Montenegro
The border crossing by bus from Croatia into Montenegro was quite easy. This was surprising because so recently the countries had been in a bitter war with each other. We took a taxi that night to an eerily dark, abandoned campground on a beautiful, long sandy beach. Remnants of cigarettes littered the ashtrays on the patio, but even though we had called ahead and been assured someone would be there to greet us, nary a soul was in sight. The taxi dropped us off and left, unconcerned with our well-being. A line of flags stood on the beach, some in good condition: Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia; some in bad condition and ripped to the point of tatters: United States, Germany, Spain.
We explored the grounds for signs of life. While walking around the back of the dark, empty building, we saw a parked car. Ferocious barking erupted. I could scarcely make it out but in the shadows of the night was a large, dark guard dog. I ran a few steps, my fear taking over, before my mind caught up and I realized that my action had been stupid. Meanwhile, Jon wisely picked up some stones. I copied him, and slowly we backed away. I could still see the dog tracking our movement, my adrenaline pumped furiously on these deserted grounds, with no phone, no connection to the outside world, and a ravenous dog tracking our steps. We walked on until we jumped onto an elevated garden, giving us a height advantage. At that moment we heard a whistle and the dog retreated. My body visibly relaxed and even Jon let out a sigh of relief.
It was a cold, windy night, and our food supply was scarce at best: four hard boiled eggs, two slices of cheese, seven grapes, one old banana, and a dollop of nutella. There were no toilets, but we were lucky enough to find running water. After setting up our tent, we watched Schindler’s List on the ipad, providing closure to our earlier travels through Poland, and fell asleep
In the morning, we took a short walk along the empty beach, encountering an old, skinny, naked man in a decrepit shack. It was quite odd, like the rest of the campground, and so we hefted our packs onto our backs and headed out along the dirt road the mile back to the main road.
We stopped to ask directions, and one of the good Samaritans providing instruction offered Jon euros—we took this as sign that we were in desperate need of showers and laundry. Declining the euros, we set off in the direction of the bus station, more than ten miles away. We were back to hitchhiking, and I for one did not want to have to walk the whole way back with a fifty pound pack on my back. The roads were eerily empty, every store closed permanently for the season and barely a driver out. After hoofing it for around fifteen minutes, a car stopped. I thought we were saved! Yet the car was full of men; where would we fit, and where would we put our bags?
The driver asked us if we had stayed at Tropicana. As that was the campground we believed we were at, I said “yes.” His response: “you owe me 10 euros each.” Our jaws must have dropped. $26 for no toilets, no food, and no facilities whatsoever? No way! An argument ensued. He insisted there was an attendant there and that the toilets were available. I assured him that this was not the case, therefore we must not have been at his campground. He turned red in the face, while the other four men in the car remained calm. Finally, he sputtered at us: “You are not tourists. You are bastards!” And with that, he drove away. I was afraid he would return to hurt us, but luck was on our side. Less than two minutes later, two kind men, Jacob and Rocky, picked us up and drove us to the bus station, just in time to catch our bus to Albania.
Albania
After our short-lived yet exhilarating travels through the deserted yet hostile land of Montenegro, we boarded an early morning bus to the oh so mysterious land of Albania. The book I was reading talked extensively about how the people of an area are mirrors of the land they inhabit. This is so true of Albania. A land shrouded in mystery and content with its furtive culture and history, Albania’s culture is mirrored in its isolated topography. As far back as the ottoman rule, brigands and outlaws sought refuge in the rugged mountains of the country. When tax collectors from the Ottoman Empire arrived, whole villages disappeared into the mountains and awaited there approach. If the collectors were bold enough to continue pursuit, the villagers frequently ambushed and robbed them. The ottomans assumed the mantra “if you can’t beat them, join them” and made many of the most famous brigands pashas in their empirical rule. Any who, this culture was manifest in our brief yet illuminating encounters with the people.
While on the first bus to Tirana, we passed a café called café bushi, and some folks in the bus started applauding. When I inquired why, they informed me that this was the location where Bush visited when, during his second term, he came to Albania- the only Arab nation willing to host him. They love Bush and hate Obama. In all my travels over the past 10 years this is the only nation I’ve been to outside of the US where this seems to be the resounding sentiment.
