were each placed on a plate of its own. The lady refused to dish the meat burek from the display cabinet, it came straight from the steaming hot pan that had just arrived from the kitchen. These two beauties were accompanied by a natural white yogurt. It makes no sense to have yogurt with the burek but that is how the locals have it, and so we will have it, and somehow it just works.

We ambled into town, going in here, going in there, and eventually, sinisteriously, ended up in a little shop in the shopping mall where Adri had obviously been before. She tried on, again, a lovely top that she really fancied, and out came the cash, that puppy was wrapped up and placed in a bag before I could say “Wha…?!”

And what did I get? A pair of socks… that’s it, like a bad Christmas gift from an aunt you don’t particular like. Be as it may, I really did need a brown pair and you won’t believe how difficult it was to find. Black and Blue, no problem, brown… big problem, but we finally did manage to bag a pair. Oh, I forget, I also got an Adidas Cool and Dry 48hour roll-on antiperspirant… Is Adidas really suggesting that you shower only every other day!?

The day was lovely and sunny but by the time we had a few bags to contend with the clouds had moved in and a little chill made itself felt. We got home with the clouds steadily rolling in over the mountains and it was early evening when the first showers arrived.

It rained all night and Tuesday was forecasted the same. The forecast was spot-on, we were once again housebound.

After a breakfast of bread, scrambled eggs, cheese, salami and fried onions with garlic, Adri decided it was time for an old Thailand favourite and she proceeded to make us banana pancakes. As I was feasting on the result I heard my voice haltingly splutter the following random French words “Je suis mange un banana crepe” and to my delight this translated to “I am eating a banana pancake”. Now let me be clear, should any French person have been around at the time they would probably have taken offense to my pronunciation. And if I had eaten anything else I would have been lost for words.

Adri and I have been steadily making progress with our French on the Duolingo app which is an attempt to at least be able to order food, shop for groceries, order a beer and so on. It is hard, it is really hard and of course the French pronunciation sounds nothing like the written word, to English ears at least. But, as long as I can confidently say “une bière s’il vous plait” (one beer please), I think I’ll be all right.

We read and relaxed most of the day and early evening we went downstairs to the Franca Supermarket for supper stuff. We have not had pork for a while and that is why it was on the menu tonight. We found the most wonderful pork chops, similar to the ones that Frank serves up at the Cheunjai Resort in Nong Song Hong, and also similar to the ones we found at the Tops Supermarket in Chiang Rai. Supper consisted of the said pork chops, ratatouille and deep fried potatoes. Supper was better than good, it was great!

Oh, and we also got kafe (coffee). The kafe that we have been buying in both Serbia and Montenegro is the powder fine ground coffee as used to make Turkish coffee. It seems like the coarsely ground coffee to make normal filter coffee that we are used to is just not available in supermarkets, or we are looking in the wrong places. Today I found a vacuum packed box of coffee that specifically mentions, in English nogal (mind you), ground coffee. To my dismay it was more of the same, not that it’s bad, it’s just…

Today I received an email from Karine, our landlady in Sète, wanting to know what time we would be arriving there. After providing her with the details she suggested the best way to her place via train, tram and bus, but then offered to pick us up from the airport. This pickup would occur between her breaks from work and we would have to spend a few hours in Montpellier while she finishes work for the day. What a nice lady.

I’ve been playing a few games of Solitaire on the Ipad this last week. This afternoon I could have sworn those cards started to look a bit tatty around the edges. Do you think it is my imagination?

Wednesday we were housebound yet again… There was no rain this morning although clouds were still ever-present. The one thing that changed today was that there was a howling wind rushing through Budva, with terrifying gusts in-between relative calm, this was crazy! Wow, this reminded me of both the Cirocco and the Bura winds that Adri and I encountered on our sailing trip in Croatia.

