Riding in Style to Ulcinj, Montenegro

OCTOBER 4, 2012

There is one infallible source of solid travel information for those looking to get off the beaten path.  That source is shop rats at your local bike shop (LBS).  From the U.P. of Michigan to Marin County California they have always steered me in the right direction.  Sure, not giving up their best kept trail secrets, but still better intel than the tourist info center.  Unfortunately, the LBS scene here was a little sparse. 

Fortunately for me, there was a rider back in Prishtina who swore to me it was is life’s goal to get to Thithe National Park in Northern Albania.  I didn’t have that kind of time.  I needed it to happen this week.

One proposed route seem to be a four leg trip that included multiple means of transport including a ferry that may or may not even be running this time of year.  Instead of banking on that, I pulled up the pic of the bus schedule I took from the wall in Peje a couple days prior.  The strategy was simple.  Google everyone of the cities until I found one remotely close to Shkoder, Albania which was the most plausible point of departure to Thithe.  That city was Ulcinj, Montenegro.

 

From the start, my experience in getting to Montenegro was tops.  Five minutes in to the bus ride, the guy walking around to take payment realized I was an American and moved me to the front seat of the bus.  Pretty sure the other riders wanted to kill me. 

The bus ride that would follow was one of the highlights of the trip.  This bus was a large one and my seat was front row to the 8 foot by 6 foot windows for a wild five hour ride thorough the mountains of Montenegro.  Between the windows and my elevated position, there were times when I was looking straight down 1000 foot drops as the nose of the bus swung around impossible corners.

 

Arriving in Ulcinj, the manager-type person of the tiny station there heard I was an American and went out of his way to introduce himself, ask how my ride was, and wish me luck on my travels in Montenegro.  No sales pitch.  No scam.  No pushiness.  Just and handshake and well wishes.  My experience with the transportation to the country would prove to be representative of the time spent in it.   

Putting the Fun Between My Legs in Peje, Kosovo

OCTOBER 2, 2012

I was sooooo close to the mountains.  How would I get up there?  The day before on my run I saw a touristy kind of bus with pictures of bikes on the side of hit heading back into town.  I would take either – bus or bike.  In the morning, I got up early and went to the Tourist Information office, which should have been simple enough.

  

Unfortunately the whole block was a big crime scene and closed down.

Look closer.  Those little yellow dots in the pic above are the evidence markers for the shell casings.

 

Worried?  Nah.  Anyone who unloads 16 rounds in a narrow street like that and still misses their target can’t be that big of a threat.

After a bit of wandering I managed procure a sweet pink rat bike outfitted for mountain biking. 

The ride up the Rugova Gorge was tough, although not as bad as I imagined given the size of the mountains.  All the same, I was working my ass of and only averaged 12 kph on the way up, including a couple photo stops. 

Reaching the village of Kuchista, about 10k from the Montenegro border I had to decide whether to continue forward beyond the end of the paved roads.  I was about 24 km in and hungry.  As a friend of mine once said, “Where the road ends, the fun begins,” and I pressed on.  

At what I perceived to be the top there was once again a split.  To the right were beautiful guest houses and to the left, according to a passing motorist, was Montenegro.  I went right.  There was no restaurant but I met a vacationing actor named Ani who told me to continue the other route, where I would soon find the village of Boge.   The advice was spot on and I was rewarded with local beer, fresh bread and salad and a panorama of mountains.

The ride down was a bomber.  It took about 2:45 to climb the 32 km and about :45 to descend.  Here are links to a couple of the sections.  If you are not a cyclist, don’t bother watching.  If you happen to be a cyclist trapped at your desk right now, this might be the best 12 minutes of your day.

Video #1 – dirt roads

Video #2 -  tunnels and turns

In the end, my biggest threat wasn’t gunmen, or wolves, or bears, or drivers (they gave me my lane even on the hairiest of mountain roads) or anything else people warned me about.  My biggest concern was the bike mechanic.  My POS bike felt terrible from the start with a front wheel that was so out of tune I could feel the wobble pull me left and right.  Squeezing my front brake was more of a suggestion than a mechanical command.  And despite my request to fill up the tires, he didn’t put half the amount in I would  have.  The result?  My last 10k into town was on a flat. 

How I Get Around

OCTOBER 1, 2012

"You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"

Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads

One of a dozen weak clear beers I was forced to drink in the stoutless Balkans

There are many reasons to visit a city.  It may get a good review on the travel blogs or sites like LonelyPlanet.com or TripAdvisor.com.  You may know someone who had a positive experience there.  Sometimes, you just have to go on a hunch.  And my hunch was that any town that brews their own beer and is settled at the foothills of the mountains is going to be my kind of place.  And of to Peja I went.

