Leaving Dubrovnik today. In theory at least, this was to function as a sort of rest stop, a last oasis of sanity before plunging into the complete unknown of Montenegro (Crna Gora) and Albania (Shqipëri) - but we are too eager to continue, get on the road again, push on further towards our ultimate goal of Istanbul, and so we pack everything up to hit the road...
...except it rarely goes that smoothly, not when the only way to proceed is by protracted physical exertion. Our corporeal limitations force us to take it easy for the morning; it's been a long ride down the windy, rainy, windy, windy, and mostly uninhabited coast from Opatija/Rijeka, a 600 km whirlwind of seaside camping and uphill trudging over the past week to reach this point, and still we are only one-fifth of the way from Opatija to Istanbul. Even longer ride ahead - so we take our sweet time waking up, eat a sumptuous protein-packed breakfast of 3.5 eggs, 100g cheese, and a half-loaf of bread each, step outside to check the progress of our clothes (still mostly wet, unfortunately), pack everything at our leisure, write a couple of blog posts, and finally step out the door around 1000. We then head back over the hill into the old part of town to check out a potentially free wifi hotspot purported to be available in the vicinity of some shoe store - and it is, so we sit there until roughly 1300 downloading and blog-post-writing and video-uploading...
...and then we finally get on the road, which as it turns out means backtracking out of the old city, up the hill, around to the side, up some more hill, up to the main road, up further to the cape just south of Dubrovnik - and then around, down, up, down, up, along some more of this infamously rolling Croatian coastline. Only 50 km to the border with Crna Gora, but that 50 km seems to drag on in our state of mounting exhaustion. We pass an airport roughly 30 km into the ride, the approach to which is marked by a series of aligned towers bearing all manner of blinking lights.
One important detail remains: as it turns out, Crna Gora is in the EU and the Euro zone - and Croatia functions on HRK, which means we have some leftover currency that is soon to become obsolete. Fortunately for us, there is a market on the road just a few kilometres from the border; we stop there to eat some more, stock up on starches and snack, and generally reminisce about our nearly finished time in Croatia...
...and, as with most southern European borders, this one is up a bit in the mountains - not far, but far enough that the climb is non-trivial; moreover, the switch from valley to valley is typically accompanied by a tectonic shift in climate, and this switch is no exception. Whereas our last portion of Croatia brought mostly grey skies punctuated with reassuring patches of blue, Crna Gora is mired in fog and a light dusting of rain that spits down for short periods of time before pausing to gear up for the next spitting. The customs officials stamp our passports upon exiting Croatia, an act now unheard of within the open border Schengen zone; we are excited to receive stamps, but more than a little miffed that they feature these odd four-wheeled motorized contraptions that the sensible majority of this world refer to as "cars". We hear people even use the things to get around, though that seems like a long-forgotten memory...
...we arrive quickly in Herceg-Novi. Owing to our significantly-later-than-usual start, we have hit the sunset hour; within one more revolution of the minute hand, all will be plunged into darkness and the nightly search for shelter will become all the more difficult. It is imperative that we find a place to camp - but where? The waterfront is packed with apartments, castles, forts, hotels, and all the usual regalia of European coastal life. Yet there is still hope; the road signs indicate a park up the road, though no distance is given. We continue on, following these signs where they appear. It is a frustratingly European custom to put random subsets of the local attractions on each roadsign, so that it becomes uncertain as to whether you really are still going the right way or not...
...and we locate a promising side road around the back of this restaurant pavillion overlooking the bays below, which we follow past a series of cemeteries and memorials until it turns into gravel track, whereupon it winds around behind a few houses before ending in the head of this dirt path into what looks like it might pass for a reasonably-sized park. Not much else for it at this point; it's starting to get dark, so we take the path into the forest a bit and find a spot underneath some trees. There is no space outside the path, which in any event is inadvisable territory for camping in these parts - for many of them bear the marks of previous conflicts in the form of land mines that lie hidden, waiting for unsuspecting farmers or travellers or whomsoever might have the misfortune to happen upon them...a horrible weapon, an absolutely unforgivable thing to inflict upon future generations of innocent civilians, orders of magnitude worse than the old practice of salting the earth so that nothing may grow again...
...so we stick to the path, cooking in the fading light; it is infrequently enough used that we decide to set the tent up on the path itself. A light rain starts to fall, but the dense growth overhead mostly protects us and our food from the ravages of wet and damp. Another day, another country, another campsite and meal. What next? What wonders will our short jaunt through the land of the Black Mountain bring?