Kosovo and the Last of our Balkan Trip

Welcome back to our last post about the Balkans!

I have to start with a very brief recent history lesson here. The country of Kosovo was created only 15  years ago when the people in the south of what was Serbia, who are predominantly Muslims who migrated from Albania, broke away from the predominantly Orthodox Christian Serbians of the north. Today, the Serbians resent losing part of their country and still refuse to accept Kosovo as a country. In fact nearly half of the countries in the world don't recognise Kosovo as a country. Relations between Kosovo and Serbia are a bit up and down. Ok let's just say that the two countries don't like each other much at all but, as Europe's newest country, we wanted to see it.

There had been some protests and political incidents in north-west Kosovo since we organised this trip and now both the Australian and UK travel advisories were warning against traveling through this region. This is exactly the area we needed to cross through to get into Kosovo from Serbia.

We tried a few different route options on google maps and were astonished when it refused to give us directions to cross into Kosovo from anywhere in Serbia! It routed us through Montenegro, which would have been ok but we didn't have permission to take the car through Montenegro. Another alternative skirted us all the way north and east around Kosovo, then crossed into Macedonia to Skopje, then came up into Kosovo from there. It turned a 2.5 hour drive into a 6.5 hour one!

We made contact with the owner of the apartment we were staying in in Serbia and asked him about it. He was adamant that crossing the border into Kosovo from Serbia wasn't a problem. A friend of his drives to Kosovo every few days so we took his advice. The route he suggested is one that the travel advice sites specifically told us to avoid, but we knew that his advice was more current. I don't think we've ever gone against travel advice before!

We got up early and headed off. If we hit any sort of trouble and had to turn around we were going to have to take the much longer route. The roads continued to be lined with rubbish and the area wasn't very attractive but we soon started driving along yet another dammed river and it was stunning.

Somewhat apprehensively, we approached the border. We passed out of Serbia no problem. While we waited in line to cross into Kosovo, we watched in amazement as the guy in front of us got out of his car and pulled the blank stickers off his number plate that obscured the RKS (Republic of Kosovo) letters that identified which country he was from! 

We cruised through the border crossing without incident. We were in Kosovo! Now we just had to safely get through the dodgy area. Much to our relief we had no trouble whatsoever. Surprisingly, there were Serbian flags everywhere in this area. Clearly there are a lot of Serbs here and they were making a statement.

We noticed though that almost every car driving the opposite way, towards the Serbian border, had those same white stickers over their number plates. Being identified as being from Kosovo when they're in Serbia can be a problem. But the question begs to be asked - wouldn't everyone know that if you've got the country covered on your number plates and you're in Serbia then you're probably from Kosovo?

We arrived very early at our hotel at Gracanica, near the capital, Pristina, and the lovely staff didn't hesitate to let us in early. The hotel was wonderful! A large, modern, light-filled room with a modern bathroom (with no drain smells!) and a comfy bed with crisp white sheets greeted us. I didn't want to leave! We later learned it was Swiss-owned.

The main reason we came here is because there's a bear sanctuary here. When we were researching this trip, I figured we were going to get lots of warnings about bears but never see them, which is exactly what happened. When I learned about the bear sanctuary here I was determined to some bears in real life!

It only became illegal to keep bears in Kosovo in 2010. Prior to that, some restaurants used to keep bears in cages near the restaurant to lure customers in. They were treated appallingly. They were kept in tiny cages that usually gave no protection from the weather and it's very hot here in summer and it snows in winter. 

Somehow, the Austrian embassy got involved and managed to get the Kosovo government to talk to a group called Four Paws, an animal welfare group. The final outcome was that a special sanctuary was built and a total of 20 bears were rescued over the coming years.

The bears are kept in paddocks of various sizes and a walking track wanders through the area for us to hopefully see the bears from. A wonderfully enthusiastic English-speaking worker at the sanctuary gave us a talk about the sanctuary and warned us that many of the bears might be asleep so we might not see them. Fortunately she was wrong! We started the walk and the first three bears were all out and about! It was terribly hot and some of the bears were climbing in and out of their pools. I didn't even know bears liked water but these loved it! All in all we saw maybe 10 of the bears. They were all European brown bears but I was amazed at the variety in their size and colour.

There were some terrible stories - a couple of restaurants encouraged customers to buy beer and feed it to the bears. One bear was regularly having 20 beers a day. Another one had a chain put around its neck when it was young. It grew but the chain wasn't adjusted and it grew into the bear's skin. One was kept in a tiny cage for 11 years. There were info boards on each bear showing before and after photos.

