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Published: August 30th 2012
Just Inside Montenegro
I took a wrong turn and found this canyon
Montenegro - 3 Days
I entered Montenegro full of beans having avoided the 30km climb to reach the border with a ride on a tractor on the Kosovan side of the border, I arrived thinking I was ahead of time but that was soon to change. I had been in the country for a couple of hours and was eating some mackerel sandwiches when the heavens opened, I waited and waited as it was torrential rain and ended up having a couple of beers to pass the time. After about 4 hours the rain calmed down so I jumped at the chance to continue on but it soon intensified again and I was completely soaked by the time I arrived in Berane. I looked at getting a hotel but the cheapest I could find was 20 Euros, luckily for me the rain was stopping so I carried on and camped in a field where I was dinner for millions of mossies.
The next day I had breakfast at a viewpoint overlooking a nice river before I started the first of my big climbs. It took me about 3 and a half hours
to climb 10 miles but the views from the top were well worth the pain of climbing, there was a beautifully shaped mountain hiding in the clouds and the forest was lush and green. I descended down to Kolasin for lunch before I had another smaller climb followed by a nice descent in to a beautiful valley that led in to my second big climb. I came to a bar with some drunk locals and they very easily persuaded me to stop climbing and camp in a field opposite the bar. They then bought me a few beers and it was really nice sat drinking some cold beer with amazing mountain scenery listening to the locals laugh and laugh.
My second big climb started the next morning and it took me 4 hours to climb 8 or 9 miles including time to stop and take some Corn Flake shots. I was expecting a nice descent but instead had 10 miles of up and down which took me ages and I lost my temper with the universe while descending down in to Savnik for a late lunch. After Savnik I had my third big climb before a
First Few Hours in Montenegro
.... and went on for 3 or 4 hours... well-deserved lengthy descent in to a valley that led towards to Pluzine, I camped in this valley, cream-crackered from the climbing.
Next day I had more ups and downs before arriving in Pluzine for a late breakfast. From here there was a beautiful turquoise lake, which was actually a river with a big dam at the end of it. The road followed the river as it twisted through a canyon and went through loads of tunnels before reaching the dam. From the dam the river became thinner, quicker and more vigorous as it weaved through a beautiful canyon, it was a really nice 20-30 miles of cycling which continued after the border with Bosnia. The whole area was full of rafting companies and the rivers were perfect for it.
This time my experience of Montenegro was completely different – during my previous visit I found the people to be moody and didn’t think that much about the scenery, thinking it was ok. This time I found the people much more pleasant and thought the scenery was fantastic, very mountainous which caused some suffering but beautiful and worth the effort.
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