I hiked a mountain in Montenegro today!
I had to help with tendering at 10:30, so I got to sleep in a bit instead of starting work at 9. Tendering went really well, especially considering it was so late in the morning. We started around 11, and were at open tender by 12! And no one yelled at me (I was collecting the tender tickets, no one usually yells at that point unless there’s a long wait and I don’t let them down the stairs, but still it’s a good thing). So, once Beth (the party planner), Julia, and I put the tickets back in order, I headed up to lunch.
Chris (from the HAL Cats) and the Adagio band leader ate with me. Chris had invited me last night to go hiking with a group, so we agreed to meet at 1:15 for the tender. Some of the other HAL Cats were supposed to come with us, but they left before us, and we never managed to find them, so it was just the Adagios, Chris and me. Chris had hiked the path last time we were here, so instructed us where to go. It’s not the trail most people go down, because it’s on the mountain behind the fortress, so we didn’t see a whole lot of people. The path was a rocky one. It was all loose rocks, sometimes with large “wall” rocks probably to prevent a rockslide. It was nice when the ‘wall’ rocks were there, it was a much more stable and even path to walk. Most of the path wasn’t though, so I had to slide, stumble and try not to fall over as the rocks slipped under my feet. It was too much for one of the Adagios, so she left us and went back to the ship after a while.
It was a nice day for hiking though, a bit humid, but there were a lot of clouds, and it was somewhat cool. Chris said last time he was here, it was above 100; it was only about 75 today.
About halfway up, we started seeing goats around the one house on this mountain. Chris had made friends with the family last time, but they weren’t around at the time, but we did stop and take pictures of the goats. The trail got tougher from there, more loose rocks, less walked-on, and a lot of sharp, spikey plants. I did manage not to fall. It was kind of crazy looking down and seeing how high we were. We made it far above the fortress, and were about even with the mountains on the other side of the water. The ship looked small, and you could only distinguish the tenders because they’re orange!
After two hours, we decided we should head back, since Luyda and I had work, and of course we wanted to shower before that. I took a break while Chris and Luyda followed the trail a bit longer into the forest, then came back to meet me. It was a bit more treacherous coming down: gravity, loose rocks and our desire to get back somewhat quickly all worked against us. None of us fell though! I was cold by then, the sun was completely behind the clouds, and it’d drizzled a bit, so the humidity was gone, leaving the air very chilly (for me). That was the point I was wishing I HAD brought my jacket (I had a debate with myself about that before I left). We had a steady pace going down, but kept stopping for pictures. We took some fun ones near the top, then hung out around the goats halfway down. I found a almost-newborn kitten, and a goat decided it wanted to become friends and let us pet it. We also met up with some of the family at the house so we had to talk to them for a few minutes before continuing down. We made it back to the tenders just after 5:30, sweaty, dirty and tired. I was very grateful for my quick, hot shower followed by dinner (yay I got to sit for 20 minutes!). Work wasn’t bad tonight, I sat in a chair and watched the kids play for about half an hour before I had to get up and play Apples-to Apples with them. The theme was “games galore;” they didn’t want to make their own board game, so we ended up just playing Apples-to-Apples until Ryan came at 9. I had considered going to support the HAL Cats, or going to see the Dancing with The Stars final, but I was too tired, so came back to the room and climbed into bed.
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