Some bears today have behavioural issues from being locked up and mistreated and more than one had to have its alcohol dependency cured. I saw one bear just pace up and down the same track and at first I thought its enclosure was too small, but then I realised that this is learned behaviour and some bears can't adapt to a more spacious environment. 

One set of three sibling bears wasn't mistreated. They were bought (illegally) as cubs by a family. Of course, once the bears started to grow the family realised they couldn't keep them!

There were also heartwarming stories of bears adapting to their relative freedom. I say 'relative' because they were still kept behind VERY strong fences with double barriers and electric wires. Some of the enclosures were still a little small, maybe the size of a tennis court, but I realised too that this was probably all those ones could cope with. Others had acres to roam around in and some shared with other bears.

Each has their own personality. They have favourite foods, different habits and some are friendly and some aren't.

The poor bears struggled in the heat.

I watched this one for ages. She flopped into her pool and rolled around blissfully. She scratched herself against the rocks and just soaked. She was loving it!

Most of the bears we saw were quite relaxed around the people. From what I heard, the ones we didn't see are the ones that don't want to be seen. I can hardly blame them. A couple who were mistreated are still quite aggressive.

This one wasn't bothered by me at all.

We came across this open enclosure and at first were puzzled as to what it was for.

Then we saw the sign. It's a safe place for people to escape to if the bears get out!

Bizarrely, they also had a lion! It was removed from its owners (nobody can work out where they got a lion from!) and they didn't know where to put it. They eventually figured the bear sanctuary was the best place. If they were taking precautions with the bears' fencing, they went overboard with the lion's fencing!

It was a fantastic, educational and heart-warming visit. We both loved it.

Next stop were some Roman ruins. Compared to the bears they weren't that exciting though. They were probably the neatest ruins we've ever seen, although part of the reason for that was we could see no stones that weren't on the reconstructed walls. Where were the rest of the walls?

A highlight was the friendly stray dog that trotted around with us, although when it rolled over to have its tummy scratched, we saw it had ticks. 

Lastly was a monastery. This monastery is hugely important to the Serbs so that fact that it's now located in Kosovo is a wee bit of a problem for the Serbs.

The exterior doors were amazing.

The church inside was pretty impressive too. Again, it was filled with gorgeous old paintings which we couldn't photograph. 

Hot and exhausted, we returned to our wonderful hotel. They had a small restaurant there and we had the most amazing meze plate for dinner that night. Typically, it was a cheese overload - fried cheese, cheese balls, cream cheese balls and spicy cheese balls were all there. Luckily there were other options to balance out the cheese!

This hotel was the first one we've stayed in that has had a pool, but the water didn't look clean to us so, tempting as it was, we didn't go in. I was disappointed that we only booked one night here. 

As we were driving out of the town we saw a huge sign, like the ones that spell the name of the town and people take photos in front of them. This sign however spelled the word MISSING and it was covered in small photos of people who have disappeared, I assume during the war of the 90's. We couldn't stop but I would love to have investigated further. It's one of the few signs we saw of Kosovo's troubled past. I wasn't quick enough to grab a photo but I got this one online.

The reason we had to leave is that we had a date with the mountains! We headed towards Peje, the gateway to the Rugova Valley in the Accursed Mountains. Gotta love that name!

On the way we passed this sign advertising an unfortunately named business. We were also passing lots of junky places like this one.

This coper-topped mosque looked amazing with the Accursed Mountains behind it.

Our visit started well when we pulled up at the local Tourist Info Centre in Peje, at the base of the mountains, to find info on walks and rides in the mountains. The girl was as helpful as she could be but only told us about one walk and no bike rides. Another lady chipped in with a few ideas. When we asked where the supermarket and bank were, the second lady said she was going near those places and offered us a lift! In the end we agreed to follow her. Once she found a car park for us we took her for a drink. She led us to her favourite bar where everybody smoked endlessly. We all only ordered water but it was interesting to talk to her. In her mind, Albania was the bees' knees. She was of Albanian descent and obviously held the country in high regard and didn't like Serbia at all. We quickly learned not to tell anyone here we had come from Serbia. Luckily, Macedonia is seen as fairly neutral so we would just talk about travelling there when people asked where we had been.

We made our way up the valley through a striking gorge but unfortunately it was Sunday and every man and his dog was out for a Sunday drive. There was only one main road into the area and it was narrow and full of potholes. Flash, low-slung cars crawled along, swerving wildly to avoid the holes and rough patches. It was slow going as we all crawled single-file up the valley. 

