Here you turn off for Maja Jezerce, via Vusanje to Tet, then to Valjbona, and from there you reach Zla Kola, the highest peak in Montenegro... We were going up there on July 13th, I took about 100 people...
As we stand at the viewpoint above Plav, a local Zuvdija Barjaktarevic He showed us the surrounding peaks, described the paths he took...
Even today, the eighty-year-old Zuvdija is a man of easy steps, and when we announced that we were coming to visit, if we hadn't been late, instead of taking us to the lookout, he would have preferred to take us to his cottage, a little higher up, and even further. After all, even when we were parting ways that day, he already had plans for us to get together to Đeravica, to one of the peaks of the Prokletije Mountains, not to one of the more tame ones, closer to Plav, but towards Gusinje, or to the Albanian part, where the Prokletije Mountains are more rugged.
“The mountains are much more challenging,” he says.
Zuvdija hasn't been hiking his whole life. In fact, he started late, in the 1990s, when he was already fifty.
He is a tourism worker, he was employed at the Plavsko Jezero hotel, where he organized tours for guests, and then, spontaneously, he started going with them to the mountains himself.
I was walking along the ocean shore, with my backpack on my back, there were a thousand and God knows how many walkers there were, when one of the two-meter-tall people just fell over, as if he had been mowed down. People were walking past him, no one turned their heads. And so for 15 minutes, an ambulance, police, fire department came, they put him in... I said, there is no more beautiful country, no matter what we are, like horns in a sack once, but here everyone will help everyone
He took his first mountaineering steps with guests from Austria, with the "Alpinschule" mountaineering society:
"I went through this part of Plav with them, where the mountains are more tame, there are meadows, forests... When I first went with them to this part of Gusinje, from Vusanje, looking at those rocks, I thought - where am I going this way?! But, once I tried, little by little, now at the age of eighty-one, there is no peak I haven't climbed. Sometimes I go alone, and when I reach the top, I put my head on a rock to rest, to fall asleep. If I have any fear - I don't."
His first hiking tour is Tromedja (2.366), on the border of Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo.
“These Austrian mountaineers were thrilled,” he recalls.
The three-border region is still attractive today, and in March 2024, a memorandum of cooperation was signed between the municipalities of Plav, Gusinje, Peć, Dečani, Junik and Tropoja, and the first regional winter event was organized, which allowed participants to ski in three countries in one day, at one peak.
Zuvdija started hiking late, but when he started, he wasn't exactly inexperienced, because, he says, he spent his childhood on katuns, herding cattle.
As we talk, he doesn't hesitate to say that he's proud of being eighty:
"There's practically no one from my generation in Montenegro who climbs like me. Now that I climbed Zla Kolata, on July 13th, I climbed better than anyone. And when I was younger, I practically ran alongside Visitor."
Climb to Maya Lake
Maja Jezerce, the highest peak of the Prokletije Mountains (2.694 m), is located in Albania, near the border with Montenegro. Maja Jezerce was first climbed on July 26, 1929, by British mountaineers.
From Montenegro, ascents to the peaks of the Prokletije Mountains bordering Albania, including Jezerce, began only recently, a little over twenty years ago. Zuvdija was among the pioneers who participated in these campaigns.
"For the first time, 60 of us, in 2002, climbed Maja Jezerce, the highest peak of Prokletije. Through the governments of Montenegro and Albania, and the Albanian embassy, we were approved, and at the border, 20 police officers and a captain with a stamp, customs, were waiting for us, so they stamped our passports."
As he talks about that event, he asks me if I've been to the top of Maja Lake, so I can follow him as he describes where they went the first time, then the second time...
I answer in the affirmative. You know those lakes, he asks me further, referring to the Lake Valley (Buni Lake).
"We slept there, they guarded us all night, and worst of all, they didn't bring any food. We really knew how to bring some, so we gave it to them...", he says, describing the day as they continued on from the last lake, reaching 2.504 meters, where they believed they had reached Maja Lake.
"We weren't sure, but we went around slowly, escorted by the police, and the policeman didn't know either, he hadn't been there before either. One of my sons and two other Albanians from Vusanje were with us, we climbed one kilometer up, the rocks were big, we didn't dare to risk leading the group... And my son, with these two Albanians, up, he was the first to climb Maja Lake."
On their second attempt, the team from Montenegro set off for Maja Jezerce along the trail that still leads to the summit from the Montenegrin side, from Zastan, across the Lake Valley and the Jezerce Pass. However, even then, says Zuvdija, they did not dare to take the risk, so they turned back and headed to the summit via another trail, from the Valjbon Valley, from Albania...
Well, that was all relatively recent, I say.
"And look, and Zla kolata, you weren't allowed there either, we went out there I think in 2005, there were four of us and my son. When we climbed Dobra kolata, he went ahead to look, suddenly I didn't see him anymore, when he climbed Zla kolata and waved. You weren't allowed, that was the most guarded border in Yugoslavia," says Zuvdija.
They are more cursed, he says, than a beautiful girl...
"That doesn't mean she's the most beautiful, maybe she has a nice smile, and that's enough... But they can also be cruel, and a person can easily get hurt."
Montenegro is the most beautiful country in the world
Zuvdija traveled a lot in his life, for work and to visit his family.
"I've visited more or less all of Europe, I've visited America seven or eight times. Montenegro is the most beautiful country in the world," he says.