It was 29 August 2003 when we sailed our chartered Jeanneau 34ft yacht called See World out of the marina at Rogoznica early in the morning, armed with the weather report and all, no mention of strange winds though. We sailed northwards towards Otok Kaprije where we intended to anchor the first night of our one week bareboat charter with Sunsail. As soon as we were away from the protection of the marina the wind picked up. It was a while later in more open seas that the full force of the wind hit us. The Cirocco was blowing its lungs out, pushing us along from behind; we were doing 5 knots under bare poles.

I remember seeing a catamaran to port, going in the opposite direction and into the wind, wildly hobby horsing like a bucking bronco. There was a fishing boat to starboard, also going in the opposite direction, with a friendly bunch of fishermen wildly waving at us. It was only afterwards that I realized they were trying to warn us about the wind and to head back to the marina… like now!

The waves were confused and breaking all around us. I tried to steer through this confusion, it was tough going. From time to time I had to go down to the navigation station to plot our position and progress when Adri had to take over the steering, her knuckles around the wheel as white as the streaks of foam flying off the waves. The boat was rocking to and fro; it felt like we were in a washing machine. It was late afternoon when we sailed into the lee of Otok Kaprije when the wind died down somewhat and by the time we entered the large bay there was hardly any wind.

We anchored a way back from some of the other boats worried that they might drag their anchors during the night and bash into us, or us into them. The wind shifted direction during the night and it was around midnight that the wind was howling through the rigging. The boat was swinging at its anchor, I was fearing for the worst, I could not sleep. I was awake most of the night making sure that I was alert and ready to act should the anchor start dragging. I was totally exhausted once the sun rose to a bright and beautiful windless day.

Throughout the ordeal of the day we didn’t have time to be scared, we had to concentrate intensely, there was so much to do, we just buckled down and did what came naturally, or unnaturally. Thinking back afterwards and even today, believe me, it was plenty scary. It was only at the end of the week’s sailing back at the marina that we were told the wind that day was blowing at 37 knots. This translates to an 8 on the Beaufort Scale, a fresh gale, it felt like a strong gale. We were also told that a number of people had moored their yachts that day, upped and left and went home that same night. They phoned Sunsail the next day to inform them where they could find their yachts.

After breakfast we sailed off to another little island called Otok Lavsa which has a beautiful protected bay.

 

 

 

 

The following day we sailed to and into the large bay of the island of Dugi Otok which forms part of the Kornati island group, a national park. We picked up a mooring and went ashore for a walk. No sooner had we arrived back on the boat when a park ranger on in dinghy came alongside and suggested we move to the north-eastern part of the bay; there was a Bura on the way which will reach us in the afternoon. All the boats were scurrying to find an open mooring, we were lucky to find one.

We read and relaxed all afternoon, my enjoying a beer, Adri enjoying a glass of wine out in the cockpit. It was late afternoon that the Bura arrived, without warning, the only warning was when Adri’s glass of wine went flying off the cockpit table and smashed upon the cockpit sole, the Bura had arrived. All hell broke loose around us, but we were safely moored, we had no worries. The next two days the Bura came and went but mostly came, no boats moved from their moorings, no boats entered the bay.

It was on the morning of our third day there that we dared move. The rest of the trip was incident and mostly wind free.

And now, back in 2017, those memories were awakened as the wind today continued to blow in this fashion all day. Adri did washing, I blogged, the wind blew…

The wind was still blowing a double hooley when we went to bed at 01:00 Thursday morning. Not totally surpassingly we woke up to a windless blue-sky day. We had to get out and utilize this puppy.

We caught the 10:30 bus to Petrovac, as Lood reminded me later via text, “It sounds like a petrol powered vacuum cleaner!” Before boarding we grabbed breakfast, half a meat and another half of a spinach burek. The drive along the coast was great, I’m sure it will be much prettier when all the bushes and trees are brilliantly green in summer. The sea was blue, a deep beautiful blue, this was what we were here for.

