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Sunday, September 22nd - Dubrovnik to Kotor, Montenegro - 11,803 km
I am up, packed and finished my breakfast. I have thanked my hosts and wished them all the best. I ask them what they know or can recommend about Montenegro, my next destination. They tell me they cannot recommend anything. Whenever they go there to shop for something their tires are slashed because they have Croatian license plates. There is so much evil lurking behind the façade of Paradise in these wonderful settings.
It is 9 am on a quiet Sunday morning in a tourist town most devoid of tourists. It is still too early for church services in this Catholic town so the streets are truly empty. It occurs to me for the first time that when I cross the Montenegrin border that I will not likely see another Catholic town for the remainder of my trip.
The highway is dead quiet too, as I make my way south along the coast highway. Most of the outer city is north of the walled city so I am soon beyond it. The road becomes a cornice road hanging from a steep mountainside about 250 m high. It is as breath-taking as my departure from Split, even more so, though I have left later and the hazy morning sun is already in my eyes. After half an hour, the cliffs fall away and I am riding a small coastal plain past picturesque hamlets and towns, such as Cavtat. The plain becomes a valley between the interior mountains and a rugged headland. I climb through it for 15 km to a 200 m pass that marks the border with Montenegro, the coastal province of Yugoslavia.
At the pass there is a pair of “iron horses”, iron girder barriers set up by the Croats to prevent Serbian military vehicles from crossing the border. There are no Yugoslav guards here as they do not recognize the legitimacy of the border or Croat independence. I weave my bike through the space between the barriers and start to descend the other side. I stop myself and turn around. The view south is too incredible to pass through without a photo. I go pass through the barriers and coast around to face south again. My ratcheting sound my gears make as I coast startles a dozing Croat guard in a fox hole immediately. He leaps to his feet with a machine gun in his arms pointed at me. We stare at each other with our mouths open, knowing how close to death I came. He’s a handsome man in his mid-20s, looking more scared than brave. In some other circumstance I would offer him a badly-needed hug, but instead I wait for him to lower his gun. He waves me on and I leave without getting my photograph.
I was almost blown away two metres from the border, but now that I am beyond it I feel a great sense of relief. Croatia will not be invading Yugoslavia so I am now beyond the war zone. There is no traffic and the road is dropping gently to the Bay of Herceg Novi. It is a lovely, smooth descent with a warm breeze blowing through my hair. When I reach the water six kilometres later, the road hugs the hillsides above the shore as I make my way around the bay to the town of Herceg Novi, my first town in Montenegro. I notice there have been grass fires by the roadside in a couple locations. I know this has nothing to do with the war. I am stopped by a Nazi-esque guard at a Yugoslav checkpoint before I get there. He wants to know where I am going and why but he speaks no English. I hand him my passport and shake my head, saying “I don’t speak Croatian,” just to piss him off. “No Croatia!” he shouts at me, insulted. I pretend not to understand. He tries to speak to me in German but gets nowhere. He gives up and tosses my passport back at me in a huff.
In Herceg Novi, I stop for a lunch break. The town is built up around a castle called Stari Grad, build here by a Bosnian king six hundred years ago. Since then it has changed hands to the Turks, the Spanish, back to the Turks, to the Venetians, Austrians, Russians, French (under Napoleon), to the Montenegrin, back to Austria and eventually to Yugoslavia.
Beyond Herceg Novi, the highway climbs and dips above the water. A long convoy of open-backed military trucks loaded with soldiers passes me and as I make my to the Gulf of Kotor. They give me dismissive glances as they pass. But the convoy creates its own congestion and they slow down. Some of the soldier groan when they see me glide past them. Then they speed up and pass me again and they cheer as they do, but I pass them again. Now they all groan loudly, but out of fun this time. When they next speed up to pass me they reach out their hands to shake mine. I manage to shake a couple dozens of their hands without falling under the wheels. There is real joy and affection in their buoyant, youthful faces. I also take in their toned bodies for one last time and then they are gone. They are part of a military build up that is preparing to invade Croatia to kill the people who have been kind and welcoming to me the last couple days.