Bus one continued on and dropped us on the side of the road. This is another interesting insider tidbit about Albania. Despite the reliance on busses by a goodly number of locals, there are no bus stations and no bus stops. Busses drop you off on the side of the road at seemingly nondescript locations. It’s like going to a club in NYC with no sign. Only instead of having to be in the know to rub elbows with the rich and famous, you have to be in the know just to catch the local bus. When we arrived in Tirana on the side of an nondescript road, the bus driver unloaded our bags and drove off without any sort of explanation as to where we were. We found a local travel agent nearby and inquired about bus tickets to Greece. We were planning to spend the night in Tirana but the travel agent informed us that because of the looming financial crisis and strikes in their southern neighbor nation, there was a good chance that the border would be closed tomorrow. We should’ve seen this as a warning sign but naively thought that Greece would be orderly….that is another chapter of the saga altogether though.
We purchased tickets for the bus that evening. Despite the relatively short 400 km trip, the travel time would be an estimated 18 hours because of the rough terrain in Albania. We had a bit of a wait before the bus left and decided to grind on some local eats. We picked up an entire delicious rotisserie chicken, two large beers, a loaf of bread, some greek yogurt, and a greek salad from a street cafe for about $5. Needless to say, the country was inexpensive.
Following our meal, we befriended a local drunk outside the TA who, after a bit of chat began to shed pearls of wisdom on us about our time in Albania. He informed us to “never carry more than 20 dollars in this country,” and, not realizing he was someone, also informed us “not to trust anyone.” As a token of our unending friendship of all of 30 minutes, he kindly insisted that I untie the cross bracelet from his wrist and tie it to mine. Although it made me uncomfortable I obliged. Our bus arrived at an nondescript corner on the side of the road and as quickly and simply as we’d entered Albania, we were off.
Greece
The 23 hour bus ride from Albania to Greece is one that we both look back on as one of the worst rides of our lives. Even though every passenger had a seat, unlike most other buses we have previously taken, the Albanian passengers were so incredibly loud that sleep was out of the question. Although the distance from Tirana to Athens is not so great, the mountainous terrain of Albania and its multitude of hairpin turns creates slow going, as did the passport control at the border. We waited for more than two and a half hours behind other buses to cross the border. Once we finally crossed, we thought hooray, we are off to Greece! But no, the bus made, what we thought would be, a quick pit stop. However, the obnoxious and loud men sitting behind us deemed this an appropriate time to order coffee and sandwiches and sit inside a fast food restaurant while the rest of the passengers waited. Jon was at his wits end at this point, as the bus honked at the casual passengers. It was useless. We all waited impatiently until they were properly satiated before heading off into Greece.
Surprise surprise, not one hour into our journey, one of the coffee guzzling men had to use the bathroom. The bus driver pulled over on the side of the road and the pink shirted man exited the bus. At this point, I wish I had averted my gaze. The man took no more than ten steps, remaining immediately adjacent to the side of the bus, and began his business. Literally, right outside my window! Why he did not have the decency to take a few more steps and go beyond sight of the bus is beyond me but speaks to his lewd behavior.
After the episode, as I like to call it, the bus continued on through Greece until we reached Athens. It dropped us off on the side of the road, per usual, in a neighborhood we later learned was one of the most dangerous of the city. Ignorant of the fact at this point, we positioned ourselves at a dirty coffee shop. Initially, we tried to book a ferry to one of the Greek islands, our intended destination, but were told that the boats were on strike for the day but should be back on schedule tomorrow. With that, we spent the next few hours on our computer and ipad searching for a hostel. I look back now and am grateful we were not robbed, or worse. We stayed at a hostel in the Syntagma neighborhood, near Syntagma Square, where the Parliament building stands. The hostel was also conveniently located near the Acropolis and Zeus’s Temple.
During any other week of the year, it would have been a gem location. We took a long nap and then wandered out to eat some gyros. On our way , we noticed a small protest outside the Parliament building. We did not realize it at the time but the protest foreshadowed what was to come.