As we got off the bus we took a road leading down to the beach which ended up at its furthest end, not much to see there. But, as we walked towards the little waterfront area at the other end, the town revealed its beauty to us increasingly with every new step we took. This was an amazing little place, perfectly manicured, with many restaurants already open to serve the few customers that were out to take advantage of this beautiful sunny day.

 

We walked up to the castello and sat there for awhile, soaking up the sun, staring out across the wide open ocean right there in front of us. Soon we were in need of a cappuccino and sat ourselves down at the Lazeret Restaurant on the quay with an amazing view across the bay. Life does not get much better than this.

 

 

The cappuccinos were great, the views even better, I swear I could sit there all day drinking cappuccino and/or beer, surf, blog, soak sun, relax, watch… and maybe we will still do that before we leave Montenegro.

But, we had places to go, people to see. We tore ourselves away from this lovely little town with its wonderful Mediterranean feel, this place quickly crept into our hearts and minds, we would dearly love to spend more time there.

After a brisk walk back up to the bus station, we arrived at 13:30 just in time for the bus to Bar, another 18km further south along the coast.

From where the bus dropped us in Bar we walked towards the ocean and came upon the port, marina and the navy, a few battle weary ships were parked amongst some high-end yachts. Adri was in dire need of some sustenance, but she was very specific. She needed an apple, a green one, and a juice.  We found an Idea Supermarket and got the necessary, found a park bench and got to munching down that apple. And of course I offered my help.

Once onto the promenade we passed a number of lovely little pubs and restaurants, turned right and at some point and visited the Temple of St. Jovan Vladimir, a rather beautiful church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But now I was in dire need of some sustenance and I was also very specific. I needed a beer, a big one. And this is how we ended up at the Passerella Pub/Restaurant where I had my beer in a bar in Bar, a huge Carlsberg Tocena (draught). Adri settled for a Café Latte which turned out great although not hot enough. Some you win, some you lose, I happened to win in this particular instance.

 

A little boy behind us was trying to draw my attention to his dancing a jig, quite a cute little fellow. As he and his mother left, I sent him on his way with a wave, he waved back. The next moment the waiter arrived in a furious flurry, just like Taz, the Tasmanian Devil in the Looney Tunes cartoon below. Anyways, I begrudgingly sent him on his way with a smile and a “Sorry, I was just waving to the little jigging boy!”

We walked back to the bus station. Outside there was a taxi driver offering us a lift to Budva. “No thanks” I said in my polite voice and walked towards the entrance of the station. The cab driver motioned to us that the entrance was way ahead and around, so we followed his directions against our will, but not wanting to insult him further. Turns out that we took the long way to the station, there was indeed an entrance where I was heading initially. Okay, he got one on us, I was hoping he felt better. Why is it that most cab drivers around the world are such assholes?

The bus ride home was great in the fast fading light with the sea continuously changing its colours. The tourist guy sitting in front of us seemed the nervous type. Every time the bus’ exhaust brake kicked in – which sounded like an old man inhaling deeply trying to get the tobacco in his pipe to light and then exhaling with purpose – the chap’s head would jerk around – his ears slapping himself silly – probably trying to determine where this old man was sitting.

We got off the bus before we reached the bus station; we had some business to do. Right across the road from that bus stop is our favourite little takeaway, Andora. Two Cevapis and pomfrit were ordered and about 10 minutes later we walked the last 200 metres back home with a heavily laden stash of goodies.

After “Burp!” – excuse me – a wonderful supper, there was only one thing to do and that was to get into bed to read, and relax, and that’s how we got there at 20:00, I kid you not. It was a long day.

Before I succumbed to sleep I read an article which must be terribly embarrassing for Zuma but more importantly, embarrassing for SA. The SA courts ruled that Zuma’s decision to withdraw SA from the ICC without parliament’s approval was unconstitutional and the withdrawal was revoked. Well done to the courts for ensuring that sanity prevails. But, knowing Zuma, he would probably challenge this decision soon, I’m afraid this will not be the last on this sorry saga.

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