I reach the Bay of Kotor around 2 pm. It is a strange, almost land-locked bay, less than half a kilometre wide at its mouth but more than 30 km around the inside. It is totally surrounded by 1200 m mountain walls. The road stays level with the water all the way around to the town of Kotor at the south end of the bay. There is a thick haze hanging over the bay and I notice water bombers landing to scoop up water. They are dropping in on a mountainside across from the town.
It is after 3 pm by the time I reach the town. I find the tourist office and a bed and breakfast that is very helpful. The proprietor, Milan, tells me the fire was started by some idiot who threw a lit cigarette out the window of a passing car. He says it happens over and over here and the people never seem to learn. I remember the burned out slopes by the road before Herceg Novi. I change and walk through the old town. It has real character and charm but is definitely poorer than towns on the Croatian coast. Some buildings have been badly damaged. I learn that there was a powerful earthquake in the area, centered around Budva south of here, in 1979. Not everyone has been able to rebuild in the past twelve years.
I want a better view of the town so I climb the shabby streets at the back of the town against the mountain. I notice a church about 150 m above the down and find a staircase leading to it. I begin to climb it. The valley unfolds beneath me as I climb. I can see the fire still climbing the mountain of the other side of the bay and the water bombers circling. Kotor, jutting into the bay on a wedge-shaped point, is clearer too.
The church is an empty shell. I see that there are low fortification walls that continue on for some distance beyond the church, farther than I can see. I continue to climb until I am more than 300 m above the town. I find several abandoned structures, probably guard or supply houses. The ruins are extensive but no attempt has been made to restore or upkeep them. No one is up here on this late Sunday afternoon, though if I was a boy living here my friends and I would have been up here all the time. It is a magical placed, steeped in history and begging to be explored. There are still places like this without tourists, not mentioned on tourist brochures. I find it reassuring, but the sun is setting so I make my way back down.
I eat in a restaurant close to my bed and breakfast. Everything is walking distance in this town, compacted by the limited building space. The restaurant I find is very reasonable, but then they are not having a good tourist season either. After my meal, I stroll down to the water. It is a warm night. Couples are walking hand-in-hand, romantically. They have come to watch the forest fire still burning out of control on the opposing mountainside only a kilometre away. They gaze at it like it is the moon, or something put there for their entertainment.
The fire makes me nervous. Everything I have experienced in the past week – the iron horses on the roadsides, the warnings and taunting, being forced off the ship, the air raid sirens, gunfire at night, the arrest of the Albanians, the sight of bombers on TV, the burned out vehicles beside the road, the checkpoints, narrowly missing the attack on Split, the dirges in Dubrovnik, the boardings and sandbagging, the machine gun aimed at me at the border, the military convey, the threat of earthquakes and now this forest fire – has me quite freaked out. I am as tense as a violin string.
The beauty of the coast is juxtaposed with terror and violence, like a beautiful flower that will kill you if you touch it. I have reached safety, or so I thought. But I have lost the sense of safety around me. I feel I am in constant danger and that nothing is for certain. The ground could move, the walls collapse, burning embers falling from the sky or . Anything is possible at any moment. I want out of here, but here is everywhere. I am not sure I will ever feel as secure as I used to. I return to my room and write. I try to fall asleep, but sleep does not come easily. I am still worried sick about Irena, Frenk and Bojan, and for all the people trapped in this surreal world.
PHOTO 1: leaving Dubrovnik, heading south
PHOTO 2: one last look before climbing to Montenegro
PHOTO 3: looking into Bosnia from the pass
PHOTO 4: Savina Monastery, before Herceg Novi
PHOTO 5: looking down at Herceg Novi cathedral
PHOTO 6: Herceg Novi and Stari Grad Fortress
PHOTO 7: Byzantine church on the Bay of Kotor
PHOTO 8: in the Bay of Kotor
PHOTO 9: Kotor harbour
PHOTO 10: Kotor Cathedral
PHOTO 11: alley in Kotor leading to ruins
PHOTO 12: stairway up to the ruined fortifications
PHOTO 13: starting up, view of the rooftops of Kotor
PHOTO 14: rooftops still showing damage from 1979 quake
PHOTO 15: ruined watchtower half way up
PHOTO 16: view of the town and bay from the watchtower
PHOTO 17: still climbing, view of Kotor and watchtower
PHOTO 18: ruins higher up
PHOTO 19: view of the ruins at the top
PHOTO 20: sunset over Bay of Kotor as I climb down
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