Safe Return Doubtful

53 miles (85 km) – Total so far: 579 miles (932 km)

Hotel, or Guest House, Zvono.
Highly recommended. Tremendous welcome and hospitality. Great food also.
I would never say it was my birthday, but to my misfortune/ fortune the owner saw the date in my passport, and it meant a special desert…
The room had a washing machine also, which was useful, all at 18 euros.

This is the first tourist information I’ve seen. In the small town of Pluzine.
I had a good chat to the guy there, but he knew nothing about the sort of information I wanted; different roads, accommodation where I’m headed, etc

The first 18 km are alongside the Pluzine Gorge.
I had thought the road would be busy, but it wasn’t at all. A car passing every few minutes. Pretty spectacular riding…

…a lot of that due to the 50 tunnels in those 18 km.
they certainly took some building these roads in the Communist times, like the descent down the mountain last night. These days I just think they would be too expensive.

None of them have any lighting. They range from 50 metres to about 500 metres, some have curves, so there are times of pitch black. Certainly lights are necessary of bikes. Their distance isn’t signed.
As the traffic was so low, these were not dangerous at all, and pretty good fun to ride through.

And then to the dam.
At this stage, the road which had been up and down, descends rapidly through more tunnlels, about 300 metres.
Beware using gps on this ride. Map planning also. iPhone and many map apps don’t allow for going through tunnels, they think you have to go over them. When I looked at this on BikeMap it said 1000 metres of ascent in the first 20 km. it was gently up and down, maybe 150 metres ascent. iPhone said 1000 metres. Garmin turns off in the tunnels so doesn’t track your distance for them, though the height gained is accurate.

Now into Bosnia.
The border was busy with long waits at both sides. I sped to the front as the prerogative of cyclists and was through in seconds.
The road after the border for some reason becomes one lane, and much rougher, many more potholes. This is now the Tara Canyon. It is again, wonderful riding. More up and down, but quite quick, and again, really good fun.

After a day total of just more than 45 km comes the small town of Brod and the bridge over the famous River Drina. it forms a large part of the border with Serbia, and has been strategically important in the First and Second wars, as well as the break up if Yugoslavia.

Lunch in Brod, and a tourist information.
This one was particularly useless. The guy wanted my telephone number e I got lost…
‘What will you do?’ he said.
I was planning on taking a road he had never heard of.

Brod is a junction town, and no surprise, the road is a lot busier here.
Sarajevo is only 70 km away, and Belgrade not far either.
The next 15 km or so were much less pleasant riding – 4 tunnels also, much more scary.

Then the road the Tourist Info was worried about..
A 20 km cut-off over a mountain pass, and not sealed.
It was wonderful to be riding again. It was pretty much all rideable except for a few occasional and short 15% sections. It ascends about 600 metres over 11 km and no traffic at all.
Little of anything really. Just the odd farm building. From one of them a woman came out and gave me some huge red grapes.

And at 1,000 metre mark, a War Memorial.

Ratko Mladic was born about 5 km from Kalinovik. A Bosnian Serb, he was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – the trial started in The Hague in 2012, and concluded 8 months ago. He is serving life in prison.
His wartime headquarters were 60 km south of Sarajevo. I will pass near in a couple of days, but they are destroyed pretty much now.

This is for the Bosnian Serb local dead in 1992. Seems so recent. This area was hit heavily with loss.
For anyone of my age (and a lot more) the memory must be something engrained in the mind.

Such a memorable mountain pass, like no other, what happened here just 26 years ago.

Two quotes on war, both Russian.
From Tolstoy:
He stared at the oncoming Frenchmen, and although, only a short time before, he had set off at a gallop with the sole intention of getting to those Frenchmen and cutting them to pieces, he now felt their proximity to be something so terrible that he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Who are they? Why are they running? Are they really running towards me? And why? Do they mean to kill me? Me, whom everyone likes so much?” He thought how fond of him his mother, his relations and friends were, and it seems quite impossible that the enemy could really be intent on killing him.

And much simpler, and such powerful words, from Pushkin:
Why are you mute field?
Why overgrown with grasses of oblivion?

A hand-painted signpost on a bit of old wood – and this is the top of the pass, at 1170 metres.

Unlike me, I had left later this morning, and the light is fading on the descent.

To the town of Kalinovik. Now quite small at 4,000 people. Before the War it had 40,000. Many moved away as this was a high conflict area with much bombing, never to return.
There remains a huge old Hotel built in Communist times. About 100 rooms.
No one speaks English here, and I am the only tourist.
It’s recntly had a huge facelift though and looks really smart.
The tourists just haven’t come back here yet. This is a very beautiful mountainous area at just over 1000 metres asl.
I’m on my way to a probably slightly more touristy area tomorrow, but obviously no one comes this way.
Strangely, the Hotel (Moskva) seems hugely proud of its Communist history. Putin’s photo adores reception with lots of other Russian memorabilia. It could be that the older people here just remember those as better times.