Montenegrin Memory

We’re currently at a campsite, if you can call it that, at the edge of Durmitor National Park. There’s no assigned space, no marked areas where people are supposed to camp. There’s a tent next to the cars in the parking lot. We’re not sure if it’s a guest’s or the owner’s. Gabriel asked them if we can pitch our tent up the hill and they just shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Wherever there’s space.” Laissez faire doesn’t even quite describe their attitude. This is the mountain’s equivalent of the surfer dude’s ‘whatever-goes’ mindset.

They have a dozen or so small cabins at one end of the “courtyard”; the bar/restaurant is at the other end. Next to the bar: an outhouse and a sink and a water trough for the farm animals. These cabins are bare bones, simple wooden construction with only enough space for a double bed and a chair and not much else. No insulation to speak of. Steeply pitched roofs so snow doesn’t accumulate in winter.

The shower and bathroom facilities in this “eco-camp” consist of four small stalls made of wooden roofs and brick dividers, different pattern of tiles for different stalls. Hot water comes from a small tank above the outhouse, while the cold water comes from a water tank on a wagon parked up the hill. The water pressure isn’t strong enough that they come out in trickles, or sometimes, nothing. In which case, one of us would have to get one of the guys to check on the tank up the hill and the buried hoses that carry the water down. Meanwhile, we’re standing naked in the shower stall waiting for them to fix the problem. These are probably worse than anything we’ve ever had before but for some reason I don’t mind. At least the sun is still out so it’s not freezing in the shower…

But everyone who rents a cabin here knows exactly what they’re getting into. There’s no mistaking this for a luxury guesthouse. In fact everyone seems to be quite ecstatic about roughing it out – sharing an outhouse with other guests, waking up to a goat munching on the cabins door. This is a petting zoo and a farmstay in one: parents bring their kids to experience life on the farm.

There’s always commotion somewhere. The horses (they offer horseback riding tour) would occasionally break free from the stakes and run around the compound, chased by the resident’s guard dog – a giant Caucasian shepherd dog – while the goat herd and the flock of chickens that freely roam the farm compound scamper to avoid being trampled by the horses.

In the evening the bar/ restaurant turns into a raucous social hub for tired hikers who just finished hiking around the area and bicyclists after their punishing ascent on the steep hilly roads. Beers, or pivo in Montenegrin, fill the table. They only stock one crate at a time so every half hour or so the bartender had to drive to town and get another crate. Occasionally bottles of homemade rakija – grape-based moonshine – would appear with small shot glasses that are magically always filled to the brim. You take a shot and suddenly the glass is full again.

The locals are really quite friendly. They don’t stare and mind their own business. They give me a friendly squeeze on the arm when they went past behind me, smiling. They play an eclectic mix of music at the bar that tends to turn into traditional folk music as the day progresses. On certain tunes the men would raise their arms up, clapping in the air and hit the roof above them. Two of them are donning the traditional vest and jacket and hat and they dance around each other in circles for one tune. The Czech bikers are cheering as the last of their members made it to the bar. This is not a special day or the weekend or the holiday. This is everyday.

Following the theme of the place, the cabin that houses the bar / restaurant is “rustic”. It’s clearly self built. The floor is sloping, the roofs and the boards don’t quite line up. I doubt they used angles to build any of the cabins. In various corners there are crocheted rugs thrown over chairs and hung on the wall, old skis on the roof. The bar top is a giant wooden log mounted chest-high. Somehow they make it all work.

I actually got to see how they build their cabins. In front of me a group of them are working on building a new cabin. They don’t seem to be following a master plan or a blueprint, instead they’re building and modifying as they go. First the foundation. Every so often two of them would pick up two pieces of trunks from the house on top of the hill, bringing it to the building site. One of them measuring the length of the roof of the cabin that was already completed to know how much wood to cut. When they erected the frame of the wood they called out to the men in front of the bar. I imagined they shouted something along the line of: “Is it straight?” And the men would answer: “To the right!”, their thumbs pointing to the right. Who needs level and angles and measurements when you have your slightly tipsy friends to tell you what’s straight. We had joked that the people who make these hillside roads in Montenegro has got to be drunk; they weaved and curved for no reason. We’d like to think it’s to fit the landscape but who knows… and where are the women?

When I first got to the bar there were a few young women drinking with the younger set. Then they all left and the only ones left in this compound are the men and an older woman who I assumed is the matriarch of the family. I’m not quite sure how these people are related to each other. A few of them are brothers, the bartender their cousin, and we think the local men at the bar seem are just regulars or friends of the owners. But who knows? Your guess is just as good as mine.

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