To be honest, we’re all struggling to cope with Kester’s inert coolness.
Our initial plan was to arrive in Peja, just across the border from Montenegro, and meet friends of Paul and Angela’s for lunch before continuing to Prishtine, the capital, for dinner with them. In fact, as always, things took longer than expected so we had lunch before the border and arrived in Peja at 4:30. Whereupon the macaroni cheese went back in the oven to finish it and was promptly served with tales of 30 years working as missionaries. Thanks Alistair and Anke!
Dinner, then, was steak (I’ve been to the US a few times and trust me, these were the biggest and possibly best steaks I’ve ever seen), in a Prishtine restaurant at 10:30, followed by chat till 1:30. Well fed would be an understatement for how we all felt that evening.
The next day we were to get up promptly, and complete a list of jobs:
- Blog, email, read news about Egypt etc
- Get laundry done
- Weld up broken exhaust on Ben
- Investigate and fix slight diesel leak on Finn
- Replace corroded ATF pipe in Finn
- Buy and install new webcam (note lack of images across Kosovo)
- Fill tanks with diesel (bigger job than it sounds, at 130 litres each)
- Shopping for next day or two
- Leave by 2pm
We bought a new section of pipe from a local garage (who knows where it came from) and drove to a petrol forecourt to replace it. Random Helpful Man stepped in and provided a rug to lie on, hot water to warm the pipe (essential) and lots of friendly advice in Albanian, and took over to re-assemble the bash plate (by which time I couldn’t feel my fingers). He wouldn’t even take our bar of chocolate to say thanks (we’ve so moved on from Whisky).
Needless to say, our second night with Paul and Angela was lovely too.
Bush camping in Greece
Continuing the tradition of blog posts running a few days behind reality, we spent the last couple of days moving on from Kosovo through Macedonia and Greece, are now in Istanbul. So here’s a few pictures of Montenegro. A country with a population similar to Edinburgh, existing entirely in towering, snow-covered mountains, it was beautiful but, at this time of year, inhospitable. Canyons which (the guide book assured us) rivalled the Grand Canyon lurked below every hair-pin bend, with barriers that wouldn’t stop a fast sparrow. Talking of which, the sparrows in Montenegro are fat, and have mohicans. Much cooler.
For anyone following the practicalities of our route, borders have generally taken between 5 and 45 minutes, with slightly longer to get into Turkey today (I ended up with 4 stamps on the visa in my passport, Louise only got one – think the other 3 are to do with the truck, but not sure what exactly…). We’ve had to buy insurance at the borders of all non-EU countries we have entered, which has varied from 10 to 50 Euros. We’ve also had to buy road tax for Slovenia and Montenegro, which were 15 and 10 Euros respectively. Our standard car insurance covers us for all EU countries and also Croatia. Bosnia, in which we spent all of about 20 minutes, didn’t demand either insurance or tax, so we got neither.
The campsite above is the only time we’ve actually had to camp in lying snow. We were glad not be be woken by a mob with pitchforks, led by The Woman Who Says “Ni!”
Some more pictures of the Croatian and Bosnian coastline, which I’d intended to put up last night before it got to 1:30 am. A particularly stunning and very simple drive. In the summer, it would be hiving with tourists; campsites every hundred yards through the towns, and every mile or two in the countryside. In mid winter, though, we often had the road to ourselves.
Hovering the mouse over each picture will give you a brief description.
A quick post tonight, as we’re staying with friends in Kosovo and it’s gone from 8pm via the first wash in 5 days, steak and beer to 1am. Afraid I can’t get photos to work properly (somebody please drown internet explorer 6).
I lie. Here’s a picture of Croatia:
Since being joined by the de la Hayes we’ve made steady progress to the East, with a night in Italy, two in Croatia and one in Montenegro. The scenery has been breathtaking and the roads far better than we expected. For 100 miles in Croatia we had a motorway all to ourselves, perhaps to make up for Nathan’s being fined for driving without headlights on (which he turned off by mistake 30 seconds before – our only run-in so far. We’re not allowed to mention the cracked fog-light any more). We’ve had great luck with campsites so far, finding secluded spots and twice feeling able to have a campfire to keep ourselves warm. Last night we were chased from our chosen site by an Old Woman Who Says Ni (with a stick), despite trying our best charm and a miniature of Dalwhinie 15. But we got better.
Every night has been progressively colder, always below zero. The condensation in the tent stopped being a problem once it froze as fast as it formed, but water has been posing a problem in the mornings. For tonight we’ve been welcomed by Paul and Angela, friends from Andy and Louise’s Glasgow Uni days, in Prishtina.\
Our current plan is to leg it to Ankara in the next few days, then decide what to do next. One thing is for certain – it will be cold! Bing Maps suggests that to get from Istanbul to Alexandria (in Egypt), we go via Turkey, Greece (all good so far), Bulgaria (odd), Romania (what?), Ukraine (going North now), Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq (sounds fun, always wanted to go there), Syria (which neighbours Turkey), Israel (good luck with that after Syria – no open borders), through the Gaza strip to Egypt. Simples.
