by Xavier
Why There
?
1°)
First of all -and to be entirely honest-, I didn't know much
about the Balkans
and the countries of ex-Yougoslavia...
I knew that there was a war going on a bit more than a decade ago...
but what else?
... nothing.
What really happened betweend Serbs, Croats, Bosniacs,etc. ? Who
was the evil in the
conflicts
which occured in (ex)-Yougoslavia?!
I had to fix that
ignorance... :)
I assumed that
spending some little time there would help me to find
it out... :)
2°) Secondly, I got the idea of going
there because my Hungarian
friend Adam was going to Montenegro with a bunch of his friends for the
last week
of July. I thought that it might be a nice opportunity to meet him. He is a very nice dude with
who I spent a semester in Oulu, Finland. We
went for a
couple of hikes together in finnish Lapland and I really appreciated
his company. I was then very happy to have the chance to meet him
again. Moreover, I knew that a few of his friends were more or less
related to Serbia and could speak a bit of the language... Nice!
3°) Thirdly... Have you ever heard of the
album of anthology "belgrad live" from Urban
Dance Squad (a Dutsh band)...?!
This album just rocks!!! the roots of "fusion"
style
(mix between rap and rock music) which inspired even the god fathers
RATM... check that out:
Fast
lane
Demagogue
For years, the only name of "Belgrade" just sounded so nice to my
ears... :) So I had to go, sooner or later... but sooner is better!
4°) Fourthly.... well... go to
hell!
Why not?!!
The trip A short video montage of my holidays in Montenegro :) click here
So on the 14th of July, I
did catch a bus in Strasbourg to arrive in
Belgrade the next day. Eurolines drives you to the capital city of Serbia (and back)
for less than 130 bucks... not so bad.
When I arrived in Belgrade, the rain was pouring down all over the huge
capital city... Argg.. Doesn't really feel like holidays :(
I still went for a tour in the city, waiting for my night train to
Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro.
At the train station, I was
told that the night train from Belgrad to Podgorica was full. The
woman selling the tickets suggested me to
take a train leaving from Novi Beograd (New Belgrade) in order
to have a seat reservation. Ok... In all, my fare costed 1700 dinars,
so about 22€. A bit more expensive than I expected...
Novi Beograd, on the West side of the old city of Belgrad, is the "new" and
quite ugly neighbourhood of Belgrad... the rain and cloudy weather
didn't help much.
There
is no actual train
station in Novi Beograd... There is only some
kind of train stop, located on top of a bridge, with a lot of squatters
and
bums down the bridge. A pretty scary place to walk around at night (my
train was leaving at 22pm) but I was finally very surprised to see
suddenly a lot of families with children coming while the train was
arriving.
Belgrade is
apparently a quite safe city (like the whole country -except
certain places in Kosovo-) even thought it can look scary at night.
Funny! I remembered about that quote I read somewhere in my Bradt guidebook :
The
Balkans... is or was, a gay peninsula filled with sprightly people who
ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore flamboyant clothes,
loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent for starting wars.
HaHA! A bit scaring to read that in your own travel guide book! But
no... So far, I felt rather confortable being here, even at night.
I didn't want to stay for a long time in Belgrade, 'cause I wanted to
reach Montenegro as fast as possible. I had in mind to hike the CT-1
trail, which goes across the country from East to West,
going through the commonly-said most beautiful part of the country... The trail is 120km long,
so I was hoping to complete it in 4 days. Thus, I could arrive on sunday ev' in Žabljak to meet my friend Adam.
I arrived in
Podgorica on wednesday morning after a long night journey in train from
Belgrad. I shared the train compartment with a bunch of serbian
youngsters, and George, an english guy interailing in eastern
Europe. All were super nice. That's when I've heard for the
first time about the Exit
festival which helds every year since 2000 in Novi Sad (North
of Belgrad). The festival seems to have a great selection of artists
and changes a bit from the most famous festivals we're usually going
to... I might give it a try in the next years! :) might be all fun!
In Podgorica, I spent a whole day trying to find
the maps and info needed for the CT-1 hike but in vain...
All I could find was a map with a scale of 1:60 000 of the region covering Veruša and Mojkovac (which represent half of the CT-1). Such
maps are good for following a well marked trail... but are quite tricky for
backpacking as you don't have much details to find a suitable place to
sleep, water sources or when you're lost. But well... that is
better than nothing.
For the rest of the hike (from Mojkovac to Žabljak), all I could find was an
automap with a scale of 1:270 000. :(
No place in Podgorica could provide any detailed maps... neither the
local tourisme office, the national tourism association of Montenegro
and the different book shops...
I decided to give a try with those maps and see how it goes on the
field.
I was at this point very frustrated that I'd spent a day in Podgorica
for nothing. There was no bus leaving for Veruša anymore on that day, so I
even had to spend a night in Podgorica... which happened to be quite
expensive (no hostels there): 30€
Arggg
The only good
thing was to notice that people were actually quite nice and very
willing to help me.
