By day 6 we kinda got used to the semi-nomadic life style, thus after a refreshing sleep, we left smoothly to the bridge of Mostar to find a parking slot. Interesetingly, on the way over there, 3 dudes waved at us offering free places – one of them even spoke a bit in Hungarian -, but it turned out pretty quickly, that parking is completely free on the street and the public safety is okay as well. In a stall - disguised as a boutique – we got to meet the ”divers”, who gave us some basic information about the jumping off the bridge, then we left to the stand nearby to practice a bit. We jumped a few times from 7 and 10 m heights while contantly focusing on the right technique. We were warned in advance, tho the 10 degree cold water really didn’t seem so cold – maybe because we were full of adrenaline even by those heights. Tomi’s reflexes felt like rather avoiding the water getting into his nose, than focusing on the possibility of having offsprings in the future, so John (the instructor) advised him to not to jump at all, however 2 of us were waiting for it pretty excited! Before us, there were already 2366 people, who have ducked from above – Sziszi had been wanting to pass this test for a while by that time. However after that, we were licking our wounds for days, still, it was an incredible experience! Bence needed like 1,5 minute to ”concentrate” on the jump, which he actually did without any sorta protecting outfit. He might have leaned forward a bit in the moment of entering the water, but other, than that, only his ears were buzzing – but at least for the whole day. Sziszi simply just took advantage of the situation – so much, that the chief wanted to call off it completely. After we managed to convince him that Sziszi actually wanted to jump, it was just the wind blowing so strongly, they let him try it one more time. After the splash, he got more permanent marks – even today a bruise, size of a palm, is still visible on his rear thigh – despite wearing a neoprene garment. Of course all these things seemed to be nothing compared to the buzz they experienced! After that we had a lunch somewhere on the nearest pedestrian street. We can only give our opinion about one restaurant – where we were served something else two times out of three, but one does not start to be a stickler for these nuances on the Balkans!
On the way to our evening destination, we got Bagaj on our road, which was a bit of a disappointment, in addition we got there in the worst swelter. The cave-and-waterfall combination would have been actually nice, tho it was converted into something else in order to try to please wealthy tourists, because swimming was frobidden, and the road was full of expensive restaurants. We got to Kravica in the afternoon, which was rather our cup of tea – beautiful waterfalls, where we could not just take a swim, but also climb up to them. After a well deserved ”soaking”, we got back to the parking, which was used both as a kitchen and a place to sleep. While enjoying the awesome view, we cooked our dinner, then ate it with a lots of pleasure while playing cards and listening to music. Then we started to look for a place, where we could actaully go to sleep. We were considering different options bearing in mind that we wanted to see the stars and also safety was important as well, but before the final decision, we encountered another, itty bitty problem.
After charting the area, we got back to the car and got to realize, that Biceps’ first right tyre virtually deflated. We did not panic, and sticking to the protocol we found out (with the help of a camping German tourist), that the problem we got is supposed to be inbetween the setting of the inner tyre and the valve. Given that we could not deal with this problem on our own, the next day we drove to a garage very slowly, where they fixed it for 5 euros, and then we were all set to go.
The quality of the roads were mostly okay, tho the curves and the uphills seemed more and more groundless. Inspite of this, we went on well, till the point, when Tomi’s stomach started to recall the dinner from the previous day. We tried to understand the moral of the story, as in Sziszi’s stomach can deal with a whole lot more things, than two of us will ever be capable of. Furthermore willy-nilly we got in touch with some of the locals anyway, most of them were quiet helpful, tho there was one, who wanted to call the cops on us, because we parked our car in front of their gate on the mountain. That day’s trip got even longer because the GPS just would not cooperate, thus all of us were more, than happy, when we finally arrived to our accomodation at Cetinje – true that, we had to look for it for like an hour, because simply there were no house numbers displayed on the buildings. Tomi started to feel better, tho after some medication and a nap, he engaged in a colloquy with the swallows, and Bence – like it was compulsory or something - , started to play Tomi’s part.
The night seemed excruciatingly long, especially, that at around 1 am, the water got turned off. I really do not want to go into details, everybody can solve the puzzle on their own anyway... Fortunately, we felt a lot better the next morning, however we had to skip Budva from the original route, and at once we headed towards Lovcen. There could be a debate about who was more shattered: Bence or the car, but some water did appear to be useful for both of them, so they could enjoy the breath taking view. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy, so we couldn’t see the bay, but having seen the beautiful landscape full of mountains, we almost completely forgot that there was a bay at all. The distance left to be taken did not seem too long to Teth – only 100-120 km till our accomodation -, but it turned out quite quickly, that it was actaully a lot. Because of the slopes, the ascents and the pebbly dirt roads on the mountains it took us 5 hours to accomplish this relatively short distance to our accomodation in the mountains, but hopefully we won’t start a tradition of these arrivals.
As of now, we are considerably far away from the civilisation in the proper sense of the word, but the house, where we are spending 3 nights, is specifically highbrow. Our water supply comes from the wells in the mountains, and the electricity is produced by a generator run by water as well. As it turned out, we were lucky with this, because at similar places the installed electricity comes at unpredictable intervals. Our hosts are so nice, like in the movies, and by the way for all this we have to pay only 5000 HUF (18 EUR) worth of currency for a night for 3 of us, which includes breakfast as well! The first day was basically only for relaxing, we washed the car, did our laundry, pulled ourselves together. The next day – for the first time on this trip – we are planning to put on the hiking boots, and hopefully we will be able to see more from the must sees of this area – like it was not enough to just sit for days and watch the clouds slowly showing up in between the passes of the mountains.
Our next stop is a wee bit far away time wise, in addition it is just a presumption, that we can go back on the very same way which we used to get here. If we manage so, we will probably check in from Tirana, till then follow us on facebook (www.facebook.com/ladatoor) for the up to date check ins!
If we seem like nice guys, please support ”Yuppi Tábor”, because they are indeed!
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