This morning after breakfast, I left Shkoder and soon Albania, going north by bus. The ride through the usual beautiful landscape took 4 hours and gave me time to think about my ever present identity/ashamed-of-being-German complex. It had been triggered by meeting 3 young Germans in the hostel that were taking the same bus as me but is something that somehow accompanies me all the time. Hearing other people speak German does not give me that moment of attracting happiness people usually experience when meeting their countrymen in a different place (Spanish usually gives me that), it rather makes me want to change my itinerary. And having to talk to people just because they’re German even if you don’t like them feels completely senseless. I don’t know how to put into words, what exactly bothered me about these (apparently sympathetic) young students, but something about the slightly smiling-arrogant way of talking, that many Germans present as a habit, drives me crazy. Recognizing specifically “German” habits in myself drives me even more crazy, of course, and I have to continuously fight against some parts of that culture I grew up in and that I do not agree with but that are deep inside me and little controllable.
Of course I have met very nice German people and of course my most beloved friends and family are German and I have spent most of my life very happily in Germany and appreciate that very much. But it is the fact of officially belonging to a group that I don’t feel I belong to at all that makes me experience this conflict. I don’t give much on borders or nationalities, but of course it is the German nationality that concerns me personally and that I always get reduced to.
This permanent inner conflict about belonging, differentiation and definition is still an unresolved issue of mine and I am not entirely sure where it comes from or how to resolve it but I know that many other young Germans also experience it.
Anyhow, I was relieved to find out that the others went to a different hostel when we arrived in Kotor, Montenegro, which is my 9th stop in my 4th country.
Crossing borders from Albania to Montenegro was maybe the clearest visible change between neighboring countries yet. Not the nature (landscape is getting more amazing with every station), but the civilization-related aspects changed abruptly. Kotor is very touristic, and apparently much richer. No more dust, no more plastic waste everywhere, no more old cars, no more dirt. Instead there were fancy yachts, clean pedestrian ways, restaurants and colorful flowerbeds in the city. Also there was a tourist information that gave me a very decent map and I didn’t have to exchange money, because Montenegro has euros. Everything felt like Europe again.
I never feel especially happy to be in touristy places but as regards nature and landscape this might be the most beautiful place yet – seriously challenging even Macedonia. Also, this time of the year is still very quiet, but I probably wouldn’t enjoy being here in summer.
The Kotor bay is a “double bay” close to the seaside and directly surrounded by high, rocky mountains. After checking into Pupa hostel, I climbed the Kotor castle, enjoying the increasingly incredible views.
On my way up, I came by the house of an old man who offered “Relax, drinks and fotos” in his garden. Frano, originally Croatian, offers some Softdrinks, local wine, homemade Rhakia and homemade tea from local herbs on his little grass terrace on which he has placed some old garden chairs and improvised tables. I decided to stop and chose the herb tea which came with a very long conversation with Frano, who spoke pretty decent English and different words in almost any other language. After an illustrated and long explanation of the different herbs in my tea, he told me how recently an orthodox Montenegrin family had bought some land above his and was currently destroying all the beauty that surrounded us. He talked about the mafia, about aggression against him personally for being Croatian and Catholic and about their goats and cows destroying and eating all the important wild flowers and bushes that should be growing in this mountainside. He talked about criminals willing to build high hotel-towers for quick money everywhere without respecting nature and landscape and finally got to the recent incident at Notre Dame in Paris which had clearly hurt him deep inside. Every day he goes down into the village to check his emails and he is in contact with a theology professor and philosopher in Zagreb. With his help he wants to take a stand and reopen the little church above his house (which is 200 years older than the french cathedral) and name it “the little sister of Notre Dame”. He has also given symbolic 10€ for the reconstruction of Notre Dame. Apart from specifically referring to the Catholic church (that I basically reject), Frano talks about everyone being a grain of sand and having the responsibility to protect the earth, history and culture (on which I agree). He doesn’t give much on borders or flags either (“we all from the earth! Never mind.”) and is trying to set an example of a small, responsible, ecological and sustainable form of business with his little improvised cafe. I am afraid that probably next time I come here, Frano with his lovely trees for the bees and his donkey that helps him get up the drinks from the market won’t be here anymore, and that “the mafia” might build a hotel complex on his property some day. It is this kind of stories and people that increasingly make me want to avoid touristic places, that make me sad and give me hope at the same time. I think it is extremely difficult to find a balance in the process of “progress” in developing countries. On the one hand, increasing tourism means increasing wealth for the locals and increasing consciousness about contaminating the environment. On the other hand, the border towards destructive tourism is easily crossed with irreversible damage and wealth is usually reduced to a small group of people. Contamination, disappearing insects, changing weather conditions on the hole planet and how to travel in a more sustainable manner are common topics of discussion in hostels these days.
Finally up, I climbed a small rooftop of the castle’s ruins and settled down for a late lunch. I stayed there until the sun had almost disappeared behind the mountain-chain opposite the bay and then made my way down along the city walls towards the old town of Kotor. The small triangular old town is an amazingly beautiful maze of narrow streets between white stone-houses with many restaurants and cafés.
My hostel for the night turned out to be the worst I have been to yet on this trip. Although clean and with very nice dorms, the common area is very limited and doesn’t invite to meet other people. The host was playing terrible RTL-radio (perfect to top off my anti-German mood today) in a volume that obligated to shout if you actually wanted to talk to someone. The only people I met were an over-energized English couple the age of my parents. After talking about how great they were for about two hours, they then got to talk about their experiences in Serbia where everything had been written in a weird alphabet (they were incapable of remembering the word “Cyrillic” and had apparently never heard of it before) that was different from the “English alphabet”…
The evening ended with the woman explaining me everything about Dubrovnik for about 20 tiring minutes, using the table and my dirty plate as an imaginary map that made no sense at all. It was actually quite entertaining.
This first part of my trip is already heading towards its end and as I have been basing my itinerary on spontaneous decisions in the last weeks, I had to do a little planning for the next days. Although I have not come as far as planned for this date, I have decided to stay another day and do a big hiking trip tomorrow before moving on to Bosnia on Saturday.
It is already more than obvious that one month is not enough for the Balkans and that I missed out on many things I would still like to visit. This is definitely a region to come back to.
