Day 81: Bijelo Polje to Priboj Serbia

May 7, 2023

Down the Lim River canyon

“Do you know where the headlights are?” Patrick asks as we finished taking border pictures and looking at a tunnel. We don’t know how long the tunnel might be. “I’ll put on the blinkie lights on our bikes and follow you,” he continues. Rachel remembers to take off the sunglasses.

We use the breakfast coupon provided by the hotel by loading up the bikes and riding to the restaurant near the city park. The omelets are good, but the cheese is very salty. It is Sunday morning and quiet on the road as we leave town before 8:00.

The road continues following the Lim River. As we near the Montenegro – Serbia border we see the mountains closing in. Through Montenegro immigration, then a long section of no-man's land. In the middle are two nice signs welcoming you to the country, we stop and take pictures. Then we ride through the tunnel and down a spectacular gorge. Traffic is still pretty light.

At the Serbian border post we are let in smoothly and keep rolling. It takes a while before we get to the first Serbian town, fortunately we took our left-over omelets and bread from breakfast and we are still carrying fruit juice from Rozaje that comes in handy today. Just around the corner we do find a town where we stop to exchange some dollars for Serbian dinars. About 100 dinars for every dollar, easy to remember. Not too far further we stop to exchange some of those dinars for ice cream.

Rachel carries the garbage (juice container) after our food break

"This is a great system," Patrick says as we look at the beer crates. People buy an empty crate and pay a bottle deposit. Then when empty bring the crates in and buy more beer. Beer bottles are cleaned and reused.

Today is warmer than it has been for a while, there are thunderstorms in the forecast and more rain later this week, but so far the sky is blue and the sun warm. The valley is very green, the hill sides are dotted with houses, mostly small farms. The Lim river is running pretty high, but judging by the trash stuck to the trees it can run a lot higher. As we saw in all other Balkan countries trash is still chucked at every convenient pull-out; big piles of it that get set on fire every so often. Enough trash talk.

We hear quite a bit of gun fire from the other side of the river, at least three different guns in different locations. Let’s hope nobody gets shot. Serbia has had a couple of mass shootings recently too, the news mentioned “gun control”.

Traffic has been getting steadily worse, there are some trucks and a couple of cars that come too close for comfort. We are happy when we reach the turn-off where our road branches off the main road that goes to Belgrade. We ride along a long reservoir, pass the dam and have a short downhill. Then more ups and downs. 80 kilometers is long today.

When we reach the new part of Priboj we stop at a store to get some essentials, then ride on to our hotel in the old part of town about three kilometers down the road. There is a very nice hotspring hotel in the old town, we had planned to stay there, but the price went up when we were ready to book. $60Eu is not bad for a room, but there is another place in town that only charges $20Eu. The photo of the building gives one second thoughts, but the reviews are excellent so we have booked at the Apartments Stari Grad.

We find an open door at the house, but nobody answers are calls, except for an older man on the sidewalk out front. He goes all-out trying to help, first by going upstairs and knocking on doors, then by calling a disconnected phone number on the adjacent restaurant door. Finally, Rachel discovers the apartment door at the end of the hallway unlocked with the key in the lock. Since Patrick booked us through booking.com, we decide to just move in, ready to move later if this was the wrong room. Just as we are almost moved in, the older man returns with a young guy who has a cellphone with the apartment owner on the line. The young guy is his brother and will help us check-in. Luckily we picked the right apartment. The bikes go in the hallway and we settle in. Unfortunately the Wi-Fi does not quite reach to where we are, so we have to go in the upstairs hallway to check email and such. Posting our journal will have to wait until tomorrow.

The man is trying to help us, since we don't have a useful cell phone, he uses his to try to call the number on the door.

As we carried our gear inside, he stayed by the bikes until we were all moved in.

There is a Kitchen area, separate shower and toilet, through the bedroom door see the sitting room.

Later in the afternoon we walk around the town, check out the suspension pedestrian bridge over the Lim River, see a Path to Health walking path along the river and eat dinner at the Therme Hotel that seems to be the best (only?) option. Hotspring hotels seem very popular in the old Eastern Europe, they must be very good for your health, even though the guests do not look it.

Today was a quick jaunt into Serbia, tomorrow into Bosnia Herzegovina.

Today's ride: 82 km (51 miles)
Total: 2,928 km (1,818 miles)

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