Peja to Sarajevo, 1/X; 18th October
18th October
After a fantastic breakfast of pancakes, fried eggs, museum, coffee and yogurt served by the hostel, we left Peja and started the climb up to the border.
The hillside coated in the autumn leaves was very beautiful, and we stopped several times to take pictures.
After the Kosovoan checkpoint (we had to ask for the stamp again), we stopped as there was a dramatic view of the hillside we were to climb, made even more so by the changing colours of the leaves.
A couple of young Turkish guys stopped in their car to take pictures too -- they had driven from Istanbul and were on a a tour of the Balkans. We chatted for a bit and took some pictures together. They gave us some banana and cookies, and I offered them some gummy sweets in exchange.
The rest of the climb was a long slog but the gradient was manageable, especially as we had swapped the rear cog from a 16T to a 17T in Sofia, which feels like an additional lower gear. Really, we should had started in the trip on this gear, as we rarely need the highest 14th gear with a 16T cog, which is for going at around 34KM/H.
At the top of the pass we took some more pictures. A car coming from Montenegro, on it's way to Kosovo, slowed and as it passed the middle aged man wound down the window and shouted ‘you are strong’ with his fist clenched outside the window, wound up the window and drove on.
The pass was another good one as there were so few cars to worry about making for a very pleasant climb in the crisp autumn air.
After a fast descent we stopped for a late lunch at a Serbian restaurant which had some small ponies grazing in the garden. After descending some more we got to our accommodation for the night, an ‘eco-lodge resort’. After hand washing clothes in the room, and drying them with the hairdryer, I did a Rohloff oil change, likely the last one of the trip.
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