Louise was off to work in the morning and Judith was kind enough to give me a lift out to pick up Betty. We stopped by a store that was considered a “grey market”. Deals were to be had there but it was likely a place linked to organized crime. I was hunting for some new quick dry zip off pants as I had had a pen explode in one of my two pairs. When you only have three pairs of pants, two of which turn into your only pairs of shorts, losing one is tough to take. I was unable to find what I was looking for so we headed off to the garage. I was quite surprised to see a red Lamborghini Countach parked in front of some partially built apartment buildings. Although it wasn’t in great condition, a car like this definitely seemed out of place.
Looking over Pristina:
The out of place Lamborghini:
Arriving at the mechanics, it was not good to see Betty outside with one front wheel removed. The mechanic explained that the front brake pads needed to be changed and that they also had changed one of the fuel lines that had a crack in it and that this was causing my starting problem. He figured she should be ready in a few hours so I thanked and said goodbye to Judith and sat and read a book while my campervan was fixed. They were finished sooner than expected so I called Garth and Holly to taxi out to meet me and then we would continue on west to Montenegro. They took longer than I expected to arrive and didn’t come in a taxi but with Louise! We decided to have a last lunch together and then started our drive around 3pm, much later than originally anticipated. We retraced the road that I had taken to arrive at Pristina, including the fun 45 minutes on broken road out of the capital. We decided to refuel just before the big mountain climb to the border and guess what...Betty wouldn’t restart! Damn, my renewed confidence in her had disappeared. With the help of a few friendly gas attendants, we push started her and were off to the border.
Lunch with Louise:
The border check was cursory and we descended the other side of the mountain into Rosaje and then pressed on with the intentions of arriving in the high plateau town of Zabljak. Accidentally we took a wrong turn and after 25 minutes of driving, realized our error. We backtracked and headed up the road along Tara Canyon, the supposedly second “biggest” in the world (we think they mean deepest at 1300 meters at one point) as the sun began to set. Our hopes of arriving in Zabljak with some daylight to set up camp were fading. Thankfully we found a campsite along the canyon and Garth and Holly opted to rent a small cabin. The owner, Rad (or something like that) didn’t speak English but his daughter followed him around as his translator. We were pleased to have found a place to rest and after a pasta meal in Betty, we hung out in the cabin. Surprisingly I have no playing cards in Betty so with some origamic creativeness from Garth, he and I played some exciting Yahtzee with dice made from paper and rolled with the help of a colander. I sadly lost 2-1 in a best of 3 with the whole match coming down to the last few rolls...there’s always tomorrow Garth!
Yahtzee!
Foiled at Yahtzee:
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