No apostrophes or right parentheses in this post, because I cant work out how to produce them with a Serbian keyboard.
I have just spent a day up in the mountains of Montenegro, staying in the Durmitor National Park at Zabljak. If they ever allow proper names in Scrabble, make sure you dont try taking on any Serbians.
The journey out of Albania was fairly uneventful - a long, hot run across the plains with a jagged range of mountains flanking me to the east all the way. The road to the border was lined with watermelon sellers, and I stopped mid-morning to buy the smallest watermelon I could find - i.e. football sized rather than basketball sized. I barely managed to fit this into the top of a pannier, and rode off with a pronounced list to one side to find somewhere quiet to scoff it. One of the notable features of Albania was the civilised behaviour of the canine population. In contrast to almost every other country I have cycled through, I wasnt chased once by a dog in Albanian. They seemed content to doze in the shade, or occasionally cast a doleful glance in my direction as they ambled past.
North of Shkoder, the bunkers started to make an appearance again, indicating the border was approaching, and the still waters of the huge Lake Shkoder appeared on my left. Another sleepy border crossing at Hani i Hotit passed without incident, and I rolled on into Montenegro on a road almost devoid of traffic.
I only stopped briefly in the capital city, Pogdorice, to refuel and stock up with groceries, but it seemed like a tidy, if fairly modern and bland city. Montenegro has adopted the Euro, and it was nice to stop trying to guess how many hryvna, leke, leva, zloty, dinar or crowns I should get, and whether I was now working in multiples of 1, 10, 100, or 10000. In contrast to the other countries I have been in, three or four different people with perfect English helped translate for me in different shops, and the policeman I asked for directions also spoke English.
I rode a few miles north of Pogdorice and headed up a quiet valley branching off the main road to find a camping spot in a woodland clearing. I have seen a lot of roadkill while cycling, but this trip is the first time Ive ever come across flattened tortoises. One hard shelled chap had more luck that evening when I discovered him making his ponderous way across the road and was able to deposit him safely on the verge. The heat in the plains had been tremendous, and I hadnt appreciated quite how dehydrated I was - if you are squeamish about bodily functions you might want to turn away now. In common with many racing cyclists, Im a keen observer of urine colour as an indicator of health and performance, and I was alarmed to find I was producing something akin to well stewed tea. So the moral of the story is - keep drinking plenty of water, folks.
Yesterday was a fantastic day of cycling. Montenegro is simply stunning, and I rode through soaring mountains and dramatic river gorges for 140km. The day started by riding up the Moraca Gorge for 40km to Kolasin. The Moraca runs through a deep channel cut into solid rock, with steep rocky cliffs soaring above. The gorge is so deep that the sun did not reach the bottom for a couple of hours, giving me a nice cool start to the day. From Kolsin, I headed up to Mojkovac, and turned into the Tara Canyon. Although not as dramatically confined as the Moraca, the Tara Canyon is on a much grander scale, and is 1.3km deep at its lowest point. A beautiful winding road took me along the wall of the canyon for 50km with high craggy cliffs above me, before descending to follow the rushing clear blue green water of the river. A final 10km of hairpinned climbing took me out of the canyon and up into a high plateau of alpine meadows, where Zabljak nestles under the Durmitor mountains.
I spent today hiking one of the marked trails in the mountains above the Black Lake, which turned out to be an entertaining, scrambly route, taking in a visit to the ice cave, where huge stalagmites of ice stand, even in July.
Tomorrow I am heading south through the mountains, and down towards the coast again, and looking forward to more spectacular Montenegran scenery.