If you missed part 1 of my Peaks of the Balkans blog you can read it here. If you’re all caught up, read on for part 2!
On day 7 we cheated a little. The official route has a 13km section that just follows the road, but many people choose to take a taxi and skip this section, so we did too. We bypassed the boring road hiking, and also got driven up a very steep set of switchbacks that, as well as being just horrible to hike, would also have been quite dangerous on the fairly busy road with many blind bends and a cliff dropping away on one side. We got to start our day at the much nicer forest trailhead, though we still had more uphill to go. It wasn’t quite so long or steep of a climb as usual, though, and had a pretty lake half way up that provided a nice stopping point. The path after this point was quite muddy and I was very glad that the rain had dried up or I would’ve struggled to remain upright, but luckily the sun was shining again. Once over the mountain pass the views were amazing. We actually were looping back past an area we’d already hiked, and the trail included about 2km along the same path we’d done a few days before – specifically the path where I kept saying how beautiful it was, so if we had to repeat any part of the loop I couldn’t have chosen a better section. Being out of the rainy weather, we went back to taking many breaks along the way to fully enjoy the surroundings as we crossed from Kosovo into Montenegro. Our final descent into the valley where we were staying was a little tricky. It was a steep hill with no real path down, but also no huge obstacles, so it was just a case of finding a route that didn’t end up with us slipping and tripping and rolling the entire way down.
Our next day was the first day that wasn’t an immediate hill, and it was glorious. We walked a path around the side of a mountain before reaching a wooded section, which did turn into a hill before too long, but for the first time it wasn’t immediately steep enough to make me regret getting out of bed. Another lake was our reward at almost the top of this peak, and this one was so incredibly clear and inviting that some other hikers opted to swim. Despite the sunshine the temperatures were fairly cool, and the altitude of this lake meant the water itself was freezing, and I wasn’t interested in a cold plunge at this point. But we sat on the banks and watched the newts dart about while eating our picnic lunch and taking lots of pictures. The path around the lake involved lots of scrambling over large boulders, reaching a lookout over the water with plaques describing the area and local fauna. One final small hill and we were at the top of our climb for the day.
A little further along the path we again missed our turn and accidentally added 3km to our day after realising and retracing our steps (I say we, but I had the map so it’s my fault). Once back on the correct route it was a fairly easy track for the rest of the day, though not too interesting. Until towards the end, where we rounded a corner and came across a panoramic view of the largest town on the whole trail. Plav in Montenegro sits beside a lake surrounded by mountains and is an incredibly scenic resort town. The great views continued as we descended into the valley. At the outskirts of town we diverted from the trail to visit the Police Station, where we had to get our hiking permits authorised. This took a surprisingly long time, but eventually we were done and headed to our hotel.
We’d got through most of our trail food so were very hungry, so after a shower and short rest we headed straight back out to find a restaurant. We ended up at a place that was completely packed, even at 4pm, and treated ourselves to the most enormous meal of pizza and savoury crepes. We’d walked further through town than intended to get to the restaurant, so afterwards we embraced the fact that we wouldn’t be able to properly rest for a while, and decided to head down to the lakefront to end the day. We grabbed a couple of drinks from the supermarket on the way, and soon discovered that drinks by the lake is how everyone ends their day in Plav. It was busy but still peaceful, and we sat on the dock and watched the sun disappear behind the peaks for a relaxing hour or so, before heading back to the hotel. On the way back we saw a stage setting up, and found a poster listing some kind of show in town tonight. Though tired, we couldn’t pass this up, so after a couple of hours of chilling in our room we went back out to find an incredibly busy town centre with tables of the bars and restaurants spread out across the whole main road, and a band on the stage playing songs in Montenegrin that everyone seemed to know. It was clearly covers of the country’s top songs, and everyone was singing along and kids were dancing and it was a whole family affair. It was fun to watch for a while, but there’s only so long you can pay attention to something you don’t understand a word of. I always appreciate coming across a small festival or celebration completely by accident, and this was a great unexpected addition to our Balkans experience. But, we still had two more days of hiking ahead of us, supposedly two of the toughest days, so we headed home before too long to get enough sleep before the next leg.
The way out of Plav was again very scenic, following a trail along the side of one of the peaks looming over the town, which was surprisingly quite flat and completely shaded, giving us an easy start to the day. It did not remain easy. We soon joined a road that wound its way up the mountain, and offered a few shortcuts for hikers to skip some of the switchbacks and hike through forest instead on the roadside. One of these shortcuts looked like the best possible route on the map, but for the second time the map was not to be trusted. After a fairly long flat section the trail started to climb steeply, and before long was veering away from where the map suggested the trail should be going. Not long after that, the trail seemed to disappear completely. There was another hiker who’d also taken this route, and was also baffled. This time at least it was easy to head in the right direction even if there was no obvious trail, as the ground was firm, the trees were further apart and not so overgrown, and it wasn’t so dangerously steep as the previous time we’d found ourselves in this situation. We picked our way up the hill, heading in the direction of the other (correct) path shown on the map, occasionally finding 4×4 tracks to follow for a while until they also disappeared into piles of leaves. It wasn’t particularly quick, but we did make it back to the path without too much difficulty, and eventually found ourselves in a large clearing where we sat and had lunch while watching other hikers enter the clearing from a different (correct) trail through the trees on the opposite side.
