A Week of Mold and Mosquitos

  

After my most recent debacles with simply getting a cab in Montenegro, I finally learned my lesson.  If a host tells me to just message them with any issues, I got an issue for you.

I shot the host the message as I was packing up.  She soon knocked on my door and we both took a seat as she called the cab company.  The last driver had given me his card and I’d given the number to her but no one was available.  She called another dude, translated cost, and helped me get the bags to the curb.

I’d managed to find another place in Tivat and let the cabbie know where we were going.  Or at least that’s what I thought.  My GPS and his were giving two different areas for the new place.  Eventually we just pulled over in a bakery parking lot while I called the host.

Now for a little geography lesson.

Risan is about 15 miles from Dobrota/Kotor and that area is about 15 miles from Tivat Center.  Problem was, this was not the only area that considered Tivat.  We ended up having to go in the opposite direction of the area I was used to, past the airport, and onto the part of Tivat Municipality that could be seen from Porto Montenegro.  Okay.  Seeing more of the country than I’d intended.

The host and the cabbie had to have one more conversation before we reached the right place.  This was another private residence with an apartment beneath the main house that they had rightly named the Underdeck.  The host was waiting just outside to help with my bags.

Now, admittedly, this place looked like the pictures.  I’ve never really had a listing with Airbnb that was a poor representation of a place.  It’s a studio, which I hate, but the place was cheap and was in a familiar area or at least that’s what I’d assumed.  No microwave but, like the last place, a stove and plenty of counter space.  Those were the good things.

What the pictures don’t convey is that the entire place slopes down towards the bathroom.  I spent the whole week stumbling around like a drunk because the floor kept putting me off balance.  Additionally, it turns out the apartment is a mosquito spawn point.  As many as I killed, another one just appears out of nowhere and none of them were drawn to the pretty blue light I bought months ago just to kill them.

The doorway is crooked and difficult to lock, the dining room chairs are so creaky I was afraid to sit in them, and the mold smell persists even with the air purifier and air fresheners, particularly when the cabinets are open.  The damp also explains the mosquitos and the fact that when I put my dirty pair of jeans on the floor of the tiny laundry room in the bathroom, they ended up soaking wet by the time I put them in the wash.

And speaking of the bathroom.  Here we go again.  At least the place in Kotor had a shower curtain.  This shower area, despite the spa feel with the flooring and shelf of soaps and body wash, was completely open to the rest of the bathroom.  The washing machine was behind its own door but the rest of the bathroom was ripe for a soaking every time I took a shower. 

Sigh.

I ended up spending a great deal of time in that apartment as there was not much else to see in this part of Tivat.  The beach was only accessible after a long walk in the hot sun and navigating a bunch of sloping streets between apartment building.  The grocery store was close but not much else.

I did eat at a place called Restoran Picnic that did indeed have a picnic theme with its wooden chairs and tables covered in red and white checked tablecloths.  And no, the irony did not escape me of being a black American woman eating in a restaurant in Montenegro while listening to American soul music and recalling the origin of the word “picnic” (look it up in case you need a reminder that everything in the U.S. is based on racism).

Anywho, I got way too many bug bites while trying to work in a sloping apartment full of damp.  And, being on the ground floor, I had to contend with the host and his family constantly walking by my kitchen window because I couldn’t close the blinds

Eh.  I’ve stayed in worst places.

***

I still hate that YouTube shows too many commercials in this country.  But they also show local videos on occasion and I found one that I wasn’t rushing to skip through.  I have no idea what this guy is saying but I ain’t gonna lie -- I kinda dig it.  A little bit of Montenegrin flavor for you.

A Brief Stay in Risan

The week in Dobrota/Kotor went by quickly.  Wouldn’t miss the apartment, but getting work done on that balcony with that view … sigh.

But I would remain in the country.  The place has views for day so it was just time to find the next one.

Prices get weird for rentals this time of year.  It’s the high season with plenty of people flocking to the beaches and tourist traps.  The cheapest place I could find nearby was a good twenty minutes away by car.