The gorge was, well, gorgeous!

It was fun winding through tunnels.

The views were amazing. After a while the valley widened and we were in the mountains!

We spent three nights here. Our accommodation was yet another A-frame wooden cabin in a pretty location. The temperatures were in the high 20s which was a welcome relief from the heat we'd had. We melted in our cabin though as it faced south and its large windows collected the heat. There was no air-con here.

The mountains were spectacular. We walked, rode and drove around, exploring. It seemed that every bend brought another stunning view.

Sadly, there was so much rubbish! A skip bin had fallen over and tipped its contents into one of the gorgeous streams. 

Lots of plastic bags of domestic rubbish were scattered along the roadsides. Many were fresh bags, only recently thrown there. It was so disappointing.

We had trouble finding enough info on walks. John could only ride up the main valley road as the other roads weren't really ideal for cycling, but he really enjoyed it. I had fun exploring a village one day but all the traditional homes were gone. Who can blame them - would we want to live in a small wooden shack when we could have a large brick home?

I walked along lovely tracks sometimes but most walks here are along the road which means you're sometimes walking with traffic or past rubbish. One walk took me along a beautiful river and to a small waterfall.

There was still a lack of birds and an overabundance of midgies or whatever it was that was giving us very itchy bites. There were some lovely butterflies here though.

Restaurants were scattered through the area and many had amazing views.

I loved the sled. It snows here in winter!

We ate at a restaurant nearby most nights but the food was mediocre. John enjoyed the local Peje beer!

One night we ordered the mixed platter for two. If we thought we had had cheese feasts before, they were nothing compared to this. Clockwise from the centre front: a yellow capsicum stuffed with cheese and cream, salad with cheese, a layered pancake/bread thing, polenta, an entire dish full of melted cheese, a couple of hot peppers in cream and cheese sauce and some yoghourt. This amount of cheese is heart attack material!

We were amazed at the rampant development happening in the valley and the mountains. We often saw these subdivision signs. We joked the last word said, "Shit yeah"! (That's how it's pronounced.)

New sealed roads headed into remote pockets of land where very recently there were only trees and views but now more timber A-framed houses or large hotels were being built. There seemed to be no consideration for the natural environment. But I can't be too critical - we slept in a wooden cabin and ate in the huge restaurants they have here. It's not fair for me to say that we want to experience the mountains but other people can't. I just wish they'd think better about how to develop the area. It's heading down the path of ruining the beauty and wildness that people come here for.

John found this amazing building in the middle of nowhere on one of his rides. It looked so out of place!

Our best walk and bike ride was on our last day. We drove up a long way to a restaurant where John dropped me off. I continued from here up to a lake, nearly 500 metres above my starting point. It was a long slog but it was a beautiful walk. As I walked, I crossed in and out of Montenegro as the path straddled the border. Cool! I had the walk almost to myself. 

On the way I found tiny wild strawberries, no more than a few mm in size. They were so incredibly sweet and perfumed that it was like I was eating lollies! 

I also found wild raspberries. 

At this altitude it was a little cooler but I still sweated my way to the lake. The lake was gorgeous but I could only take a few photos then turn around as I was running later than expected. 

On the way back I passed hikers and many family groups with picnic ingredients in plastic bags. I could only hope they would carry their rubbish out with them but I doubt that would happen judging by the rubbish that was scattered around every nice picnic site.

Meanwhile, John had a great ride on the last bit of the valley road to the Montenegrin border. We had heard that it wasn't guarded so John headed into Montenegro. There was nobody there and the road surface was wonderfully free of potholes. He took this photo at the border.

From the Rugova Valley we headed towards the second-largest city of Prizren, but we took a couple of detours on the way We stopped at a village where they have a few traditional "kulla", square buildings built for defence against various invaders. 

We then drove through wine country. This part of the country is still settled by Serbs. The landscape was described as being like Tuscany in the old guidebook we picked up along the way. That was a very long bow to draw but it was quite pretty. Even the villages here were lovely with gorgeous stone houses and neat streets.

This nearby winery was incredibly over the top though!

These pockets of other nationalities, particularly the Serbs, are not well tolerated at times. Town names are signposted in Albanian and Serbian but many Serbian names were scratched out.

