We decided to hike to an ice cave today called Ledina Pecina (“le-dee-na pa-chee-na”). It began with an easy stroll along a paved road to a beautiful lake with mountains behind it. The trail then followed part of the lake before it began a long ascent, first through the forest and then along rocks and small shrubbery. After almost an hour and a half, we had a snack break on a small plateau where a decrepit mountain house/shack was located. Rejuvenated we pressed on for the cave. The trail got trickier and trickier as it gained in steepness and some loose rocks. We passed some patches of snow that had so far resisted the summer sun. To add to the difficulty, when we were within 500 meters of the skies opened up and huge rain drops began to fall. It was just a localized shower due to overdevelopment over the peak of the mountain we were ascending, Globa Glava. I was a hundred meters ahead of Garth and Holly and they shouted up that they were going to turn back. Holly only had running shoes and the terrain proved too difficult for her footwear.
The lake at the start of the hike:
Getting a bit higher:
The hut near our first break:
The hikers:
A relatively large lizard near the hut (at least 10 inches long):
The colourful path:
We wandered upon some snail sex, but didn't have enough time to see it through to fruition:
I decided to press on as the cave was super close. There were three hikers with large packs resting just inside the entrance, out of the rain. A large patch of snow carpeted the 60 meter alleyway down into the cave at a steep angle. I could see the stalagmites of ice in the cave below. I descended into the cave by facing the snow and using existing “snow steps” that other hikers had left. The cave itself was approximately 20 meters in diameter but I could not see the top of it. The ice structures inside were stunning. I felt as if I was in Superman’s home back on Kryptonite. One bonus was that I was the only one down in the cave at the time. I spent about 10 minutes admiring and snapping some photos of the ice before ascending the snow staircase and beginning the descent to catch up with Garth and Holly. Thankfully the rain had stopped. The descent was faster than I expected as I was able to “boot ski” down a couple of large snow sections and the second one caught me up to the other two who were resting. We had lunch and then began our return hike. We marvelled and chuckled at a few of the footwear selections of hikers that passed us, still heading to the cave. Teva sandals looked challenging, especially considering the guy was carrying a heavy pack but the lady wearing her pink crocs took the cake. Her feet must have been in agony but at least she was colour coordinated!
My first view of the cave:
The ice cave:
In the cave:
The view from the cave entrance:
We arrived back at the lake around 3pm (having set off at 9:15am). There were a few busloads of tourists milling about the shore. Our water supply was gone but we figured we deserved a drink in a restaurant by the lake. It wasn’t too full when we first arrived but then it quickly filled up and we sat patiently for about 15 minutes but then gave up and decided to walk back to Betty and find our beer in town.
We visited the tourist info booth for our third or fourth time and probably asked two questions the young man and woman hadn’t had before. The first was about those strange posts with the white squares on them and two of Garth’s theories were right. They were property markers and they were made to be photographed from a plane. The second question came from an incident the day before at the grocery store. I was at the checkout counter and as I put a half dozen of 500ml bottles of beer on the till, the lady said something to me in Serbian and I knew it wasn’t good. Then she pointed to a little handwritten sign in English that said that in order to buy a bottle, you had to return a bottle. Well I had just arrived in the country so how was I to be in possession of empty bottles?!? The cashier spoke to another store worker and there was an exchange of the bottles for cans as the line grew behind me and I received a few glares. So the answer was that I could have paid about 11 cents more per bottle to then get in the Montenegran bottle game...but I hadn’t been offered that option. I didn’t mind getting the cans but sadly they don’t recycle them in this country yet, I guess they haven’t thought the whole program out yet.
We found a new campsite after dinner and headed to bed. Unfortunately the night was not fun for Holly as her salad she had for supper must have been cross contaminated in the tiny kitchen at the restaurant as she suffered through a bout of food poisoning all night. Ah, the fun of traveling sometimes...
A new beer at the campsite:
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