It's 6am and I hear rain drops. Seriously? Shadow is pissed and refuses to get out of bed. I start packing my things, then give up and make him share his twin bed for a while. We can't stay here another night. It's a nice place, but if I'm taking a day off, I want a shower and wifi (locals call it weefee). When I get to a place in town, I always ask for the weefee password. It's makes Shadow laugh.
After staring at the map yesterday we realized how close we were to Albania. Once again, there are no official border crossings and you must fill out a permit 2-weeks in advance to hike across. The hut manager is a retired police officer. I tried to convince him to give us a hall pass across, but no such luck. After a Turkish coffee we left in the rain. There's a road to town in about 10 miles with a cafe. Soon the rain quits and the low clouds rise. Another day of semi good weather and amazing landscapes.
After hiking Croatia I was ready to throw my backpack away. Shadow talked that maybe we should do something other than hiking. That's all we have done the past 6 years. Maybe we have reached our limit. I felt like a golfer that had lost her swing. The passion was gone. I dreading even talking about hiking. Montenegro was a country I really wanted to see too, but wasn't sure how I wanted to see it. We agreed to only hike the pretty parts. Little did we know that every part of this country is pretty. So pretty that I think we have found our hiking groove again. Not just the mountains, or the trails, or the food, or the people, but the spirit. I no longer want to throw my backpack in the garbage can, I want to move here!
We arrived at the mountain pass with a road going to town by lunch time and stopped at the cafe. A husband and wife came out to greet us. They live here during the Summer and the coast for the Winter. Another loving meal of local cuisine overlooking our next mountain, Komovi. Well, where our next mountain should be. Low clouds covered the view. The weather needs to be good for us to climb this one. They had WeeFee and a extra room for the night so we decided to stay. The afternoon was spent on the front porch watching the clouds roll through, catching a glimpse Komovi and watching 2 kittens play. I miss having a furry friend. We spoke with our hosts about how to make Rajki, mushroom picking, and their knowledge of home remedies from wild herbs. Things were going good until I asked about the big sticker of a dog he had on the front of his car. It's a photo of a husky. His husky. That a neighbor had shot... He walked away crying! I felt so bad. Then in some twisted world it became funny. There I stood in the front yard alone. Shadow was on the front porch trying not to laugh. "Way to go. You had to bring up the dude's dead dog." Shadow said. The man composed himself in the kitchen and comes back out. A couple beers later he gets in his car and takes off up the mountain road, then back. We piece together that the person that killed his dog lived up there. Then he calls the cops. We can't understand exactly what he is saying, but at some point he says "Americans". Shadow thinks he is trying to get the guy in trouble and using us as a scapegoat. A nice guy with an arch nemesis. After calming down He finds some local wild herbs that they dry for tea. St. John's Wort, Bitterroot, Menthol, flowering thyme along with some blackberries and strawberries. People here know so much more about wild edibles than we do.
Thinking about making a run for it.
Dinner.
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