This morning we make an early start from our room in Beljurice and walk a steady climb out of the valley and aound the coastline to Bar.My mind is a-clutter with apprehension and disturbance; I am not sure about Albania, about walking blindly into this particular unpainted canvas. As well, the days are closing early and while Ben is quite happy to frogmarch into the night, I am unwilling to walk busy roads in the dark - nor am I interested in trashing my physical body by working her from sun-up to whenever. She needs - and has earned - and loves her rest and her time to ponder.
The Albania thing is a rush of blind paranoia. I know this because as I do my best to separate fear from an intuitive 'don't go there' my mind begins to run with alternatives and there I come unstuck . . . I could fly to visit friends in Spain - the plane will crash; I could catch the train to Greece and meet Ben there - the train will crash; I could catch a ferry back to Italy and hang out in Venice - the boat will sink . . .
This is how I know I'm suffering a simple bout of 'absence of a known world', a minor crisis of confidence. I let my mind run with all the terrible things that might happen in Albania, whoever and wherever that is. I decide to touch base with my Steadying Hand - and realise I don't need to make a phone call, that he is accessible to me right here. And so, shoulder to shoulder, I walk with him awhile.
By the time we make it to mid-morning breakfast - Ben is in hog heaven with eggs and fat fresh bacon - I am on steady ground: my mind is clear and my spirit ready to walk head high into Albania and meet her face to face - not because I've talked myself into it, but because it is the right and only thing for me to do today.
We wander around stunning sunny coastline into Bar, through an industrial area nudging what will soon be, if I know property developers, a tourism jewel. This is Noosa Heads at Christmas time beautiful.
We pass a small grove of pines overhanging a pebbly beach. We stop and I call to council my Steadying Hand and my Guiding Light (www.sacred-relationship.com) and together we sit quietly in this beautiful peace of Earth. My spirits rise. My confidence is true. I find my path.Bar is great! In just two places in Montenegro have we seen women on the street, relaxed and comfortable - Budva and Bar.
Bar is filled with weird cement architecture and modern coffee shops. It's a strange place in a strange place, way down there in a distant corner of of a new nation.
We rest awhile, we find a map, we eventually find internet. We walk out of town by the railway tracks, seeking a country road and finding only the main road. It's okay. It's just a few kms before we wind straight up into the mountains to Dobro Voda (Good Water).
We pitch camp in a paddock overlooking Adriatica. We eat dinner - bread, cheese, chocolate and mandarins - in the darkness, accompanied by a sweet cat, two cows and a couple of happy dogs.
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