Scrub and Storm

After lunch atop the Kotor ladder, we came out to find a km long line of cars. A parade for us? Sadly not. Two cars had collided on this narrow ride and the traffic had piled up. We got on our bikes and rode past the line of cars to the bus driver and the campervan facing off. Funny scenes, but as we look, a bare chested cyclist whizzes past us.

Tony turned out to be a crazy guy on a bicycle too. He traveled really light and covered 150 or more kms each day. He zipped ahead and then went back to chat with us, then ahead again. He rode with us on to the plateau, recounting trips he had made: 3 months from South Korea to Oman, or across west Africa in 2 months. He had crossed 7 countries in the last 7 days, and was planning to be in Istanbul in 14 days! The speed of his tales were as dizzying as his trips. Nice guy, but a different flavor than my meandering wanderings.

We came to next big climb, and here Tony left us to zip ahead. The switchbacks took us up a rocky mountain. The road was desolate but perfect; it looked like the asphalt had been laid less than a month ago. Kiran and I had a grand time zipping down through these mini canyons.

This road led off into a set of hills that was just pure scrub. For miles and miles the single pass track cuts across the plateau through scrub forest. We saw so little traffic that we counted them up as "that's the fifth traffic". There were even no towns, no cafes or any sign of life beyond a sudden farm that would appear.

The sky was a mystery. Could that really be? A cloud? A dark, black cloud!? It was weird, because one huge black cloud was just sitting in the middle of a blue and sunny sky. Our scrub path was skirting around the edge of this cloud. Look this way to be blinded by the sun, and look that way to be blinded by the lightning storm that was now raging. Bizarre and beautiful storm in the scrub. We welcomed the fat raindrops with delight as we descended a fantastic 800 m down to Danilovgrad. Uphill means downhill, after all!Lue lisää