It could be a long night

Enough of the coast, time to climb.

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We get a bus from Niksic at 9.45am. We are heading towards Durmitor National Park, where we will stay a couple of days to do some trekking. The bus is meant to take two hours to Zavljak, the town at the head of the valley, but it has only taken an hour and a half.

So we head off to the tourist information office. The young woman looking after it tells us how to get to our campsite and the different trekking routes we can undertake. Our aim, as usual, is climbing the highest, Bobotov Kuk. This will take 10 hours there and back, so we leave that one for tomorrow.

“I give you one piece of advice” she says. “You will be charged €3 for entering the park. You can avoid paying by going around the gate of the park. The guards are not official, the money normally ends in their pockets”. Quite a weird advice from a tourist information officer. But she must be telling the truth, otherwise would she be saying things like this to tourists? If they weren’t true, the guards of the park could find out and she could lose her job.

The campsite, Autokamp Mlinski Potok, is 3kms away, too far to walk with the rucksacks in this heat and, for a €2.00 taxi journey, is not really worth it, better to take the taxi.

As soon as we arrive at the campsite, we get a warm welcome from a girl who seems to be the owner’s daughter. “You can pitch your tent anywhere you like, showers are on the left hand site, toilets next to the showers, the washing area is on the right. You can come and register with us once you settle in” she says in a robotic way.

Great, we have showers, proper toilets. We were told this was a basic campsite, with only a campground and squatty toilets, so this is a bonus. “Don’t get too excited, the showers may not be warm” says Gary, spoiling the party.

We put the tent up and come down to register as we are told. The mother invites to sit by a wooden table and brings us two Grappas, mine for Gary, thanks.

The campsite doesn’t look that busy yet. We take our map out and work out the route for tomorrow. We also need to choose a 3-4 hours route for this afternoon.

A German guy in his sixties sits with us. When he finds out that I am Spanish he starts talking about when he used to work in Spain in a ceramic fabric in Valencia, on the East coast. And then he goes on and on about the many different jobs he has had in his life. He is now retired. His only occupation is driving his motorhome anywhere he pleases, such a lovely way of spending your retirement. Anyway, enough of granddad stories, we have some walking to do.

We have chosen a route around the lakes. We will first walk up to Zminje Jerezo, a couple of hours from here and then back down to stop at Crno Jerezo, the biggest and most famous lake in the park, which is only 10 minutes from the campsite.

Following the tourist information officer’s advice, we walk around the park’s gate to avoid paying entry fees.

Following a 4×4 track we go towards Zminje Jerezo, our first lake.

Just when we thought we had got away with not paying for entering the park, a car stops next to us. A man dressed in national park uniform asks us for the ticket. We don’t have it, so we get one, €3 each. A ticket has a photo of the national park with a series of numbers printed on it. If this is not an official ticket sold by an official national park guard I don’t know what it is. We have no idea why the woman at the tourist information office told us not to pay, but we are not going to worry about it for €6.

The landscape here is amazing.

We reach the Zminje Jerezo in about an hour. The lake is rather small and surrounded by trees, it is not very impressive. From here, we try to go back on an unmarked path with the help of our map. It is difficult to find it, the woods are dense, the grass is overgrown. Also, there are dozens of different paths. We take the one we believe goes back towards Crno Jerezo. Within ten minutes we are back on the 4×4 track we were before. We have just done a small loop, so we return the same way we came. In hindsight, this is probably a sensible thing to do. It is really hard to navigate in woodland.

Within another hour we reach Crno Jerezo.

Surrounding by alpine woods, with mountains in the background and standstill blue-sky waters, this place inspires peace and relaxation.

This lake is the most visited place within the park. People can swim, hire a canoe or walk around it.

The water is freezing, we haven’t got our swimming costumes; the canoes are not an option, so we walk around it.

The lake is immense, to walk around it takes us 45 minutes.

The place is very busy but it doesn’t feel so because of its scale.

We make the walk even longer by going off-piste but we get stuck in the woods, so we have to retrace our steps. A bit annoying!

From the proper footpath, we can still get glimpse of the lake.

We are nearly at the end of our loop. We look forward to stop for a cool drink in a coffee bar overlooking the lake.

And here we are at the cafe bar. Tonight they have a musician playing violin, the perfect feature to heighten the serenity that the lake portrays.

Gary goes for a beer, I go for a lemon Nestea.

Looking at the map, we try to work out where Bobotov Kuk is, the peak we are climbing tomorrow.

We think it is the furthest peak on the top right corner.

The clouds are moving quickly, clinging on the peak. We hope we don’t get nasty weather tomorrow. Storms can form quickly in the mountains.

We also try to work out the route. We have multiple options, plenty of paths, marked and unmarked. But given the experience we’ve just had in the woods, we better keep on the marked ones. We shouldn’t be too adventurous, not on a 10 hours walk.

One more look at the sky before we go back to the campsite.

We get back just in daylight with time for a quick shower and something to eat. The showers are surprisingly warm, we take a long one. We always do when we sleep outside Dora, a long shower is a luxury for us these days.

Dinner is a bit sad. We didn’t bring a cooking set to avoid extra weight so, cooked meat and tins were the only options available in the supermarket. Sausages from a can and akjvar (peppery paste typical from this region) will have to do us tonight. We will make it up tomorrow by eating out after our long trek.

It is 9.00pm, time to go to bed. There is really nothing to do in a campsite when the sun has gone. It is also time to prove whether we have made the right decision by not bringing our sleeping bags with us. We put all our warm clothes, we slip inside our sleeping bags liners. I start to  feel goose-bumps. Is it psychosomatic or is it actually getting cold? It could be a long night.

SM