The next morning, we set out to see the Acropolis. It is an amazing, ancient structure that towers on a hill above the rest of Athens, as zoning laws do not permit any buildings to be built as high or higher than it.
The ruins themselves are under constant restoration. Jon noted that the scaffolding he had seen when he visited the Acropolis with his family at the age of eight is exactly same today. This observation was our first clue to the working culture of Greece. For example, try to go to the bank at ten o’clock on a weekday and you have a 50% chance of it being open. We also visited the Agora, the archeological site of the commercial center of Athens in B.C. times. I particularly enjoyed the Agora because I was reading a book on the history of the Mediterranean that devoted pages to the pottery from 2,000 to 1,000 bc.
That evening, on the advice of our interesting hostel employee Stratos, we visited a man named George at a travel agency to see about booking some ferries to the Greek islands. George was a stereotypical Greek salesman, a smooth talker who brushed over questions he did not want to answer and wooed us with Greek coffee, a thick sweet substance that sticks to the back of your throat, and soothing words that everything would work out. He proposed a relaxing, 17 day trip that would have had us take a ferry from the islands of Santorini to Paxos to Naxos to Lesvos, where we could then take a boat over to Turkey where we would be meeting Jon’s parents. He assured us that the boats would be running the following day, but when we returned at eight pm to pick up our tickets, the ferries had declared another strike. Fine, we thought, it is worth the wait. We did not yet understand the magnitude of the protests or the undirected anger of the Greek populous that would alter the rest of our stay.
We awoke in the morning to learn that all public transportation, taxis, museums, shops and restaurants were on strike. This predicament left us with little to do in a city overflowing with garbage, (the garbage men had already been on strike for quite some time as the streets demonstrated).
We eventually decided to rent a car, the only manner in which to escape the city and its all-consuming strike. After a lot of haggling with salesmen over prices, we accepted a deal and headed out onto the crazy streets of Athens to the Temple of Poseidon. Jon drove like a pro through the narrow, winding roads of the capital where the motorcyclists appear not be held to the same traffic laws as the rest of us. But it was well worth it, because two hours later we had arrived at a beautiful, tranquil beach looking up at the Temple of Poseidon. We ate grilled octopus and watched the sun set over the ocean.
That night we returned to the hostel to discover that protests had raged all day. As we drove around the city looking for a parking spot, we inadvertently drove directly through Sintago Square where a fresh wave of tear gas wafted through our open windows, causing our eyes to water, noses to run and sneezing galore. Jon found our quickest way out, passing many police who had no time to give us directions as they attempted to keep the peace. Eventually we parked in a lot to avoid the craziness in the streets.
The following morning we drove to Delphi, the famous oracle, who leaders from around the Mediterranean had sought out for thousands of years. The drive took us up and down mountains offering breathtaking views.
Of course, the oracle of Delphi was closed due to the strikes. It was curious to see, however, that all of the employees had still come to work. They holed themselves up inside the museum, socializing and drinking while we stood outside, helpless after the long drive. Fortunately, one employee had opened his section of Delphi, the gymnasium where the precursors to the Olympics were held. We meandered through this section, eating lunch on a rock under the sun in front of the beautiful ruins of the Temple of Athena.
This experience allowed us a glimpse of Greece’s financial problems. A man and a woman sat in chair by the temple, ensuring that no one littered near it. A noble job, but probably more suited to a trashcan. Instead, the museum had hired not just one but two employees to protect the ground from litter. More than a bit excessive, we thought.
Upon our arrival back to Athens, the protests raged on uncontrollably. After what seemed like an eternity sitting in traffic, we neared the main street. However, we realized we could not reach the car rental shop to return our car because it had been blocked off by the protesters. While Jon illegally idled the car on a side street, I went by foot to the company and led a salesman back to the car.