Nearby Kotor was crawling with cabs so I figured it be easy to catch one even on this less traveled road.  I figured I could call one once I left the apartment.  Nope.  Despite having a local SIM card and calling a local number, I kept getting a recorded message saying that I didn’t have enough ‘points’ to make a call.  What does that even mean?

Sigh.  I’ve already mentioned how much trouble I’ve had getting a cab in this country.  Now without the option of calling one, I started walking towards Kotor and hoped to flag one down.  Twenty minutes later, hot and sweaty (again) a guy finally pulled over without me having to flag him down.  We were soon on our way – traveling back down the same road I’d just spent dragging all my crap in the hot sun.  Are we having fun yet?

Once again, there was only one road carved into the side to the mountain to get to the city of Risan.  Plenty of breathtaking views of the bay and the tiny islands that tourists could visit.  In no time, the driver said we’d arrived.  He pulled over into a gas station to get directions and after a brief detour to the local hospital, we managed to find the right place.

My host greeted me at the door and helped me get inside.  The rental appears to be a guest house behind a gate with a lovely courtyard separating it from the main house where the host lived. 

Another odd setup.  Not a studio but a kitchen/dining/living area smashed together with the bathroom off the large bedroom.  Definitely a better bathroom than the last place and the oven was much appreciated.

The host, who didn’t speak much English, let me know by phone that she would need my passport.  Not an unusual request and there are some hosts who need to take a picture.  She caught me off guard though by saying she’d need to take it for about 20 minutes to get it photocopied.  I was not comfortable with giving up my passport even for a minute but reluctantly agreed.  It’s not like I didn’t know where she lived.

I unpacked while she was away.  Once my doc was safely back in hand, I decided to explore the town.  But first I had to navigate my way down a Portugal-style hill to get to the main road.  I sighed knowing that going down that bad boy wasn’t the problem.  It was going back up, in a country-wide heatwave, while lugging groceries and water.  Wow.  Really looking forward to that.  Fortunately, Idea, one of the local grocery chains, is located at the base of the hill.

There’s not much to the town of Risan, just a few shops and restaurants with homes behind them and the bay in front.  Some ancient buildings are nestled in the nearby park.  There’s a couple of restaurants perched over the water and a decent sized beach located right next to them.

I spent the week amazed again about how little the Montenegrins paid attention to me as an outsider.  Like I said, the town is tiny.  Everybody knows each other and the place gets far fewer tourists than Kotor or Tivat.  And yet people barely noticed me.  I had one cashier at the grocery store ask me where I was from but that was pretty much it.  I do love that about the country.  I don’t expect to be embraced with open arms by any place but I do appreciate not being regarded like an alien.  They mind their business and so do I.

Mostly I think they just don’t have the energy to pay anyone any mind.  They have to save all their strength for going up that hill of 1,000 steps.

Kotor, Montenegro

 

Welp.  Time to leave yet another great apartment. 

I’m not even going to complain this time since it’s my fault I’m still nomadic.   The only reason I’m trying to spend three months in Montenegro is because I’m a chicken.  I had every intention of staying in Albania for a full year as you can do that with an American passport.  But … the logistics were freaking me out.  I want to get an apartment and a bank account and inform the government that I want to work remotely in the country.  I was afraid I was doing it wrong and wasn’t sure who to contact and argh.

I’m going to figure it out. Tons of people before me have done it so I know I can do it too.

In the meantime, it was the usual routine.  Get out of the apartment with all my stuff and after a quick breakfast, try to flag down a cab.  Uber still doesn’t exist in Montenegro and I haven’t figured out the bus system.  The buses are pretty slow and unreliable anyway, it’s hot in the country (not as hot as the rest of Europe, but still), and I just wanted to get the transfer done as quickly as possible.

Or not as the cabs repeatedly ignored me.  I got tired of waiting by the main road and decided to walk to the taxi stands that were in the center of town.  And boy, was that fun.  Sidewalks here are sporadic and sometimes badly damaged.  The heat was made even worse by the extra effort and my growing annoyance.  Several rest stops along the way and I kept getting ignored by cabs.