We arrived at Prizren. What a city of contrasts it was! Beautiful old buildings (although not that many) were in the old part of town. Minarets dotted the skyline and people wandered along the river eating ice creams but rubbish was scattered around. There were grungy outer suburbs, busy traffic, decaying buildings and new but seemingly uncontrolled construction. The approach into the city was a feast of rampant commercialism with kilometre after kilometre of flash new furniture mega-stores and huge homewares stores. 

We had a very comfortable hotel but our view looked over a scrap metal yard, the bus station and rusty rooves.

We saw this sign at the entrance to a mosque!

There's more Turkish influence here so there were hookah cafes. I had no idea there were so many flavours! They were also surprisingly expensive. Kosovo's currency is the euro, so everything was back to European prices which was a bit of a shock to us after the cheaper countries we had been in.

We walked to an old fort and a dog accompanied us. We love the tame stray dogs in this part of the world.

There were good views over the city from the top.

The Kosovo Liberation Army, the Albanian group which fought for the separation of Kosovo from Serbia, has the unfortunate initials of UCK. We sometimes see these letters in prominent positions and these large letter were on the fort wall.

There were also some unfortunately named businesses.

Many people left this area to work in Germany and German is spoken perhaps more than English. 

It was interesting to visit Prizren but we don't feel any desire to go back.

We left Kosovo and drove back to Skopje, in Macedonia, the town we started this trip in. Not long before we crossed the border from Kosovo into Macedonia, the road became very flash. We drove along a bridge that twisted and wound its way through the mountains for several kilometres. It was amazing!

We found a great radio station when we were in Serbia and despite (or because of?) the poor relationship between the two countries, we were able to keep listening to it all through Kosovo. It was sad when we finally lost the station along the road to Skopje. It had kept us company for a couple of thousand kilometres.

At Skopje, we returned our wonderful hire car (a Skoda Karoq) and got John's bike serviced and packed up for our flights to Greece. It's surprisingly inexpensive to put a bike on a plane.

We had two nights here and it was actually quite interesting to go back to a place after we've been elsewhere. Skopje seemed so civilised and comfortable! 

We caught up with Igor, the brother of our Macedonian friend that we met in Turkey years ago. He was running a rave party that night that started at midnight so he could only fit in a quick coffee catchup. He kindly invited us to the rave but we sadly declined. We would be in bed two hours before it started! Igor was a lovely guy who had some interesting stories to tell.

We were craving Asian food and Igor told us about a good Asian restaurant in Skopje. We ate there that night. Compared to elsewhere, it was very expensive but it was delicious! John liked the sauce on his dish so much that he sucked up the last of it with a straw!

It was time to leave the Balkans but travelling with a bike in a box was a whole new experience. We had lots of discussions with Air Serbia about it and finally got it booked onto our flights. It wouldn't fit in normal taxis so the hotel took us to the airport in their laundry van! Unfortunately, it still didn't fit in that properly either so we ended up dropping the back seat and John rode illegally on the floor in the back of the van in the only spare space. Our driver took a longer route to avoid police and we made it in one piece.

We had two flights in two days - one to Belgrade in Serbia then one to Rhodes in Greece.  We had a few interesting moments after Air Serbia said we didn't have a booking for the bike but we got there eventually. We checked the bike all the way through to Rhodes so we didn't have to cart it back and forth between the airport and Belgrade for one night's stay.

While we were waiting for the plane to take off, we saw this unusual sight out of the window of the plane. After a while, a staff member got on it and rode away!

The flight was fine apart from the fact that they changed our seats and sat us in seats facing backwards! I've never seen this on a plane before. 

We began our descent into Belgrade and the pilot did his usual announcement, however he said "It's a lovely day in Belgrade today. It's 36 degrees." Oh bugger.

We landed and caught a taxi to our accommodation. On the way, John saw a graffiti saying "Kosovo is Serbia". I wrote part of this post while sitting in Belgrade airport and I kept looking over my shoulder in case someone was watching me post photos about Kosovo!

Our accommodation in Belgrade was lovely! It was a beautifully decorated small apartment set in a courtyard off the street. It was quiet and comfortable. You wouldn't know how nice it was from the door we had to enter off the street though!

It's a pity we only had one night here. We explored the town and had another delicious Asian meal, but the smokers were inside so we sat outside and it was incredibly hot. The small part we saw of Belgrade looked lovely!

Back on our next Air Serbia flight the next day, we were again bumped out of the seats we had paid for. The flight was fine though and we landed in Rhodes. We were about to begin the next leg of our journey! There was just one problem - the bike didn't turn up.................

Hooroo!

Heather and John