Montenegro 2011

Day 9

To rest a little after hiking the day before, we went to see Ostrog Monastery. On route we again admired some lovely landscapes. You can drive all the way up to the Monastery, we, however, parked below near the lower monastery and walked up. Monastery is beautifully located, "embedded" in the mountain, visible from the distance due it's white-ish exterior.

The Monaster itself belongs to Serbian Orthodox Church, it's dedicated to Saint Basil of Ostrog, who was buried there. It was first built in 17th century, it's current look was created in 1926 after a fire destroyed part of the buildings. In the main temple, there are 17 bells, the biggest one weighs 11 tons, making it the biggest bell in the Balkan area. It's the most popular pilgrimage place in Montenegro.

Day 10

When we were coming back from Monastery to Žabljak our car broke down. We were going up the hill and the car just stopped going up and started rolling down. Fortunately it was a bit late and the traffic was low. We rolled down to the nearest free space on the roadside. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere but there was a house very close to the place where we "parked". We went there to check with the owners if we can set up a tent on their backyard.

It was a family of 4, a married couple with 2 young kids. It was hard to communicate with them as we didn't speak their language and they didn't know any foreign languages, but we somewhat managed. They were fine with us staying there for the night, gave us some fresh pancakes (not the American pancakes, but European ;) ) with white cheese (quark or curd cheese) and honey. It was delicious. We also got treated with home made alcohol (made from fruits). They were extremely nice and generous to us even though it was obvious that they were pool people.

In the morning we found someone willing to tow us and we landed near Nikšić in a car repair shop. Again it was hard to communicate, one of my colleagues knew a bit of Russian and was able to talk a bit to one of the guys in the shop. But in general they just checked what's wrong and found that the clutch was the faulty part. Then there was the need to buy new part, so me and one of my colleagues went with one of the mechanics to search for it. Fortunately Nikšić was nearby, and as the second largest city in Montenegro, it had a few shops. It wasn't that easy to find the part as french cars were not popular in Montenegro at that time (don't know how it is now), so we needed to visit few shops. The guy who was driving us around had absolutely no regard for road conditions and was driving like a mad man. ;) Fortunately we returned safely, got our car fixed and were ready to resume out trip. :)

Day 11

Day 11 was started with a quick visit to Lake Biograd, from where we continued hiking to the nearby mount Crna Glava (2139 m. a.s.l.). The hike was very long (although not that hard). Yet again, we didn't quite make it to the top, the weather was getting really bad, so we decided to turn around at one point.

Day 13

I'll be honest, I don't remember what we were doing on day 12 and why there are no photos. So.. Moving on.. :)

On 13th day, we went hiking in Prokletije mountain range. "Prokletije" means "cursed". It's a part of a Dinaric Alps. Prokletije lays on territory of Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo. All of the major peaks are over 2000m a.s.l. It is absolutely the most scenic mountain range (of those I visited) in Montenegro. The hike, again, was in brutal heat and it was exhausting, but we went up pretty high and were very much rewarded with the views!

We started (and ended) our hike in Gusinje. We haven't seen many people on trails. They weren't even really hiking trails, more like shepherd's way, as they were unmarked and one would need a map to make sure one's going the right direction. But we did see quite the large group of people picking up berries. We even tried a few that were near the trail - delicious. :)

We also met a group of speleologists, that were mapping nearby caves. There were quite a few Poles in the group, we got invited to sit down with them in a tent for a chat and a quick rest. We even got to see one of them again, the following day.

Day 14

On our last day of sightseeing, we walked to Liqeni i Gjeshtarës lake, in the same area. The lake sits just few hundreds of meters from the Albanian border. You can reach it by walking through the lovely Ropojana valley. I have seen photos on the Internet, where this lake actually has water. ;) At the time that we were there it was very much dried-out.

We treated ourselves with local pizza and were going back to Plav, for our last night on the camping. When we continued driving towards Plav we got into car accident. On one of the corners, in one of the small villages we had a very close meeting that we didn't want to have. ;) The outcome was a bit bizarre. First thing that I did was to move my car to the side of the road, so others can pass by (as the road was very narrow). In a way we got lucky, that one of the passengers in the second car new english a tiny bit. We chatted a little and decided to call the local police, so we can cover expenses from car insurance. But the locals said that for the police, to prepare a report, the car must be exactly in the position that it was during the accident. Umm, okay. So we blocked the road, making it impossible for anyone to pass. Traffic jam formed quite quickly. ;) People from other cars got out to see what's happening and soon we got ourselves neat little crowd there. We waited for an hour, the police didn't come (apparently that wasn't that unusual). After another discussion with the locals, it turned out that waiting was a waste of time, as we would need to stay in the country till Monday, to finalise the report. And we needed to be back at work on Monday. ;) So in the end we just left them some cash and continued to the camping site.

Early next day we found a car shop to fix the car, just enough, to safely drive home (and not "earn" any tickets). What was interesting that the wife of the mechanic actually spoke english well and was very happy to be able to practice the language, as she usually don't have the chance. She stayed with us for like 40 mins (for the duration of the repairs), just chatting and telling us how it is to live in Montenegro. It was great, we enjoyed that conversation very much. When the car was ready, we officially finished our adventure in Montenegro and spent another 24h driving back home. ;)