On the move from the coast near Budva, we decided to make our way up into the mountains to see the much touted national parks of Montenegro. It took us very little time to realize that our GPS was going to be of little help here as its “comprehensive database” of Montenegro was soon exposed to be a full 6 towns and a handful of roads. Money well spent I cursed again openly! So it was to our trusty Italian map of the area sprinkled with a healthy amount of Did’s women’s intuition which has so far been way better than any GPS! Tracking up some pretty windy mountain passes and through some dilapidated villages we soon came to appreciate that we had virtually just stepped back in time. Ahhh how refreshing, this is what I was expecting from Montenegro.
The mountain passes were steep and lush, the drivers were a little eccentric and the tunnels were soooo black that entering them you simply just trusted that there was more beyond the first 2m in that you could see! Dodging the copious amounts of fallen rocks on the road, some bigger than a person’s head, we wound our way up to a little village called Zubljuak in the middle of the Durmitor national park.
One thing you quickly come to appreciate here is that people speak very little English and the tourist scene is very new. There are many tourist information points to help you out but they pretty much consist of one of the only resident English speakers in the village and a host of business cards for all their mates about town. “You want to eat? I know best restaurant, all others are too expensive and no good!”, “you want accommodation?.....” etc, etc. It’s so blatant it is funny. So with a little looking around we rented a room off a local lady which was clean, comfortable and with a cooked breakfast in the morning, quite hospitable. Way cool we thought, especially since it was only 10 Euro per person per night.
Soooo, what is there to do in Montenegro? Well the locals seem to recon heaps. But considering it is not winter, and all the snow related activities were closed, the next best thing is rafting the Tara river which is apparently the second deepest canyon in the world (second to the Grand Canyon in the US). So boldly we marched off to the travel office to book an extended 42km trip which would see us travel to the deepest darkest parts of the canyon system. Saaaweet.
The day began well, our pickup driver looked like lurch from the Adams family minus all but 3 teeth and the conversational skills. The van he was ferrying us around in was less than roadworthy and it was a nice touch to see all the seatbelts had been removed. It is this point in time that I had a pretty good feel for what the rest of the day was going to be like. I took some solace in the fact that there were 4 Germans doing the trip with us and being the methodical and organized people they are surely they did some research on this company to see if it was all ok…..
The first stop was the rafting base camp where we were kitted up with our 2mm shortie wetsuits, booties and helmets. We were fed a shot of vodka for bravery and a shot of coffee for god only knows what. There was a fair bit of faffing around to be done Montenegrin style during this stage. One thing that made me laugh was that one of the Germans had a pretty big head and did not fit any of the 2 sizes of helmet stocked. So after some jiggery pokery, whalla, he was given one of the local’s bike helmets instead. Zero Harm…..
So the raft was strapped to the roof of the van, we were piled in and it was off to the beginning of our rafting trip. Pulling up in the middle of the road, the raft was lifted off the van and kicked down the hill to the river. Seamless. As we prepared to hop on in, three car loads of soldiers pulled up to see what was doing. Luckily it was just for a gander because our guide gave a real impression of disgust towards them which isn't nice when they have guns.
Piling into the raft we were all delighted to find that the beautiful aquamarine glacial waters that fed the Tara River were 4 degrees C at this time of year making falling out of the raft a pretty big no no! The rain wasn’t much warmer either…… It didn’t take Dids and I long to realize the grade 4 extreme rafting adventure we had been sold was nothing more than a nice gentle sightseeing boat ride. Bummer, but god it was beautiful.
Rafting the Tara River
Pulling up 18km later we picked up our lunches, off loaded some people who had only subscribed to the shorter rafting trek and got to see our van driver having a good time on the beers with some other locals of the “hard working” variety.
Back to the raft and a little later downstream we picked a spot to pull up and eat. The whole time we were in Montenegro, Dids had been looking forward to seeing a bear in the wild and it was here that I managed to snap my first and only bear…..
A Didi bear seen tucking into some unlucky campers picnic hamper. Munch munch munch....
The rest of the day was a nice paddle downstream with PLENTY of photo opportunities. At the pickup point we were met again by our driver again who was going quite well on the beers. Our guide even gestured to me that it was funny because he had been drinking all day…..way cool. So it was “alright everyone, into the van because we are heading up to the top of that 1300m ridge for a nice photo op”! I’ll spare the details for the sake of my mum.
The finishing line for our rafting trip which was right at the base of a 1300m canyon.
Obviously we did make it back to the village and we were glad for it.
Where to next you ask, well it has to be Bosnia for some poking around and a bit of real life war story exploration. Dovidenja.
Directions are going to be interesting....
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