There is always a tipping point in any country when you realise that you are simply on the way out and from then on everything changes. It makes no real sense, it wouldn’t matter what you left until the end, it always feels as though you have had enough and you’re champing at the bit to cross the border and start somewhere new.
We had reached that point in Serbia – Montenegro was calling. But how could we rush through this beautiful place?
Beautiful and, in true Serbian style, rather quirky.
Our next stop, Sirogojno village, was a case in point. Billed as an open air museum showcasing traditional life up to as recently as the 1970s, we had no real idea what to expect.
But when we arrived it was wonderful
The buildings had been lifted and moved from their original villages into this area to keep them safe for posterity
It was only when there became rather a lot of them that someone had the great idea of opening it as a museum
It was hard to believe that people lived in such rustic homes until so recently
A small exhibition of beautiful, colourful photographs was on display in one of the larger buildings, celebrating the traditional dress of the locals
Next door was the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
Built in 1764 it is one of the oldest churches in the country
And as we walked back to the truck we passed some new houses being built with striking roof tiles showing that they haven’t lost their flare for the dramatic
Interesting as all this was, after spending so much time in Belgrade we needed to find some nature. The nearby Gostilje waterfalls seemed to fit the bill
We peered down at the steep pathway following the cascades and looked at each other with grim smiles – it would be lovely walking down there but coming back up was going to be a mission
But it was beautiful and peaceful and well worth the effort
To prove that Serbia is nothing if not eclectic, we finished our day at the ski resort of Zlatibor which is one of the few tourist areas in the country.
The architecture suddenly changed to become rather alpine
And there were huge amounts of construction going on
We are not particularly into ski resorts and we were out of the ski season by now, so we found ourselves a nice, quiet meadow on the edge of town, surrounded by horses and settled in
It was pitch black that evening and there was hardly a sound for miles – just what we needed after another busy day.
Just to make sure we didn’t get too used to a bit of warmth, we woke up to biting cold temperatures again. I sat up in bed until 7:30am reading my book, hoping the sun would warm things up a bit but the thermostat didn’t change. So I dragged myself out, put my woolly mittens on and started my training. I was beginning to feel a bit fed up – where had spring gone??
We discovered that the cable cars didn’t run out of season so our plans for the day went out of the window. I fancied the idea of staying in our meadow but James suggested finding somewhere a bit more secluded by the river and having a fire. My ears pricked up, I didn’t need any persuasion.
We set off towards the Uvac canyon intent on investigating a few spots and finding the perfect place for a couple of days. But just as we got going it started to pour down with rain and then sleet
The first couple of riverside spots weren’t very exciting so we headed up high onto a plateau with far reaching views that reminded me a little of Namibia. It could have been wonderful but with sleet and gales all around us, what was the point?
A little despondent, we carried on towards Uvac in the hope that we might out-drive the weather. Just as the rain was starting to slow down, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the side of the road. We pulled over and backed up to see what it was
Griffin Vultures, clustered around a carcass of some sort
It is rare to see even one of these, people come here from far and wide to search for them – and here we were looking at a whole wake
We took these photos and video out of the window with just our IPhones. I tried to get closer for a better shot but the moment I jumped down from the cab they all vanished.
We arrived at the Uvac canyon viewpoint and the rain held off just long enough for us to see the view over the dam
Which we then drove over
And carried on up the hill to where we hoped we would find somewhere to stay
We couldn’t get down the narrow track to the beach but were more than happy with our place right on the edge of the cliff overlooking the whole nature reserve
Our day may have been wet and miserable but we were surrounded by beauty and when we woke up the next morning we were pleased to find the rain had dried up. We pulled our boots on and walked down the steep path to the edge of the water
We had noticed that the water levels in all the rivers and lakes around here were very low and Uvac was no exception
Boats were stranded halfway up the banks with the water tens of feet below.
It was beautiful down there but nothing prepared us for the sight that met our eyes when we walked to the top of the hill and looked down
It took our breath away
James even found a swing and had the time of his life!
And that was it for our Serbian adventure, the only thing left to do was to get to the border and say our goodbyes.
We passed through a pretty town where we managed to exchange our remaining Dinar for Euros
And then found a parkup place next to an abandoned hotel 6 km from Montenegro, pulling in amongst the wobbly paving stones and weeds
There was a pretty little church and graveyard next door which we poked around in
The whole place seemed quiet, it would be fine for the night.