When we set off again we were completely alone in the clearing, until while making our way through it we were joined by 3 wild horses. They were very clean and well groomed so perhaps not truly wild, but certainly without any humans at this moment, and they galloped up to us and started eating the grass we’d been standing on moments earlier. We watched them for a while, (and I took many photos,) before continuing along the trail, which got immediately steep again. After a little while it turned into the steepest section of the entire 11 day loop, and we needed to stop every few steps to catch our breath. We were climbing the side of a mountain, and with every metre gained the scenery behind us got more and more impressive. When we finally made it to the top we were rewarded with incredible views of Plav, the lake, and the entire mountain-shrouded valley. After a long break just enjoying the view in silence, we turned and headed across the mountain top, and discovered that the views in the other direction were perhaps even more spectacular. The rocky peaks of Albania, in combination with the greenery of Montenegro, and the afternoon sun making the grass glow an almost golden colour, was indescribably beautiful. After a short walk through the long grass with the mountains forming the most amazing backdrop, (which, though short, took a while because I couldn’t stop taking photos every few steps), we arrived at another viewpoint where many other hikers had stopped to lie down and just bask in the sunshine with the scenery taking away any need for conversation. We stopped again here, though we didn’t need to rest, and just gazed at the mountains for a while. From here it was all downhill towards our penultimate guesthouse, with a few more stunning views on the way, including a small teardrop shaped lake with interestingly coloured algae covering its surface. The trail down the mountain was much easier to follow than the way up, especially as someone had drawn arrows on pieces of paper and pinned them under rocks wherever there was a fork in the road. Towards the end, when we’d been going down hill for quite a while and our knees were starting to complain, and we’d run out of scenic views, it got quite monotonous. It had been a long and quite tough day of hiking, though one of if not the most beautiful of the lot. We took it slow, took extra breaks, had to edge around some large cows blocking the way into town, and eventually made it to our guest house, where we showered, got straight into bed, and didn’t move for the rest of the evening, despite the owner inviting us down for cake and juice – she later brought some slices of cake to our room, and we were very grateful!
Our last day took us from Vusanje in Montenegro to Theth in Albania, the town we’d started in 11 days earlier. But before hitting the trail, we stopped at the edge of town to see a waterfall that we’d read about. There was a pub right by where the falls were marked on the map, and a sort of viewing area right next to it, but when we got here we could only see the end of a small canyon and the river running through it, and the sound of the waterfall suggested it was round the bend. There was no path through the little canyon, but there did seem to be a path heading up to the top of it, so we headed up there, wondering what we were missing. At the top seemed to be the beginning of a zipline, but no railing or safety of any kind, and leaning precariously over the edge allowed you to see a little spray from where the falls were hitting the water, but still no view of the waterfall itself. We were able to continue along the edge of the cliff for a little bit, with more views of the river running through the ravine, but we never got a glimpse of this waterfall. We eventually gave up, and still have no idea why these falls were a recommended stop on this leg of the trail. About a kilometre further was our next stop, the Blue Eye of Vusanje, a small fresh water spring with an incredible blue colour. There’s quite a few of these Blue Eyes in the surrounding area, all with the same name, and this one was fairly small compared to others. It was a pretty stop, but it was still early in the day and not hot enough to want to dip in the freezing water. So we continued through the sweeping valley until we got to a large open area that used to be a lake, and sat for a while with some snacks. The path continued alongside the dried up lake, and headed towards the Albanian border, up a steep rocky path that eventually opened out onto a meadow of yellow grass surrounded by the tallest mountains of the whole hike. Fortunately we weren’t summiting any of these, though we did still have a couple more hills to tackle on our way through the mountain pass.
The descent on the other side of the pass was steep, and at one point the cliff above us slanted out to such an extent that we were hiking directly below the upper part of the mountain, and our map was very confused as to what our current elevation was. From here the path got quite gravelly, which actually made it very slippery and slow going without hiking poles. There were some amazing views of the valley on this side of the mountain, with the river a ribbon of silver weaving its way through the trees covering the valley floor. This was our final descent of the trip, and the end was in sight. It took a while to get all the way down, but finally, after 192 kilometres, 120 miles, we were back at the very spot we’d started at 11 days earlier. Theth is quite a long town, so from this point we actually still had 2 kilometres to go to get to our last guesthouse and the true end of our hike. Our booked guesthouse was back up a hill, but it wasn’t paid for yet so we decided to ask a couple of more conveniently located hotels on the way, and Creed managed to haggle a nicer room for a better price with breakfast included. Before long we were in our cozy wood-cabin room, standing on our lovely little balcony, taking in the beautiful valley views, and our epic 11-day Peaks of the Balkans hike was complete.