Happy to have rid ourselves of the car, we resumed our journey by foot back to our hostel. The main street was in chaos. Fires dotted the road, including a large bonfire in a dumpster. Almost as soon as we turned onto the street, a hoard of protestors wearing gas masks, goggles and/or white paint, which we later learned was liquid Maalox, an antacid to mitigate the effects of tear gas, came running at us, clearly away from something or someone. With no clue as to what was going on, we turned and ran as well, falling into step with the crowd until it was clear there was no imminent danger. Jon took out the camera to photograph the chaos until one man, wearing an old soviet gas mask, sauntered over, a bat in his hand, and said in a deep voice, “no pictures.” Jon complied apologetically. The man, realizing that we meant no harm, clarified in a kinder voice, “just no photos of faces.” A bit on edge, we continued to walk in the direction of our hostel as well as the large bonfire, into which people were throwing anything they could get their hands on, including government property such as park benches. Other young men and women were taking sledge hammers to the stairs of government buildings, and we later learned that the IRS building, just blocks from our hostel, was burned to the ground that day.
Shielding from tear gas
We stopped for a bit to observe the riots. There was little to no organization, and one nice Greek teenager stopped to attempt to explain the madness to us. He said that some of the protesters were truly trying to make a point, that the government must address the economic needs of the people, including higher wages and lower taxes. Others, he said, were merely anarchists taking advantage of a politically volatile situation to create pandemonium. He told us that he and many others believed the most violent protestors were policeman in plain clothes disguised in order to stir up trouble and detract from the weight of the peaceful protestors’ message. In fact, the locals primarily thought that government officials themselves burned down the IRS building to destroy the records of their dastardly accounting. We just shook our heads and thanked him for his help. For a country that is billions of dollars in debt and in fear of financial collapse, neither Jon nor I could understand how the mass destruction was helping their cause.
Jon had a very interesting conversation one evening with our hostel employee Stratros, regarding the economic situation. Stratros was complaining that a famous politician’s wife making millions of dollars was not paying her taxes. He argued the injustice of such inaction. Boldly, Jon asked, “do you pay your taxes?” “Of course not!” Stratos replied. Herein lies the terrible predicament of the Greek people, as we see it. They want to have their cake and it too. They do not want to work hard, they do not want to pay many taxes, and yet they want their wages increased and they do not want the retirement age to rise past its present age of 55.
That night, we had had enough. The tear gas was leaking into our hostel and everyone was exhibiting symptoms. We could not even leave to get dinner. After ordering delivery pizza, we forced ourselves to walk over to George’s place to get our money back and cancel our trip. We had spent five days in Athens waiting for the ferry—enough was enough. Unfortunately, we had already paid for the 17 day vacation (a stupid mistake: never pay for anything in advance!) and getting our money back was no easy task. When we arrived, there was a fire raging in the streets and one of George’s cronies leaned out the door with a garden hose, fruitlessly attempting to put it out. Jon and I pointed to the fire as evidence of why we were leaving Greece. George, however, kept reassuring us that it was “2 billion percent safe!” and kept offering us more Greek coffee. Between the two of us, we presented a strong case, trading back and forth the good cop/bad cop scenario. George reluctantly admitted that he spent the cash we had entrusted to him to pay for our ferries, despite the fact that we had no ferry tickets. George continued to refuse to give us our money, but we would not budge. The Greek islands trip had been a huge splurge for us and there was no way we were leaving Greece without that money. Finally, Jon began forewarning the other customers in the office, informing them of George’s bad business practices. At that point, George told us that if we came back in the morning he would have our money. And he did! Score for Jon and Amanda.
For our last night in Athens, we treated ourselves to a proper Greek dinner, complete with rounds of Ouzo, a Greek alcohol that tastes like licorice but is extremely strong. We chose a cute narrow street on a hill looking up at the Acropolis and made our way from taverna to taverna, drinking and nibbling. At each place, we would concoct a deal that left us quite satiated even before dinner. We finally settled on a place to eat, complete with live Greek music.
The music was wonderful, but what we enjoyed most was an old couple who took the stage. The man was old and couldn’t move well, but he stood in a bent over position toward his wife, clapping a strong rhythm while she slowly danced around him, showing an ankle here or a wrist there. It was subtle but seductive, and very sweet to watch the two of them still so in love. It was a lovely way to end a very interesting but tumultuous trip to an ancient land. We were happy to be on our way to Cyprus!
