Blue

07/05/23

Waking up, I realize that I am still with the Montenegrin family, outside under the pavilion. The events of yesterday are immediately present again, and so the day begins with a wide smile on my face. Although I don't feel completely refreshed, I don't have much time to think about it before I'm already sitting at the dining table in the living room. Jochri is already sitting on the couch, grinning, and whispers to me that the little boy next to them on the sofa is still sleeping. Now I understand why it's so dark in the living room. The grandmother is sitting across from us, smoking a cigarette with her morning coffee. The daughter seems to be the most energetic of all of us as she promotes breakfast to us.

Then it happened, my personal highlight. I had just taken the first sip of my coffee and was about to take a closer look at my scrambled eggs through my still half-closed, sleepy eyes, to then deliberately sort out the pieces of sausage when the grandmother kindly offered me a cigarette. Her daughter was right there, took a cigarette from the pack, and practically put it in my mouth. She already had fire ready. Alright, I thought. What's happening here? I wasn't even fully awake yet, and I was already sitting, just like the evening before, smoking, in the semi-darkness, on the sofa, between Jochri and the sleeping boy. For breakfast, I had a cigarette. There wasn't much scrambled eggs left after I had given the sausage to Christoph. I also handed my cup of fresh milk to Christoph.

The daughter even offered to take us to Plav, the next stage destination, as she worked at a hotel there. Hotel Alan. She says it's really good. Tempting, but we were here to hike and cheating was out of the question.

We said goodbye to everyone and, with great joy and an unforgettable experience added to our conversation, we returned to the paths of the PoB.

Today we have a special stage ahead of us. For a few days now, we have been picturing in our minds what we will do when we reach the "City". We would rent a fancy apartment, dress up, stroll in the center, and absorb the nightlife in the city's bars. Plav is the only city on the Peaks of the Balkans. The ray of hope at the end of the tunnel. The most important thing is that there are supermarkets. This, in turn, means an excellent selection of groceries. This, in turn, means chips and ice cream.

In our minds, Plav was now the real goal. We skillfully pushed aside the fact that there were two of the hardest stages waiting for us afterwards with all of our fantasies about how wonderful it would be in Plav.

In the end, it was just a smaller city that had nothing to offer except a few restaurants and supermarkets. They didn't welcome us with fireworks, and they didn't roll out the red carpet.

Nevertheless, there was fruit. Yum.

It started to rain, and we checked the offers on booking.com over a cup of coffee.

For 5 euros, you could rent a tent at a campsite. Right by the lake, which we had imagined differently, by the way. Unfortunately, there were no beach bars and beach.

5 euros is almost outrageously cheap. Blinded by the price, I booked the tent. Jochri booked a caravan.

Upon arrival, I couldn't see a tent. The area itself was nicely done. The landlord emerged from one of the caravans, I showed him the booking, and asked in surprise about the tent. He calmly pulled it out of his car. Ah, I thought. That thing looks really crappy. And setting it up? It took 2 minutes. I helped him. Now it was standing there in the middle of the square. Around it were the caravans and some people who had also rented something here and were probably wondering why anyone would rent such a tent.

It was still raining a bit. The tent did not look waterproof at all. What was I thinking...

Although I still couldn't get along with my tent, I wish I had it now. And it would have been free too. Even the cowshed or any other shack would have been at least as good as this stupid tent. But it was another really funny situation. Jochri settled into their shabby mini-caravan and I settled into my already wet tent. The sanitary facilities, a porta-potty and a poorly built (cold) shower, were included in the price, by the way.

But oh well. We were in Plav!

So the fancy apartment didn't happen. Of course, we didn't have any clothes to go out in. The idea of nightlife was obviously exaggerated.

But we still had fun.

A nice dinner too.

The shopping was a bit overwhelming, but we also had nice snacks that we stuffed into ourselves on the street, right in the middle of the city's hustle and bustle.

We were ready to leave early the next morning and start the final sprint.