Day 111 SOLO BIKEPACKING ADVENTURE Cycling Around the World – Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro

Hello, my name is Susan and I’m a 62 year old woman that retired and I sold my house and I’m traveling the world on my bicycle. I hope you will join me for my adventure. Thank you. Good morning. I think it’s going to be a windy day. I’m leaving Tbenha and um most of the first part of the day is going to be a climb. I think I’ve got about an 18 mile climb up the mountain to the um Montenegron border and then I’ll be in Montenegra. So, barring something very unseen, I’ll be in Montenegra tonight to sleep. Um, I have enjoyed my stay here. It’s tempting to stay another day just because it’s supposed to rain this afternoon and it’s so windy, but I needed to get on the road. I thought leaving at 10:00 I may miss some of the traffic, but uh may just be that there’s going to be traffic any time of the day. So most of this park I uh seems to be a memorial to World War II. Not sure how well you’ll be able to see those guys. Maybe I’ll circle around. Here they are. So that’s uh memorial for World War II s soldiers. It’s a really pretty park. Um in town I’ve seen some murals painted for people that were in the war with Serbia in the 90s. Um, but I have not seen like an official government memorial for that war. I’m not saying it’s not here or somewhere else. I just haven’t seen it. But obviously individuals are expressing how they feel. All right. This is kind of the the plaza area there. Take you over to that. There’s a cool sign that says it’s 900 kilometers to Istanbul. Although I’m going to do a longer route, I guess. I’m going to go check out the tourist center and see if they got some postcards. I’ll be back. That was a fail. No postcards there. Or international stamps. They told me to go into the old town. So, I’m going to try that real quick and see if I see something. The west gate of the old town. Interesting. Putin socks. All right, I think I’m going to give up. No postcards from Croatia or Bosnia. Croatia had them. I just didn’t buy them in the right place. So, I’m out out of town, which is nice. That traffic was a bit much. And I’m riding along by this river. It’s beautiful. Very clear water. You can see all the way to the bottom. Nice little picnic table there. I maybe would have been a good place to camp if I were camping. Oh, yeah. Beautiful. So, I’ve been thinking about the flags and things I’ve heard about Bosnia. Hope I hope you can hear me. I got a good headwind here. But uh when I first entered Bosnia, Hersuggavina, I was on the Croasian side and a lot of the people there are Croates and or consider themselves that even though they’re living in Bosnia and they uh they won the war. And over on this side of Bosnia, it’s mostly people that are of a Serbian ethnic background. And so they were fighting for the losing side. And I think that’s why you don’t see very many um memorials. Oh, this is interesting. I think my road may be blocked. Um, and also why I just saw Putin’s face on socks and a Russian flag. Um, in the area when I first entered, I uh there were Croatian flags a lot of places instead of the Bosnian flag. Um, or there would be a Croet flag and a Bosnian flag. I’ve seen very few Bosnian flags on this side of things. Um, all right. Well, interesting. That could be a really good sign because it could mean I have no traffic or it could be a really bad sign because the road’s closed off. I guess we’ll see. But this is uh this is the way my route is sending me. So hopefully it’s all good. That was quite a storm, so we had to delay our start. Yeah, me too. I uh I was in uh Trebena, I guess. Yeah, it was pretty nice. Yeah. uh yeah, you know, I’m I change it all the time, but I uh I don’t know. Everything I’ve been looking at with cycling through Bulgaria doesn’t seem like on the Eurov 13 just doesn’t seem fun. So, I think I’m going to go down to uh the uh coast in Greece. Yeah. And cut across that way. Okay. So, yeah, that greases at least should be quite nice. Yeah. All right. Looks like a a tunnel. Should be interesting. Got my light on. Flashing light on back. We’re heading in. Big home. Could be dangerous to do without a light. All right. Well, that was interesting. Looks like they’re working on rebuilding the church. And I think that’s the Bosnian flag there. So, this is nice. Just got off of that busy road and uh I’ll be on this one for a while. The other road started having some big trucks. So, I was very