Just as there are many reasons to visit a city, there are many ways to get there.  The big cities are easy.  Just go to one of the sites listed above, type the name of the city and you have everything you need to know from travel routes to lodging and food.  In northwest Kosovo near the border of Montenegro it was not so simple.  And my complete lack of planning for this trip wasn’t helping either.  So, my new strategy went something like this: 

Roll into a city and connect with other travelers or English-speaking locals who share my same interests.  This is Caroline's picture to the right.  After running into her in both Skopje and Prishtina, I took it as a good sign she was also going on to Peje, a city already on my radar (although she would immediately press on to Montenegro).  Last night at dinner I met a mountain biker who said Peja was a gateway to the outdoors type of city.  Perfect.  That’s step one.  Now how do I get there?

Again, connecting big cities is easy.  Going to the smaller ones takes some work.  I followed signs in a circle to a non-digital (is there a word for non-digital? that's how effing obsolete this thing was. I don't even know what to call it) board that was completely blank.

Then there was this monitor also, which could have been for the trains or spaceships for all I knew.

Sometimes you get a little clue like this.

And other times it’s a total jackpot like this sign in Peje.  City names and times.  Perfect. 

You go to the counter and find the youngest ticket agent available, because they are more likely to speak English and are easier to flirt with, allowing a couple extra stupid questions to be asked before they make you move on.  Get your ticket, hop on the bus, and hope like hell you know when to get off the bus.  Once off the bus, secure lodging.  It’s kind of like backcountry survival in a sense – most people freak out about finding food, but reasonable shelter is all you need.   In Peje, there was basically nothing online.  Getting off the bus, I looked right….

….looked left….

and made the obvious decision to walk to the right since that's the direction the mountains were. 

  

The hotel accommodations in town were slim and overpriced, and there wasn’t a hostel to be found.  I stopped in a couple shops to ask if anyone knew of a guest house or wanted to put up a scruffy American for the night.  My first stop was a failure, although the guy was really sweet in trying to help.  He pulled up Google Translator on the computer/cash register in his store so we could “talk” back and forth.

Try this in Target store back in the U.S.

My second stop was somewhat of a success, as I secured the apartment I am typing this from right now.  Yes, apartment.  It’s big. It’s kinda nice.  But I paid for it.   That’s okay.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that I can splurge on a two bedroom apartment with full kitchen from time to time and live like the middle class American I am, and not sleep in dorms and eat out of a can like the broke ass dirt bag vagabond I see myself as. 

Of course, I still ate out of a can tonight.

Welcome to Monaco! Or Pristina, Kosovo. Whatever.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

“This isn’t Russia. Is this Russian?”

- Ty Webb, Caddyshack

This was the alert on my phone as I crossed yet another border. 

 

Monaco?  Kinda rhymes with Kosovo I suppose.  

<Editors note:  As I update this blog three months later it is worth noting that I am still fighting over $1,000 in erroneous charges from Verizon>

As further proof of what a small world it really is, the first face I saw upon entering the hostle was Chris, the Aussie disaster photographer I met back in Skopje.  That night was pretty chill as we by chance were staying in Prishtina a block away from the Kosovo International film festival. 

Eating my way through eastern Europe was a bit different than back home.  The restaurants are all meat all the time.  But the markets were loaded with cheap fresh fruit and nuts.

Directions to the hostel from the bus station:  Take Bill Clinton Blvd until you see the Bill Clinton billboard then turn left at the Bill Clinton statue.  

 This was the map on the wall at the hostel.  See how much they like their government over there?  Look closer.

 This was in front of a family restaurant. 

 And, finally, the monument constructed after their war for independence from Serbia.

Meet the Real Forest Gump

SEPTEMBER 29, 2012

“I just felt like running.”   

- Forest Gump

Dear World.  Meet Ken, the real life Forest Gump.  As someone who makes their living coaching endurance sport athletes, I get to meet and hear about a lot of inspiring athletes.  This guy takes the cake for 2012. 

I met Ken at the same Shanti II Hostel in Skopje, Macedonia where I met the other wonderful travelers referenced in the last post.  Ken loves bikes.  Not like most of us like bikes.  Nor even like the shop rats at your LBS, though that happens to be his job on the rare occasion he spends anytime there back in his home country of Japan.  You see, Ken left home on his bike a little while ago.  19 months ago to be exact.

At first he was not very forthcoming with information.  This being a function of the lack of confidence in his English and also his deep, sincere humbleness.  The phrase, “I am nobody special.  I am just ordinary,” left Ken’s lips a dozen times in the hour of conversation.  It took a few questions and a cup of Hojicha tea (produced out of seemingly thin air by one of the Australian travelers who also spoke some Japanese) to open Ken up.  This is his story, as I understand it.

About 19 months ago Ken flew from Japan to Vietnam with his bike and panniers to start what he described as a life long goal to cycle the world.  19 months later he thinks he has covered about 50 countries and 30,000 kilometers of pedaling.  

Why doesn’t he know exactly?  Why doesn’t he have a gazillion GPS waypoints or Facebooks Check Ins to prove it?  Because he doesn’t care.  He just likes riding his bike.  No sponsors.  No media.  No hype.  Just a guy and his bike. 

