Unfortunately, the weather changed again. The forecast for the next week was rain, rain and some more rain. We really liked Montenegro and wanted to explore more of the places at the coast but it didn’t look like a lot of fun to stay in the Defender for the next days. We therefore wanted to get an apartment at Dobrota, a small town in the Bay of Kotor. We found a very nice place which was a bit over our budget, so we asked Maja, the host of the Airbnb for a discount and since there probably weren’t many other tourists and requests, she offered us a great deal. We loved the interior design of the apartment very much! After a quick check-in, we drove straight to Lovcen National Park to visit the Mausoleum of Petar II Petrovic-Njegos, a stunning landmark up in the mountains. Njegos was a poet whose works are considered some of the most important in Montenegrin and Serbian literature. We enjoyed a delicious lunch at a restaurant and then drove the panoramic road back down again and stopped at Kotor to stroll around the city. It’s a beautiful old town, unfortunately, since a lot of cruise ships stop there as well, it is very touristy and overpriced, which we didn’t like very much. Nevertheless, we bought 2 carpets for our Defender, because we had the idea to put them in front of the entrance to make it a bit more cozy :) We bargained a lot and were quite happy when we ended up paying not even half of the price we were first told - probably we still payed more than enough lol. On the way back we got some gorceries and also wanted to stop at Cogimar, a fish market just a few minutes from our home which looked very promising. Unfortunately, it was already closed by the time we got there (getting groceries always seems to take forever since we tend to get lost in the grocery stores because we look at all the interesting stuff they sell and it’s just so much fun). However, just outside the store we met a fisherman who told us he could get us some very fresh mussels if we would like some the next day. We exchanged numbers and decided to eat dinner at a restaurant that night.
The next few days it didn’t stop raining, as we were promised by the weahter forecast. Besides doing all the laundry, we also took advantage of having a kitchen and prepared some nice meals. We texted Dejan, the fisherman from the night before, and he brought us 2kg of fresh mussels we then cooked for dinner. It was delicious! The next day we added some fresh seafood which we got at Cogimar to the remaining soup and had anouther yummy dinner. We also looked up various recipes to bake bread in preparation for Africa, since we expect to not find a lot of nice wholewheat bread there. We thought it might be good to give it a try. Tom baked a beer-dough-bread and I baked a whole wheat bread and added lots of grains and an olive bread. We were happy with the results :) Besides all the cooking and beaking we also enjoyed being lazy and catching up with family and friends on extended facetime-calls. We also checked the weather regularly and unfortunately it didn’t show signs of getting any better. In Albania, on the other hand, the weather was supposed to be super nice, 25 degrees and a lot of sun. We therefore decided to leave Montenegro and drive to Albania on Friday.
Furthermore, we also called Massimo, the man who will help us with the shipping of the Defender to Mombasa. We checked availabilities with him and decided to book the ship leaving Greece on 3rd of December. That means we have to hand over the Defender on 29 November the very latest, it was time for us to hit the road again!
We drove down the coast towards Albania and filled our tank one more time, since Diesel prices are a lot cheaper in Montenegro. At the border we had to wait a bit since we weren’t the only ones who wanted to cross, but it went smoothly and without any problems. In order to escape the rain, we had to drive further south, so we didn’t stop in Theth, which we intially planned, but kept on going towards the capital, Tirana. We looked for a wild spot to spend the night and our first choice was a place at the beach, but when we arrived at the spot, it wasn’t very welcoming since everything was closed and the beach looked almost abandonned. It also started raining a little bit. Since it was still early, we decided to drive a bit further. Our second choice was a spot in the Dajti Mountain National Park. On Park4night we found a restaurant where the owner lets people park for free. We called to aks whether they were open - they were and we were welcome to stay there for the night, so we drove all the way up to the Bovilla Restaurant. We were both very surprised when Google told us that it would take 2 hours to get there, since it was only 70km away. We soon found out why… The first hour the street was amazing, actually, it was a very new highway towards Tirana, however, the traffic was insane and just in front of the city, the highway ended and everyone had to get back into one lane only which led to a huge traffic jam. Once we made it through Tirana, Google still showed another hour to drive for the remaining 20 kilometers eventhough there was no signs of any traffic. Google however, was right again (of course). The road to the Restaurant was a dirt road, and it was impossible to drive faster than 5 km/h. It soon got very dark, so the trip was very adventurous. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were warmly welcomed by a guy who was waiting just for us, there were no other guests. He didn’t speak a lot of English but he showed us the menu card and we were served a delicious “village chicken” with potatoes. Tom tried an Albanian beer, which was very light but ok, and I tried a glass of the house wine which tasted like a glass of straight Rakja :D We then tried our luck with a bottled wine - it was definitely a better choice.
After dinner, we could fill up our water tank with fresh mountain water and then parked the Defender and settled in for the night. We woke up the next day to a breathtaking view over the mountains and a lake, it was beautiful. There was a hike trail just starting from the restaurant, so after a cup of coffee from our Bialletti, we decided to check out the trail. Just when we wanted to leave, there was a shepherd with about 40 goats passing us so we ended up hiking up the mountain surrounded by goats. It was quite spectacular to see them climb up the mountain! When we came back to the Defender and the restaurant, there were already a lot of tourists there. We drank a cup of tea and then took off again. We drove up north to the Qafshtama National Park and were happy to have the Defender and all the handy tools like the gear-reduction. On the way we almost ran over a turtle, luckily we saw it in time and saved it from the street. We also passed a hawk, lots of sheep and goats, a donkey and some dogs. We actually were heading towards a camp site, but since it was closed, we decided to camp another night in the wild and found a nice spot next to an abandoned house. We collected some wood and had an amazing evening under the stars. For dinner, we prepared some Quesadillas on the fire, it was super yummy! Two cars were passing us but no one seemed to bother that we were camping there. The guys from one car even wished us a good night, wild camping in Albania was defintiely not a problem. We loved the warm welcome we received by the country, the only downside was the trash that was laying around everywhere. There was literally nowhere we could look at without seeing any rubbish laying around. Of course, we left the places where we camped cleaner than we found them, but it was still sad to see.