Just as we were setting up, James spotted movement by the bushes. We focussed our eyes and finally realised what it was – two tiny puppies
They can’t have been more than a few weeks old and as we approached they started whimpering and squealing. They were shaking and appeared to be alone and barely weaned.
I was distraught. We knew from past experience that people here sometimes abandon puppies but with no-one to take care of them these ones were far too young to survive.
I tried to stroke and comfort them but there seemed little hope that we could help in any meaningful way. We had our dog food with us but they were too young for that.
Just as tears were starting to fall down my cheeks, everything changed…Mum appeared
And along with her another two puppies. James went to look around and a few minutes later he appeared from behind the old hotel with another two in his arms.
Six bundles of furry cuteness!
Mum was thin but full of energy and as gentle and affectionate towards us as all the other stray dogs we had met here. We discovered a cardboard box, left for them by someone wanting to help, and they were using it as their den. I gathered as many dry leaves and grasses as I could and laid them inside to provide a warm and soft floor and the puppies seemed thrilled.
We then got the dog food out and fed Mum – she wolfed it down as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. She ate half the bag and then settled down, contented, whilst we played with the little ones
They were so adorable.
The next morning I went back to their box and found them all asleep in a bundle in the sun
They were very pleased to see me and played around my feet, tugging at my socks and laces and fighting with each other
How we managed not to adopt the lot I have no idea!
I heard voices coming from the other side of the building where BigMog was parked and went to see who was there. When I saw it was the police, one of whom was climbing inside the cab, I wasn’t sure whether to worry or not
But of course this is Serbia, the police have no interest in making things difficult for visitors, they just wanted to admire the truck.
They spoke little English but we had a long Google Translate chat with them before they happily posed for a photo
We watched and waved as they drove away then looked back at the puppies who were playing around in the shade of the tree. We would miss Serbia.
The border with Montenegro was as easy and friendly as all the others in the Balkans. We were through within just a few minutes and high-fiving each other as we headed south down some beautiful roads
It was warm and sunny and our mood was high. Especially when we found ourselves crossing the crystal clear blue Cehotina river
The only slight disappointment was the fact that Montenegro turned out to have an even worse litter problem than its Balkan neighbours
This became clear from the moment we crossed the border and it turned into one of our biggest disappointments with a country that could otherwise have been undeniably spectacular.
The border with Serbia is in the north and this is also where the highest mountain ranges are. The lowest part of the country is in the south – the famous Adriatic coastline.
It was the end of March and spring had definitely sprung, but we were still having many very cold days and some of the roads in the mountain areas were closed with snow.
We really didn’t want to face any more cold than we had to so our plan was to drive straight through from north to south and start our Montenegro adventure on the lower, warmer coast.
It would be a 225km drive so we decided to break it up and stop at the Moraca Monastery overnight
It was very pretty and peaceful
If there is one thing that Montenegro does well it’s roads. Some travellers say that the roads are dangerously narrow with steep drops and few passing places. In fact there is a very famous mountain road called the Sedlo Pass where you take your life in your hands if you try it in a big overland vehicle.
So we had been a little wary about how we would manage but when we started our drive down the Moraca Canyon the reality could not have been further from the social media portrayal
It was spectacular
We slid through the roughly hewn tunnels and round the sweeping bends with jaw dropping scenery in every direction
We stopped off at a suspension bridge over the river
Many of the metal ropes were worn through with huge gaps yawning down into the canyon
The place was deserted so there was no way of knowing whether it was safe to cross, but James wasn’t about to let that worry him
At least at first! I took a few steps onto the bridge but decided it was far too dangerous and called out to him to please come back. To my immense relief he didn’t need asking twice…
There was a small, winding path down to the river itself so we walked down for a closer look
If it had been warm enough to sit outside and make a fire we would have brought BigMog down and camped there for the night but it was too chilly for that.
So we pressed on to the huge Moracica Bridge
And towards the capital city of Podgorica where we planned to order the spigots we needed for our still-leaking CTIS system from Mercedes and see whether they could do some further investigations into our ongoing clutch/gearbox problem.
But we had only gone a few minutes further on from the bridge when we had a disaster. A box lorry overtook us and didn’t leave enough room before he pulled back in, hitting us with the back of his lorry and almost pushing us off the road. There was a huge crash as he hit and it seemed as though he had taken out the whole side of the truck.
