We left Sarajevo with some sadness. Bosnia had really surprised us, and we weren’t really sure we wanted to leave. Sarajevo itself was much more sophisticated and multicultural than we had expected, but it was also the incredible biking in the areas around that had really won us over.
Although we wanted to stay longer (and were kicking ourselves for planning so little time here) we knew that we had only a small window of good weather if we wanted to get into the mountains of Montenegro. Normally by now the mountains are getting their first serious snow falls, but this year they were late. So with what looked like seven days of good weather to come, we set off.
We were totally unprepared for the absolutely stunning scenery that was to come, with the tail end of Bosnia and then Montegro providing the best cycle touring we’ve done so far.
We arranged a lift out of Sarajevo with Irfan, the parter of Cat from the Doctors house (the very nice hostel we stayed at in Sarajevo) as we’d already cycled part of the route and slogging it back up a 400 m ascent that we’d already cycled down didn’t appeal. From the drop off point we had a nice easy 45 km to a tiny little rafting village near Hum, close to the border with Montenegro.
We arrived in the early afternoon and had a “chat” with the locals, two of whom, who were hard at work on their home made still. They had two enormous vats of fermenting apples, from which they were distilling Rakija (basically ethanol), using a wood fire. The operators were both feeling very generous and offered us both chunks of liver they were grilling in the fire as well as shots of the rakija – I’m pretty sure it was around 60% proof and two shots had us both feeling pretty woozy. Apparently they make around 20 litres per day!
We were up and off early in the morning accompanied by a thick fog, which made the road incredibly atmospheric. The Bosnian roads got quite bad near the border, but the complete lack of traffic more than made up for any bumps along the way.
The fog cleared up as we neared the Montenegrin border and the beautiful Piva canyon we had been cycling through opened up all around us. As we got further into Montenegro, the roads steadily improved (but the traffic remained just as low), and the scenery ramped up a notch.
We were soon in the Piva canyon proper, with the sides rising steeply with deep blue Piva river below. The sides of the canyon soon become so steep that it was almost unimaginable that a road could exist. That it does is a testament to the socialist regime that existed during the 70’s, with the road carved into the side of the mountain, and tunnelling through it once it got too steep. We lost count of the number of tunnels we went through, but was close to fifty all up. They vary in size from tens of metres long to a few hundred metres. All are unlit and may contain fallen rocks (a great time for my bike light to fail!!!!!).
The canyon was dammed in the 70’s in another feat of socialist engineering. The dam wall is one of the highest in Europe at 220 metres and is quite a spectacle to behold!
We tried our best to capture some photos of the canyon but no photo can really capture just how beautiful this section was.
We finished the day in Trsa, a brutal 900 metre climb over 10km. The first section ascends an almost sheer wall via a series of switch backs and where the section gets really steep, turns made possible by yet more tunnels into the mountain.
Entering Trsa felt like something out of the Wild West. The place was pretty much deserted, and we were met with stares from the townsfolk as we rode into the place. We stayed in the only place in town, a bar come motel come “eco-camp.” The place was interesting, with home made sausages hanging everywhere and smoky open fires randomly scattered around the place. The people managing the place were a little gruff, but lovely once we settled in, they were really nice and even made us little honey cakes in the morning for breakfast.
The next day we took an absolutely stunning road that passed over 1900 metres and through the Dumitor National park to Zabljak. This section is probably the best we’ve done so far on the trip. The landscape is incredibly beautiful, with rugged twisted mountains. Best of all though was that during the 40 kilometres of beautiful tarmac road we saw a grand total of six cars. To have the place all to ourselves, was really something else. There was some signs of habitation in the odd hiker and Shepard hut but these were all completely deserted at this time of the year.
Our photos don’t really do justice to this wild and beautiful place, but here’s some of the ones that turned out ok.
Oh and this little guy was waiting for us at the pass….he’s following me around, I swear!
4ks an hour 