Leaving Montenegro

Something I missed to tell yesterday and this one is for all disbelievers! On my tour around Durmitor the reserve lighted sooner than expected, I started to look for petrol stations but there was none on sight so I drove and drove and when I finally got one the odometer was showing this:

 

 and it took 22,8L to refill, so no prblem doing 400Kms with one fill as I my normal consumption lies between 5,2 and 5,4/100

After the HU meeting I went to Kotor.

Enjoying Crna Gora

A lot of people say that the first impression counts the most and I must say that it was extremely positive for Montenegro. I stopped over at the HU meeting on the top of the Bjelasica mountain, north of Kolašin, which is part of the Biogradska Gora National Park, thanks again for your hospitality and disponibility, Blazo and Tonko!

Following the recommendations of Blazo and other visitors I've done a round trip to the National Park Durmitor with a couple of stopps in between.

I startet by visiting the Biogradska lake, you've to pay 3€ to drive to the lake (it reminded me of the atractions in Mexico) but it's worth paying for, if you've a couple of hours to hike around.

 

Then proceeded to the Tare canyon

 

and then to the Durmitor Nacionalni park

Let the adventure begin (Part 2) + Montenegro

After I got to Serbia, I found out that the map I loaded on my gps had no city names just as many question marks as the name of a village was supposed to have and I knew where I wanted to go but without names it got really difficult to find something on the small screen. 

GPS alone doesn't allways do it :)

I needed to buy a map but had no Serbian dinars so I drove to the first tank station (they all take credit cards) no luck, drove to the next one and finally got my maps. Well I drove past the best road by 16kms I thought that it could have gone worse, turned back and got on the road to Prizren where I planned to spend the night. After 40kms all of a sudden I got to a border that I wasn't expecting, showed them my documents as asked and at the end the asks me " - Have you got insurance for Kosovo?" and I, convicted, answered "- Yes, sure!" and took my green card out, the guy replied "- that isn't valid!", WTF!? how come? I looked the green card closer and there wasn't Kosovo in it, neither as allowed nor as not, damn! 
The office replied that if I want to cross, I'll need to buy an insurance at the office near by. So I went and the guy looks at me and it's 50€ -How much? 50€, well that's expensive - It's for 52 weeks! I don't need 52 weeks, just two days. 
It was getting late but I was not willing to spend 50€, for less I can eat and sleep in a very good place. Went back to the office and him to return me my passport -give the insurance please and - I'm turning back, not going to cross anymore! You should have seen his face, it might well be the first time that someone took such a decision.
Done all the way back to the main road to Belgrad and startet looking at the map for the next big town where I could find a place to sleep, then I got into reserve and my priority changed, drove past Niš as there was a sign pointing the next gas station in 10kms and I relly needed at this point, on the way out to the station I saw this uge Hotel and decided to go get a quote for the night, as I got near, startet thinking that it didn't look that good after all, drove to where it seamed to be the reception parked the bike, looked at the door and an old comming out, saying it's closed. Jumped on the bike, got some gas an searched for the next possible place to stay, Aleksinac seamed to be a good place, got there, drove around, nothing, big village but no place for foreigners to spend the night. Back to the main road and up we go, at this time I was already calculating how late I would be in Belgrad if I didn't find a place to stay but luckily it was not necessary, after 50 more kms I finally found a place to stay.

Today I drove all the way down, around Kosovo to Montenegro

My home for the next two days :)

Let the adventure begin (Part 1)

The weather this morning wasn't as good as I'd expected so I decided to cancel the leisure day in Sofia and get near to the next planned target in Montenegro. The adventure startet at the Macedonia border, after more than  half an hour waiting, I was glad having just one car in front of me and that I had bought some cherries just before. The officer took my documents, inspected them around 10 minutes, asked me to take the helmet and glasses of then stamped the passport and said it's ok you can go. I put all my gear back on, started the engine and just after 5 meters another guy comes out and asks me to open the alu cases, damn! couldn't the first guy just tell me that I still have customs ahead?

Some kms later I got to a crossing where ideally I should have taken the highway, but, as I was still not sure if I used the Romanian and Bulgarian highways irregularly, I decided to take the road besides it, which was not a good idea. Not sure if about whether or not there a border crossing, I asked the locals about it and they said "no border in this road, you need to go that way!" and pointed to the street on the right.

Well some times it's maybe better not to ask and just turn around by yourself. This is where the road ended up and I bet the locals are still waiting for me to come back. This is one of the reasons why I ride and love this bike.

Hmm! This looks like a rail crossing...

Down to София

This morning I had engine start problems again, it looks like I'll have to manualy close the petrol tap every evening to avoid trouble. Proceeded my way down after it startet.

 There are a lot of wild plum trees on the site of the road.

Crossed the Danube river to Bulgaria.

 

Transfăgărășan

After the nice dinner yesterday in Cluj-Napoca, I started the day heading to the first real target of this trip. Following the rule "don't believe what they say, go and see with your own eyes". I've heard a lot about the "Transfăgărășan", which is supposed to be in the top 10 of the roads to ride in a life time, along with Stilfserjoch wich I've done twice last week.

 On the way to I got a couple of routing surprises.

  
Looking from the bottom it looked like it was  going to get wet and it did. 

Transfăgărășan