I wouldn't give Montenegro, Plav and Gusinje for anything in the world.
"There are no better people anywhere," he adds, recounting some events from America.
In Florida, he says, he was there when an elderly woman fell on the street. He wanted to run to help her, but his brother stopped him.
"Whatever, he tells me, they'll say you pushed her. I look at that woman, she was lying on the street until the police came. Another time, I was walking along the ocean shore, with a backpack on my back, a thousand and God knows how many walkers there were, when one of them, two meters tall, just fell over, as if he had been mowed down. People were walking past him, no one turned their heads. And so for 15 minutes, an ambulance, police, fire department came, they threw him in... I said, there's no more beautiful country, no matter what we are, like horns in a sack once, but here everyone will help everyone."
Zuvdija also says that at the time he started hiking, the Plav-Gusinje mountains were mostly visited by foreigners.
"The mountaineers from 'Radnički' from Belgrade also made a great contribution," he says.
“Radnički” is still the host of the mountain lodge in the Grebaja valley. The “Branko Kotlajić” lodge was built in 1964, and has been renovated in the meantime, and in addition to the bedroom, it also has a kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. The lodge, with the agreement of the hosts, is also used by clubs from Montenegro, and camps and gatherings of mountaineers are regularly organized there.
Zuvdija does not skip over mentioning the people of Plav and Gusinje who contributed to the development of mountaineering in that area: Rifat Mulic, Ahmet Rekovic, Hakija Musić, Ismet Tosic, Radonja Sekularac, a mountaineer and alpinist from Belgrade and Berane, who chose Gusinje as his place of life and work...
Guest satisfaction is not just up to the caterers.
When talking about the tourist offer, Zuvdija says that it is made up of everyone, not only caterers, but also street cleaners, police officers, shopkeepers and kiosks, citizens...
"A tourist has to feel it all," he says.
And then he illustrates with a story - the second of August, Ilindan, which is traditionally celebrated in Gusinje, when a fair is organized at Alipašina Vrgovor, and in the evening hours, on the best days of Gusinje, there is nowhere for a needle to stop in the center of the town. On the second of August, Zuvdija led about 40 tourists from Croatia, they traveled by truck:
"People greet us, guests are happy... When we left the bazaar, at the turnoff towards Albania, a patrol stopped us, it turned out that the truck was not registered, and I didn't know that. The commander talked to the driver, and did I tell you not to drive unregistered anymore... In the end, he just said 'follow me right away', got in the car, turned on the lights and escorted us to our accommodation. The guests were very happy."
Zuvdija is convinced that the north and the mountains have far more to offer than the coast.
For him personally, the mountain, he says, has changed his life:
"I've met so many great, positive people, most of whom I would trust to run the country."
And it comes back to the kindness of the hosts, especially those in the katuns, which hikers often visit during their hikes.
"Today it is mutually beneficial, mountaineers are happy to stop by the katuns and households, and they are happy to pay for the service, even more than it actually costs."
It's getting better since the trip through Albania.
The route to Gusinje via Albania, the Božaj border crossing, and since 2021 via the Cijevna zatrijebačka crossing, both in the early years and today, has contributed to a greater number of visits to the area, especially on weekends, says Zuvdija.
"In all these years, no one has ever complained, not a single incident has happened."
The reporter's experience is that, on the Albanian part of the road, on days when it snows, their services send snowplows - when the snow fell on November 23, on the road from Gusinje, after the "Grabon" border crossing, everything was clear, and I came across two snowplows in Perdolec, one of the three places in Albania through which you pass on the way to Podgorica. There was no need for them any further, because the other places, Selce and Tamare, are at a lower altitude and there was no snow there.
My second experience, just when I was returning from Plav, after meeting with Zuvdija, my tire burst in front of Tamara, I stopped the car in front of the water factory building, the guard immediately got out, realized what was happening and called a colleague to help me. He changed my tire and refused to accept even the symbolic monetary compensation.
Not to mention the friendliness at the restaurant-camp "Selce", where if you come twice, you will be welcomed like the most beloved... And the prices of food and drinks are competitive with Montenegrin ones.
Zuvdija wishes us all such a favor.
I would do it all again.
Obviously in love with Prokletije, Zuvdija doesn't really single out other mountains in Montenegro. He's just waiting for you to ask him about them too.
And then he starts talking about Durmitor, "when you climb Bobotov Kuk, and you look down at those lakes, Malo and Veliko Šrkrčko". Then he talks about Bjelasica, which, he says, he crossed from all sides, from Mojkovac, Kolašin, Berane...
"Bjelasica is not dangerous, it is gentle, there is plenty of water," he says, and quickly finds a connection with Gusinje, where the Gusinje Holes are located on Jelovica, in the territory of the Berane municipality.
"I asked, but no one could tell me why they were called that. There is also a fountain on the road to Peć, it is called Gusinjska, but that is from the time when caravans passed through there...".
The Caravan Route was revived a few years ago through the "Peaks of the Balkans" route, which takes mountain lovers through Kosovo, Albania, and Montenegro.
Zuvdija led ambassadors and thousands of mountaineers to the mountains... He also hiked outside of Montenegro and climbed the peaks of Olympus (2.917, Greece), Musala (2.925, Bulgaria), Korab (2.764, Macedonia/Albania)...
"Now, if I were born again, I would ask to work in the hospitality industry and go hiking. I am so satisfied with my life."
Bonus video:
