Virpazar

After we left Split, we had to drive home. Considering the roads in Montenegro's interior, it definitely wasn't going to be a one day trip - cutting through Serbia was out of the question. So we decided to spend the night in Podgarica. Big mistake. Podgarica, Montenegro's capital, is permanently locked into communist flashback. No hotel that we could find. The place is depressing. It was getting late and we'd already driven quite a ways, so we pulled out the Lonely Planet to find a place to stay. The result: going back over Lake Skadar to Virpazar and entering (weird music here) The Hippie Zone.

Virpazar is right next to the lake, a national park that is a wetlands preservation project. Most of Virpazar's meager income is the result of tourists going out on the lake. This place is at least as poor as many places in Kosovo. It was built on a medieval fort, and most of the fort is incorporated into people's houses. For example, these stairs lead up to a decrepit place that's still used - it has a dog and sheep in the yard and some flowers, but no electricity, no running water, and so on.

This is across the street from those stairs. You can see these houses were built shabbily also on fortifications. In the valley below, there's a gypsy camp that's even more pathetic than the houses. Total population of Virpazar can't be more than a couple of thousand people. It did have one advantage over the town on the other side of the lake - no huge dump right next to the road.

And now, why I call this The Hippie Zone. The place we stayed was Hotel Pelikan, founded in the Sixties and still stuck there. We ate at the restaurant, which is more what the place is than a hotel (it has four rooms, which are basically bedrooms in the house: ours was across from the family's living room. It was small, spider-filled, and the bathroom floor was always wet from the shower overflow. We were desperate, though. The next nearest place on the way home was through all those tunnels and such, and a ski resort that might not even be open in the summer. So stuck we were.

We took a walk around the town (taking all of ten minutes to do so), and went to the restaurant for dinner. It was at least as much of an experience as the room. i was given a wilted bouquet of local wildflowers when we sat down to dinner. With the exception of the frozen mixed veg, it was obvious everything was from the local area. Our first course was mulberries. I don't think I've -ever- been served mulberries before. There was a cold fried dough, some honey, and olives - uncured, new olives. The veal was from an old milch cow from its toughness, but at least it was thoroughly cooked. Someone associated with the place came by with fresh water chestnuts he pressed us to try. By the end of the meal, we had somehow acquired a basil plant on top of that. The only other customers were a foursome of French caravaners who decided to eat out instead of cooking. All in all ... weird and definitely an imitation of an acid trip.