Our main task work-wise for this week was to paint Tamara and Charles' porch and balcony. We started with a coat of primer, which was really thin and dribbled down our arms while we tried to paint the ceiling above your head, then dried on our skin like PVA glue! After the primer dried we started on the first coat of paint. I didn't manage to get a great before picture, but the area to paint was quite big, with lots of fiddly edges and pillars so getting a first coat on took a couple of days.
We have also been helping Tamara set up an English school this week. Her first classes start next week so we have been helping to assemble desks and chairs and get the classroom ready to go.
We also had the pleasure of babysitting Sally and Stuart one evening this week. They were surprisingly easy to handle and were pretty happy spreading their toys around the living room, before climbing into the toy box. What one does the other copies. They have very different personalities and are very funny. Stuart is very quiet and totally chilled. Sally is a lot more vocal (although no proper words yet) and is the boss of her brother, taking toys off of him at every opportunity. Stuart is too chilled to care though so this rarely ends in tears.
Charles has been our first English host since our first host Diane, in France. Although we love Workaway for the opportunity to get to know a new culture, we have to admit it is quite nice having some home comforts after such a long time away from home. Charles cooked a curry for us- our first curry the whole trip (Indian food is not popular at all on the continent, its basically non-existent), as well as toad in the hole, and even a Sunday Roast! And there is English breakfast tea! Of course we have balanced this with some Montenegrin food, I particularly enjoyed Burek, a type of pastry filled with meat that Charles and Tamara brought home fresh from the bakery one morning.
At the weekend we set off in the car once again for Rijeka Crnojevica- a small village on the edge of a small tributary that leads into lake Skadar. The drive there was along a narrow windy road, with lots of hairpin bends and blind corners. Cue a slow drive with lots of horn beeping. The scenery accompanying our drive was pretty stunning and as the road was quite quiet we managed to pull over to get a cool shot of the car. We chose Rijeka Crnojevica to visit as Charles and Tamara kindly lent us their tent and I picked a campsite down by the river. After arriving we set off on a hike to Obodska Cave. Tamara has great knowledge of Montenegro and has so many recommendations for places for us to visit. When we said we were going to Rijeka Crnojevica Obodska Cave was her first recommendation. The hike was a 7km circuit, with the cave about 1km from the end. It was a great hike, if a little steeper than we expected based on the "easy" rating the route was given on the tourist info board! It has been a long running joke on our travels that Craig can't read a map, and although he tries to deny this we ended up taking a wrong turning and adding an extra (quite steep) kilometre onto our walk. Craig was not trusted with the map after this.
Arriving at the cave we were presented with some rather large boulders. We thought perhaps the walk ended here and you couldn't actually get inside the cave, however the markings we had been following continued over the rocks and right into the cave. So we set off climbing and clambering over the rocks. Definitely not "easy" in my book!! Craig ventured all the way into the cave and off into the dark, while I stayed on the outside and took some photos. The cave was a pretty impressive sight!
After our walk we set up our tent for the night and before heading to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We shared the mixed grill and it was absolutely delicious! Just what we needed. We headed back to camp and enjoyed a nice internet-free evening together around the campfire!
The next day we walked the other way up the road to Pavlova Strana viewpoint (also recommended by Tamara). The walk itself wasn't particularly exciting as it just followed the road but once you reach the viewpoint you can see for miles and the river does a big U-turn around the mountain in front of you.
Although it was only lunchtime we decided to head back to Sutomore, via a brief stop in Virpazar, a picturesque town on the edge of lake Skadar, as I started to feel unwell. I climbed into bed as soon as we got back and spent the afternoon feeling quite sorry for myself and the evening repeatedly vomiting. So typical when we are so close to the end of our trip!
This was our last week in Montenegro! We have been looking forward to Montenegro from the start of our trip and it definitely lived up to expectations - it is such a beautiful country! I've struggled to cram everything we got up to into the blog.
We have once again been lucky in finding amazingly generous hosts who we got on so well with. We really hope to return to see Charles and Tamara again in the future.
Next week we start our journey home!
Total joint spend: €2863
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