James swore and I started shaking with anger. The roads may be beautiful here but the astonishingly bad litter problem was matched only by the even more astonishingly dangerous driving. In fact Montenegro turned out to have worst, most chaotic and dangerous drivers we have ever seen – most of whom are on their phones all the time they are behind the wheel.
And the driver of this lorry was no exception – he was so busy talking with his phone to his ear that he had not noticed how close he was to us. He also did not appear to have noticed that he had hit us and just carried on down the road
We were not about to let this go. Despite BigMog’s size and weight, James put his foot down and gave chase. He flashed the lights, beeped the horn and closed in on the other driver. It took a few minutes but eventually he pulled over.
James jumped out, furious. I jumped out not really wanting to see just how much damage had been caused to our beautiful truck.
We both stopped short and stared at BigMog’s wing. The impact had nearly taken us off the road and the crunching sound was gut-wrenching. But as we looked at the cab, BigMog stood there in all his glory, not a scratch to the paintwork, not a dent in any panel. The lorry had caught the front bumper which had taken the entire blow and kept the rest of him safe. There was a small scuff on the bumper itself, it wasn’t even bent.
Nevertheless, the driver had behaved appallingly and James gave him a piece of his mind that few would forget in a hurry. The driver was clearly mortified, especially when he saw me shaking and mistook my unbridled anger for shock. He apologised again and again and eventually James told him to just go
A few minutes later we saw the lorry parked up in a layby and the driver had his head in his hands. I can’t be certain but I swear he was crying. And so he should, putting our beloved BigMog in danger like that.
The city of Podgorica has an unfortunate reputation. It is known as the most boring capital city in the world. I can see why, there is not much to it, but it’s not a bad city and it seems a little unkind to give it such a label.
We didn’t intend to spend too much time there, we mainly just wanted to order our parts, but there were one or two things to see. The first being the brutalist church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
We quickly discovered that not only is Podgorica a little dull, it is also choked with traffic and we couldn’t find anywhere to park to see anything else so we gave up and went straight to Mercedes where BigMog instantly started making friends
We ordered the parts we needed and were told it would take 15 days for them to arrive. They then booked us in for the day after next to do the clutch investigations. They assured us that they had UniMog expertise in-house and would be able to carry out a full raft of checks to see what the problem was. With an hourly rate of just £54 compared with £130 for Mercedes in the UK and £80 in Bosnia and Serbia we felt as though we had fallen on our feet.
There is an old airfield on the edge of the city which has a highly recommended restaurant inside and a large park all around so we headed there to park up for the rest of the day and eat pizza
The pizza was good, the park was huge and our evening was surprisingly peaceful given we were in the city
But the whole 100 acres of parkland was used by the locals as a place to fly tip anything and everything – every spare inch was covered in wet wipes, old furniture, abandoned electronics, old paint tins, discarded building materials. It was quite depressing.
We didn’t intend to stay in Podgorica for 15 days waiting for our parts but with BigMog booked in for his clutch investigations we did have to stay there for two days. So after a good night’s sleep we decided to head into the city centre to tick off the few things we had found to see there.
The original plan was to get a bus but it appeared from the online timetable that the next one wasn’t for two hours so we ended up walking the 3km. It was actually quite nice, the sky was blue and we got to see more of the city than we had expected
It was going to be a fairly slow day so we started by finding a sports shop to get me some new laces for my walking boots then found the clock tower
We duly stood and looked at it for a minute or so to pay proper respect to one of the city’s few cultural landmarks, then quickly made for a motorbike shop to look at helmets.
We were hungry after our long walk from the airfield so headed for Gorica Park where we sat in a little wooded grove to eat left-over pizza from last night
From there we walked over Millenium Bridge
To the Orthodox Temple of Christ’s Resurrection which was, actually, pretty impressive
Even if there were some rather gruesome relics inside
And a strange vine in the grounds which apparently grew out of Saint Simeon’s grave and was transplanted here
The last thing to see were the brutalist housing blocks on the far side of the city
And that was pretty much it for Podgorica. I’m sure it is a perfectly pleasant city to live in, there is nothing wrong with it at all. There’s just not a lot for a tourist to see – how different it was from Belgrade.