I finally walked the full mile to an official taxi stand, sweating bullets as my colder groceries melted through my trusty Pingo Doce bag, only to find the stand abandoned.  Yeah.  I don’t want to do this anymore.

A taxi did eventually appear and the guy agreed to take me the 10 or so miles to Kotor.  Now, much like in Tivat, there’s only one road in and out of Kotor.  So, as could be expected, traffic got increasingly heavier as we approached the city.  Even at noon on a Monday, it was bad.  I can’t imagine what rush hour looks like here (if there is such a thing).

We spent most of the time stuck in a dark tunnel just sitting.  When we exited and made our way through town, I quickly realized why the place is such a tourist draw.  This place is so gorgeous I can’t get over it.  And I thought Tivat was pretty with all the flowers and green everywhere and the mountains surrounding the bay.  But Kotor takes it to a whole new level.

My new home for the week wasn’t actually located in Kotor, but just past it in the city of Dobrota.  My cab driver had spoken directly to the host as the place is hard to get to and I’d soon find out why.  The host came to meet me and help me get all my crap down a steep, rocky driveway, down some ancient stone steps, and up even more stairs to get to the apartment.

And I understood why the place was so cheap.  I still do not like studios.  They’re too cramped and this place was no exception.  At least the other ones had a proper seating area and not just this one recliner.  But it was available and I wanted to visit other cities while in the country.

As for the bathroom … I think I’ve mentioned once or twice my many issues with European bathrooms.  But what in the bad design is this?

Why on earth would anyone think it was perfectly fine to have the entire bathroom be the shower?  Even with the curtain closed, the toilet is right next to the shower head.  It was a contortion trick just to keep the water from hitting it.  Just … why?

And because the window was open before I even got in the place (no screens, of course) I spent the week being dive-bombed by mosquitos.  Sigh.

But there was one big draw to the place.

On the balcony I shared with the British family that moved in about an hour after I did, was a table set up with a view of the bay framed with grape vines.  Gotta love Montenegro.

It was a long, hilly, scenic journey to the water, about a 10-minute trip.  Like Tivat, the shore is dotted with tiny beaches of various sizes with the biggest being the closest to the apartment.  Heading down the narrow one-way street that line the shore, there a couple of restaurants along with a small convenience store.

My first full day in the apartment I took a walk along the main street back towards Kotor.  It’s not the greatest walk in the world, more cracked sidewalks when there are sidewalks at all.  I got to a point where the sidewalk just disappeared and travelling along the busy road became increasingly dicey.  Fortunately, a lady was walking behind me and made a detour to the left behind a building.  Figuring she knew something I didn’t, I decided to follow.  Sure enough, the sidewalk continued behind the building and over a bridge beside the street.  In no time I was in Kotor proper after about a 1 ½ mile walk.

Restaurants, vendors, a great park, lots of vibrantly colored flowers and tourists for days.  The ancient part of the city, on the UNESCO world heritage list, sits behind these gates.

It reminded me of Budva with the same windy walkways through the shops and restaurants. 

After three years spent mostly in Europe, I have embraced the slower pace of life here.  Two-hour lunch breaks are awesome.  If you want to sit in a café for hours over a single cup of coffee, no one blinks.  The waitstaff won’t try to rush you off so they can get in more customers, they won’t pester you to buy more food.  They just leave you to stare at nothing if that’s what you feel like doing.  I very much love that.

But if I don’t work, I get no pay.  The last six months have felt completely consumed with my transcription job.  It’s frustrating and often upsetting as these are court cases where no one’s having any fun.  And it doesn't pay much.  But, after being so focused staring at a computer, maybe I can take a little bit of a vacation.  Radical concept but … Kotor is really pretty.

I took one day to go to the beach.  Bathing in the bay was so lovely I could imagine for a while that the world wasn’t falling apart.  Watching all the Montenegrin kids playing around me made me think of how awesome it must have been to grow up surrounded by all this beauty.  Sure, you’d have to deal with all the smelly tourists roaming around, but it seems a small price to pay to have access to the bay whenever you want.