Linking eight Balkan nations, the new Trans Dinarica cycling trail twists through some of the continent's most stunning – and least-visited – landscapes. The asphalt vanished as the road gently climbed through the pastures. Two small dogs ran towards me from a wooden Montenegrin shepherd's hut, happily wagging their tails.
I was tempted to play with them, but a long gravel ascent lay ahead and I wanted to be on the other side of the Sinjajevina mountain before the looming storm. "Go home!", I told the dogs, worried they would get lost if they followed me, but they didn't listen. Quickly moving their tiny paws, they tirelessly kept me company until I reached the pass.
The first thunder caught me in Tušinja, a small Montenegrin village with just a handful of houses and an Orthodox church on a hill. I had no energy to pedal up another steep incline, so I hopped off and began pushing my bike when I heard a man shouting and waving at me, inviting me to his garden. "Coffee? Rakija ?" he asked, as I leaned my bike against an apple tree and followed him inside his home.
He covered the kitchen table with tomatoes, bread and cheese for me and his two workers who were laying tiles on the floor in the other room. Through the haze of cigarette smoke, my host and his Balkan crew curiously stared at me, a rare sight in this village: a tourist. I was cycling from Podgorica, Montenegro to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Trans Dinarica , a new long-distance cycling route that off.