We had done a lot of walking so were pleased to find that there was a bus stop just across the road from which a bus would take us back to the airfield. But we missed it by 1 minute and the next one wasn’t due for another hour. So we walked for half an hour across town to another bus stop, dragging our feet as we went, and eventually arrived back at our lovely airfield restaurant and had huge plates of pasta put in front of us just before we collapsed in a heap.
We were due at Mercedes at 8am the next morning so I had a rare day off training and we packed up our books, laptop and ipad ready to settle in for a day in their customer waiting room, excited to hear what they would find.
Two hours later, it turned out that their expertise with UniMogs extended as far as bleeding the clutch, which achieved nothing, before they admitted they had no idea what to do next and didn’t really want to touch it.
We paid them 90 euros for their time and ran away as quickly as we could. We were gutted, we had had so much faith in them and felt very let down. We were also getting increasingly worried about how we were going to find any solution before the clutch or gearbox keeled over altogether. The problem was getting no better, it was just getting worse every day.
We had spent our two hours at Mercedes going through flight options for our upcoming return to Namibia and the sudden end to their work much earlier than expected had stopped our planning midway through. My head was full of Africa and I was struggling to get back into Balkans mode.
For various reasons I had also not spent as much time getting to grips with our Montenegro itinerary as I normally would before entering a new country and I was feeling a little unprepared.
Whether for these reasons or some other, I had absolutely no motivation to even think about what we were going to do next. It was only 10:30am and we found ourselves with no plans or direction.
We sat in the car park as I scrolled through the itinerary and scrutinised the places I had marked up on Google maps, trying to get excited about something.
I failed. But we decided to continue our drive towards the coast as planned and just do whatever was between here and there on the way.
So our first stop was a viewpoint over the Crnojevica river, an iconic horse-shoe bend which marks the start of Skadar Lake – the largest and most famous lake in the Balkans
We sat at a table outside an expensive restaurant and had a drink each so that we could take some time to admire the view
Google Maps told us that our next stop should be the small town of Rijeka Crnojevica which my itinerary said was a pretty little place where you could hire boats to go out onto the lake.
We arrived and pulled into a layby in the centre of town, but neither of us got out. We sat staring at the closed restaurants and boat-hire kiosks without an ounce of motivation to go and see whether we could find anywhere open.
Where was our enthusiasm and adventurous spirit? Had Montenegro been such a disappointment already? Or was it the clutch problems that were getting us down? Or even the prospect of being back in Namibia that nothing else could live up to?
Or maybe we were just tired.
We decided this town didn’t hold much interest for us and agreed to move on. But that lead to the next problem – where were we going to move on to?
In theory we should have gone to the Lipovac Winery for some wine tasting and that should have excited us both. But a quick message to them discovered that it was very expensive and we could see straight away that the roads there were tiny, mountain roads that would no doubt only deepen our moods further.
So we thought we’d go all the way to the coastal town of Petrovac and see whether we could cheer ourselves up there. But when we plotted the route it turned out we would have to drive the same narrow mountain roads straight past the winery.
So maybe we skip all of it and just give up altogether. But that’s not us – we were having a bad day, no need to get dramatic about it.
In the end we decided to throw the budget to the wind and go to the winery. We messaged them back asking whether they could squeeze us in at short notice and if we could stay overnight in the truck on their drive. The answer to both was yes so off we went.
The roads were indeed narrow and mountainous but we have driven much worse
It was actually quite a nice drive and when we arrived the views over the vineyards were spectacular
We were even invited to park BigMog right in amongst the vines
With the Mog safe and wine beckoning we could both feel our moods lifting just slightly
We were given a tour of the wine making process
Including the bottling plant
And the unique clay jars that the wine is aged in
Some of which were underground
We then indulged in four tastings for me and eight for James
And finished the afternoon off with another glass each of our favourite.
That last glass was a bit of mistake for me. James cooked us a camembert with truffle oil for dinner and I was snoring happily in bed by 7pm.
Our mojo was firmly back on track. We woke up to a beautiful morning with the sun shining down on us. I actually enjoyed my training, overlooking the vineyards, for the first time in months and after I’d finished I sat on the steps having my breakfast, making the most of the warm day
It is unusual for us to feel so down when we have just started in a new country and I still don’t know what combination of things caused it. But whatever had happened, we had blown the cobwebs away and were raring to go – whatever Montenegro had to offer, we were determined to unearth it and make the most of everyday.
Afterall, there is nothing better in life than a new adventure and we had one ready and waiting for us…
The Sidetracked Sagas 