There was also this nice bar in Downtown called Karver
(located under the new bridge "novi most") which is actually a
bookstore, an internet café, and an association promoting
cultural exchanges. Give it a visit if you're in the surroundings!
I left for Veruša
on
thursday morning without detailed maps of the area where I was going to hike but I was pretty confident.
After an hour and
a half of winding roads, I arrived in Veruša
to
start my hike. The village is quite small, there is not much but... as
soon as I started to walk, a guy shouted at me : "vous parlez
français?"
- !!?!!
He was macedonian, and was working in Veruša for a while to make money. The
guy has spent a few years in France...
He had been the only person who was able to speak
french in my entire 2 weeks-holidays.
I told him that I was going to hike for a few days in the
mountains. Even though his french was pretty perfect, he didn't quite
understand that I was going to backpack accross the country... He told
me to be back before night. He added that if I wanted, I could sleep
nearby, where him and his co-workers were camping themselves... I didn't take
the time to explain what I was up to.. and left him after shaking
vigorously his tought hand.
All I knew at this moment was
that I had to
follow a road for 11km before actually starting to walk on the trail...
unfortunately, this is where the map doesn't cover the trail area...
Yes! there is already an area which goes out of the map at the really
beginning. That kind of sucks...
Of course, after half a day of walking without a map, I got lost.
That was very irritating since I was loosing a lot of time trying to
figure out where exactly I should head to.
I asked my way way
to different people. They were all nice but the indications given not
really trustfull. I decided to follow a direction and to climb straight
up a mountain in order to have a wide view over the area I was in. At
this moment, I was totally off-track... Up the mountain, I had a few
clues which told me that I was still out of the map. However, there was
this nice crest which was going in the direction I was suppose to
follow. So, I went on. I appeared to find a kind of track which I
decided to follow. Shortly after, I saw 2 hikers coming in my
directions. "Great, I will ask them my way".
- Dobar Dan
- Dobar Dan
- Do you speak english
- Yes! we do!
- Oh.. great!! :)
Here started a typical conversion of where we were from etc... The guys
(a couple from Croatia) were simply super nice and friendly! (check out
their website: http://www.s.likovni.net/). We got along very quickly and had a super nice chat for almost an hour.
They provided me some very good information and eventually gave me the
maps I was desesperately looking for: detailed maps of the whole trail
until Zabljak (minus a few ones)! They were military maps with a scale
of 1:25000!! Absolutely perfect!!
It was the last day of their holidays in Montenegro, and they didn't need the maps anymore... So they told me to take them if I thought they would be useful!! :o
That was just so unexpected!!! :))
Jadranko and his partner (Lamza?!) are surely my "trail angels".
One of my trail angels! :) (picture taken by Jadranko, here)
After a couple of hours of walk, I arrived quickly in front of the
Komovi range of mountains. It didn't really look that steep from far
away, but it surely was! However, that was the tougher climb of the
whole trail. ... Yeah, the trail, beside the difficulties of finding
your way (the trail marks are sometimes totally inexistant!!), is
rather easy to follow. It actually never goes through airy and exposed
area... Most of the time (maybe 60% of the whole 120km), you simply
follow forest tracks where a 4WD can go.
After the mountain pass in the Komovi, the trail was really well marked... it felt like being on a highway. Nice!
A few more hours and the sun started to set down. I was running out of
water... so I was wondering where I should sleep for the night. I saw
on the map that there was a nice flat meadow a bit further, but there was also a few buildings nearby... A katun.
What is a Katun?
According to my Cicerone guide book, Katuns
are summer cottages in the mountains, to which locals move during the
summer months to graze their livestock. They are typically occupied for
three to four months of the year, depending on the severity of the
previous winter (and more specifically the amount of snow remaining).
You will pass many katuns on your route. You may be invited in for a
coffee by their friendy inhabitants, and in some cases you may be
offered some cheese for sale. Remember that they won't have much for
themselves, so accept in moderation....
I will surely be able to find some water there. And maybe I will be
able to pitch the tent nearby. The meadows looked appealing.
I arrived at those Katuns shortly before night. Dogs were barking
heavily while I was approaching... hopefully, they are all attached!!
I went to the closest cabins, with a bit of fear... "what will they
say?". I was releaved to see that it was a family and all were smilling
at me...
I presented myself how I could, with the few words I learned from the Guide book.
Dobro Vece. Ja sam Xavier. Ja sam Francuz! Kako ste?!
...
Gdje Voda?! :) (terribly bad serbian... but with a smile, that's OK.... ;)
Finally, I was offered some Coca Cola... and we started to chat for a while.
I was explaning that I was looking for the closest water source... it
should be located nearby (according to the map), but I wasn't able to
spot it. They indicated me where it was (about 2 mn by walk down the
katun).
They asked me where I was going to sleep... I explained them (with
gestures) that I had a tent and I was planning to sleep a bit
further... they warned me about the wild boars... :) sweet...
I told them that if ever a wild boar was attacking during night, I was
going to run and knock at their door... that made them laugh for along
time when they understood what I meant with my mimes... :)
