Biogradska Gora

Spending ten days in the Durmitor national park had been amazing, and for once it felt like we had not hurried too much when we left the place. The owner of the camping site we stayed in (link) is nothing short of amazing. He helped us in countless ways and staying in the camp cost us only 5€ a night. Before we left he organized a taxi for us to another national park in Montenegro, Biogradska Gora.

Biogradska Gora is located in eastern Montenegro, not far from the city of Mojkovac. In addition to its rainforest there are mountains in Biogradska Gora as well, of which Crna Glava is the highest at 2139m. Having climbed Bobotov Kuk already, Inna wasn't too keen on climbing more mountains any time soon, but we planned to do some hiking at least. The taxi ride was long and the winding mountain roads made me feel sick. When we finally arrived at the national park we realized that there wasn't a single shop anywhere near the entrance and we only had a small package of spaghetti with us. There was a restaurant nearby, but we decided that it was too expensive for our budget.

Slow Worm (or is it?)

It was already late afternoon when we arrived at the entrance, but without having much food with us we decided to go for a hike right away anyway. Our hike wasn't very long, but at least we made it to an observation tower offering beautiful view over the lush rainforest and the slowly setting sun. Unfortunately the way to and from the tower wasn't very exciting - just a winding gravel road. On the way down, not far from the camp, we saw a small and innocent-looking snake. I don't know the species, but I'm somehow quite sure it wasn't a poisonous one. Any tips regarding the species are welcome! Write them in the comments below please :).

Update: I did a bit of reading and I think the "snake" is actually a Slow Worm (Anguis fragilis), a limbless lizard that lives in Finland as well. Unfortunately the photos of mine aren't very good and I'd love to have a confirmation on this!

There's a beautiful lake right at the entrance where you can swim, although the water is pretty chilly there. We spent the evening by swimming, relaxing, checking out the Stoat that lived among the rocks right next to our tent and finally eating the tasty spaghetti we had saved for this moment!

With no food left we had no other option but to head down towards the main road early next morning. The asphalt road was boring to walk, but luckily there were some beautiful flowers on the way at least. At one point we took a shortcut through a field of long grass to make it faster to the next section of the road. Right after taking the shortcut we found a dead Vipera ammodytes on the road. Vipera ammodytes is the most dangerous snake in Europe and I'm glad we didn't meet one in the long grass we had just walked in!

Down at the main road we crossed a small river and started hitching for a ride to Mojkovac. As always, hitch hiking worked in an instant when a local man stopped with his van and took us exactly where we wanted to go. For whatever reason I don't have a single photo from Mojkovac although we spent a couple of hours there. We weren't exactly sure how to get back to civilization from the city so we walked to the train station first, which was totally dead. Apparently there were no passenger trains arriving in Mojkovac at all. In the end we took a bus to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica and made a super fast change there to the next bus towards the coastal city of Bar.