happy to be away from that. And I’m climbing climbing to Montenegro. It may be up the rest of the way to the border. But it’s been a beautiful ride today. Lovely. So much beautiful scenery. And some nice people along the way. Some locals and some bike packers. So that was fun. I’m about two miles, maybe a little less, from the border and uh with Montenegra going out of Bosnia. And um it’s almost lunchtime and I just decided maybe I would stop and eat some of the things that if they did search my bike might be questionable. So, uh nope. One thing I had was electrolyte powder, sports drink, and I’ve uh I’ve heard of people being questioned on that before. And then um the other thing I have is some cheese and some sausage slices from Bosnia. So, uh, and I don’t think they’re going to question me on the bread, but I’m going to put it on the bread, and that’s going to be my lunch. Um, I do have a little bit of butter in my food bag, and hopefully, uh, hopefully they don’t take it, but if they do, it’s no big deal. So, I’ve not had a problem at any border, but I do read the Google Maps reviews. And it seems like uh between here and I guess leaving I guess here in North Macedonia the the border patrols it’s kind of hit or miss on whether or not they want to take your bike apart or you know trust you or I don’t think I look like a drug dealer but I don’t want them to think my sports drink is some kind of white powdery stuff that’s illegal. So anyway, I’m going to eat lunch, then I’m headed to the border. So there’s the welcome to the Republic of SRPsk which believe is the the Serbian ethnic region of Bosnia. All right, there’s the border. Just got to get up to it. Kind of excited to be going to Montenegro, experience another country. Kind of lost count how many this is, but I’ll put it on the screen. [Music] Goodbye Bosnia Herzuggavina. You’ve been good to me. All right. Going to turn you off. Play by the rules. All right. I got a stamp. I’m assuming that was the stamp out of Bosnia, but I couldn’t read any of the writing on the signs pulling up. But I’m assuming I’m in no man’s land right now and then I’ll hit the Montenegra border patrol. We’ll see. Well, no man’s land is gorgeous. Incredible mountains. Got about a half mile more to the border patrol for Montenegra. It’s nice. Had a few people in vans and cars cheering me on on this climb. Welcome to Montenegro. I think I have to take a picture. All right, here we are. I’m going to turn you off until I get through. All right. Got my stamp. I’m I’m legally in Montenegro. [Music] So, yeah. All right. Well, I have filmed a lot this morning. And my battery on my camera is really low. So, I’m going to turn you off for a while. All right. So, I made it into Nix, I think is how you would say it. And um rented this little apartment through Booking.com. It’s like uh $40 a night, so not bad. And uh yeah, I got here and pretty much just put on my walking shoes and uh some warmer clothes and went to the cash machine to get some more euros and then went to dinner at a place across the road that the um owner of the apartment had recommended. And uh yeah, I think I did like 45 miles today. Um, Montenegra is beautiful. Just beautiful. Um, and uh, so tomorrow I hit the next set of mountains and I don’t I need to look and see where my route is going because I think up at about 2,000 ft there’s actually snow or maybe maybe that was 2,000 meters. Probably meters. 2,000 meters there’s snow. Uh, so snowcapped mountains. I don’t think I’ll get up to the snow, but I’ve definitely noticed that it is colder today. Um, as I passed into Montenegro, I ended up putting on my long sleeve shirt and my windbreaker. And tonight definitely needed a puffy jacket. So, it is early October and the temperatures are dropping and the days are getting shorter. So, um, yeah, but I I had a great day of riding and I made it through the border with no issues at all. They were very nice. Um, guess I didn’t need to eat all of my sausage and cheese, but that was okay. I needed a good lunch and uh, it made it to where I really didn’t need to stop and eat until I got into town tonight. So, better safe than sorry, I guess. carrying meat and dairy products across uh country lines seems like it should be a problem. Um but they never asked me. So um all right. Well, I’m going to get a shower and have a restful evening and I’ll check in with you in the morning. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] and [Music] heat. Hey [Music] [Music]