As an editors note for those of you calling bulls#!t, if his sunglass tan line isn’t enough for you, his passport was almost full and he answered many questions about his route in much greater detail than I am covering here.

Where does he sleep at night?  Half the time he makes it to a hostel.  The other half of the time he “bush camps.”  The woods are good he claims.  Graveyards are even better.  Abandoned are houses the best.  He claimed a sixth sense when it came to seeking out safe places to sleep.  We asked if he was worried about strange animals in strange countries going after him.  Of course not.  Nothing could be as bad as the bear attack he survived when riding from Alaska to eastern Canada (on a totally different trip).  We asked if he was ever worried about the heat in the deserts of the Middle East.  Of course not.  Nothing could be as bad as the heat experienced during his North to South crossing of the Australian outback (on a totally different trip) following a route that has killed those attempting it in Jeeps and Land Rovers.  And on and on, Ken recounted for us tales of sketchy border crossings, good and bad locals, and months of adventure in the saddle.

What’s next?  He was only a month away from reaching Istanbul, Turkey, the terminus of this adventure.  I offered to connect him with bike shops, industry professionals, and what few media contacts I have.  Surely someone would love to hear his story and support him.  No, he insisted.  No sponsors.  No media.  No hype.  Just a guy and his bike.

Feelin' Free, Clear Mind in Skopje, Macedonia

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SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

 “He was part of my dream, of course - but then I was part of his dream, too."
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Waking hours before the rest of the hostel today was to be expected.  As a light sleeper who prefers early to bed over late at the bar, I’m usually the first up.  After getting in relatively late last night and going directly to my room, I really didn’t see any of Skopje, Macedonia, my new home for the next couple days. 

In the first kilometer of my run I stopped to snag a pic of a statue of a swimmer under Stone Bridge in city center.  While Stone Bridge is a bit of a hallmark in Skopje, the swimmer was nothing special and I was only taking the pic for my triathlon company’s photo archive in case I needed it as a filler photo some day later. 

 

There I ran into Karin, another American triathlete also running and taking pics.  We ran together for a bit, grabbing shots of Macedonia’s monuments and statues, which, for some reason, had all been relocated here to the country’s capital. 

One of maybe 4 photos of me taken during 2012

Before parting, Karin asked to take my pic, stating, “You’re part of my story today.”  It was a simple yet interesting comment. 

In the next several days it turned out that the people were every bit as much of my story as the cities and the sites, as I made several adventures with the German women and Aussie men that I met there at Shanti II Hostel in Skopje.  The first of those adventures was to monastery on a river.   After an hour ride out of town, we arrived to first find not the monastery, but a whitewater kayaking course.  Many of the boats used were painted with the colors of the country.  Unfortunately, I’m not up on my Eastern European pro kayaking to know if we were watching the national team practice or just some really serious paddlers with national pride.

The monastery was nothing special.  It was built up a bit and now had a touristy restaurant and wine bar in front of it.

The location itself is what was remarkable.  A series of three modern dams caused the gorge to flood.  The river was met with steep canyon walls.  

Our group commissioned a boat to take us up river to a cave, allegedly the second deepest in Europe. 

If you have never been in a cave before, it’s something to see for sure.  However, these caves were a tenth the size of others, like those in Carlsbad, New Mexico.  The coolest part was how many freaking bats there were and how close they were to us. 

Back at Shanti II Hostel I once again found myself in conversation with two amazing humans I had the pleasure of meeting.  Joanne, a Scottish traveler, was wrapping up three weeks of holiday in The Balkans and Em, the staff at Shanti II.  Both of these women had much wisdom to share that became part of my story that day.

On The Road Skopkje, Macedonia

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SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

"Let it be good, and do what you should,
you know it'll work alright.
Let it be good, do what you should,
you know it'll be alright."
What Goes on by The Velvet Underground

How hard is it to gain entry to Macedonia?  It’s kind of like a pre-9/11 entry into Windsor from Detroit, like we did when we were 19 years old and needed to cross the border for booze.  No. No, that would be giving the process too much credit.  At least back then they usually checked our IDs and asked some basic questions about if and what we were carrying into the country and whether or not weapons were on that list.  No, that’s not what they did here. 

It was really more like a game of pond hockey where everyone throws their stick in at center ice to determine teams.  Except here, at the entry point to the F.Y.R.O.M we all threw our passports toward the center isle as our bus driver collected them and walked away to some shack for inspection.  Two cigarettes later (cigarettes being a unit of time in these parts), we were on our way.  What a relief. I was afraid the whole passport thing might have been to divide teams for a soccer game.

….wait ….wtf ….I know I just answered in the affirmative to about six questions I didn’t understand but why does this paper say Application for Residence Change  …did I just permanently relo to Macedonia?  Fahk.  I hope not.  Then they’ll make me play soccer for sure.