“Bolognese sauce is a meat-based sauce for pasta originating in Bologna, Italy.”
I’m sorry to say it, but we couldn’t find any mince in the shop, so we ate Risotto.
With a couple of days to kill in Northern Italy, we spent the last two nights in a campsite near the centre of Bologna, selected by virtue of being open. We hid in the tent till 2pm yesterday (it was raining) then, armed with the campsite’s tourist map (with 1 in 10 streets marked, but every pub clearly advertised) and our trusty GPS, we took a dander to the city centre to see the sights.
As seems typical for Italian cities, the outskirts are an underwhelming mess of concrete, fuel stations and endless, confusing motorway junctions. The centre, though, was a gem. Narrow streets with single level arcades blocked most of our GPS reception, but the presence of the two towers guided us to the centre. By my count, the Asinelli Tower, at 97 metres, had 498 polished, thin steps. I found myself strangely disappointed at the missing 2.
Bologna had somewhere between 100 and 200 towers at various stages of medieval history. A dozen or so seem to survive, of varying sizes. What we found particularly amazing was the complexity and age of these things – the Asinelli Tower is thought to be nearly 900 years old.
Today we have moved on to Lake Garda. Despite every side road, junction and back garden being a tourist resort or campsite of some form, we couldn’t find a single one open. However, they all have copious car parks, some of which have nice corners hidden out of sight. With stunning views of the lake. And some still have their free wifi turned on.
Tomorrow we’re picking up the next set of drivers, the de la Haye brothers. We were initially to be meeting them in Tunis and driving to Hurghada, in Egypt. We’re now meeting them in Milan, and still aiming for Hurghada, but through Eastern Europe and Syria. We may manage to get overland the whole way through Jordan, with only a short ferry hop to the Sinai peninsula, but that will depend on time. Stay tuned.
…and then was coming. And then was pulled forward by 6 hours to arrive before the curfew, and which we then cancelled.
In one hotel our free hotel wifi stopped working. So I logged into 192.168.1.1 using the old ‘admin/admin’ gem and rebooted it, which got us back online. Nice and easy. Once we got to Genoa, the hotel wifi was 7 Euros/hour, but beside the two lobby computers was a free cable. So I plugged in the laptop. And there we stayed, Louise and I, in shifts, for pretty much the entire 2 days in the city, planning a new route through Eastern Europe, Syria and perhaps Jordan, to get to Egypt at the same time as we’d originally planned, but avoiding Tunisia and Libya.
Breaks from the internet were had for clothes washing (how can a whole city have no open laundrettes?), food (including in a rather stupendous restaurant in which every surface was piled high with spirits from around the world, every square inch of wall covered by historic documents, maps and paintings, every item on the crammed, 6 page menu was hand written, and every table other than ours empty), and for a brief dander around the old city one evening.
One month into SurfingAfrica, with a newly planned 2 further weeks ahead of us in Europe, we’ve just spent 50 Euros on maps and guide books to Europe. We’re now wandering about the brain lapse that led both of us to subconsciously think “We’re going to Africa, we won’t need any of our extensive stock of European guide books and maps, will we?”
Stepping back a few days from our last post, before we realised how bad the situation in Tunisia was becoming we’d hoped to spend a few days travelling round the north of Lake Geneva. Alas, we never got further than Geneva, before we turned round and drove straight to Genoa, in Italy, which was to be our departure point for Tunis.
Having checked into a hotel in the French side of Geneva (cheaper) on Saturday, we then walked across the border and spent an afternoon and evening enjoying the sights. And then stuck the Swiss flags on the side of the cars, since that counts well enough for us.
Says it’s not safe to go to Tunisia just now. So, we’re having a major re-think of our route. Options just now are get the ferry from Venice to Egypt and then spend a couple of weeks relaxing there, or re-route through Eastern Europe, getting the ferry from Syria to Egypt in two weeks time. Stay tuned to hear what we decide in the next few days.
For now we’ve had a couple of days using the facilities of a nice hotel in Genoa.
When the revolution comes, at least we'll have clean underwear
Louise’s old workmates gave us a wee stuffed giraffe to take with us. Little did we know, or they warn us, that (s)he is a raging alcoholic. No sooner did we turn our backs in Belgium then he was out in the sun on the spare wheels, hoarding some whisky.
The critter’s got a life of his own though. He soon disappeared back into the surf, only to reappear in France, on a snowboard with his trusty tipple, riding off pieste towards Mont Blanc.
I’m pleased to say we found him later in the day, having only moved a matter of metres since we last saw him.
