Do-it-yourself in Bajina Bašta

Wrong turn

November 13th, 2011, end of afternoon. Florian and I, having spent a cool night with a sympathetic family somewhere in the north-western countryside of Užice, just realize we took a wrong turn a few kilometers before. We missed the turn that would have led us to the small village called Rogaćica. After a quick talk, we decide to go on and walk to the next town instead, namely Bajina Bašta.

We reach the center of Bajina Bašta about two hours later, after an exhausting walk on the main road. We have a quick tea, then go looking for a place with cheap food. This is the time we made the encounter that would lead us to staying in Bajina Bašta for 3 weeks. Igor, about 30, and his son show us a good place for cheap food, and somewhere we can set up our tent at. Having thanked them, we agree on meeting the next day. Then, we go sleeping, for our first night in the town.

Bajina Bašta (say “Byna Bashta”) is one of the few towns with a checkpoint between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Located along the Drina, which is the natural border, it is also a medium industrial settlement led by its wood factories and its hydroelectrical power plant. Not to mention it is one of the main touristic places in Serbia — that is, where a lot of Serbians go in summer. Beyond its center, Bajina Bašta also covers a large amount of land, including a natural park and alot of hills. Turns out it is on one of thoses we will be sleeping starting from the following day.

Oh, by the way, I've been asked what Florian looks like. Well, as he's gonna be a businessman someday, I might as well show him at the phone:

Fireplace

One of Igor's friends, Aleksandar a.k.a. Raka, lends us a small house he built in the woods. It is quite small, about 5 sq.m. so we have to take turns sleeping on and under the bed. It is, however, much better than a tent in this cold weather. And it will only get better. Indeed, Aleksandar's father is a do-it-yourself enthusiast, so much that I will dedicate him another blog entry soon. He drops by next day in his now legend car with all kind of unbelievable gear and starts working on something with his son. In the meantime, he made us responsible for cutting some wood.

The small house in the woods.

Aleksandar and his father working on the chimney.

Meanwhile, in the woods…

In less than an hour, the stove starts spitting out a promising smoke. A victory Aleksandar's father celebrates with his now legendary happy-guy face. Well, almost a victory, because the wood-cutting part is not going that well. Turns out cutting tress with an axe is much harder than it looks. He gives us the you-are-useless face, takes the axe, and happily builds a heap of wood in less than 20 minutes.

So, for the next 18 days, we'll be leaving in the small house, heating with the stove. Hurray!

Trip of the month

Well, the main reason we stayed in Bajina Bašta for so long is an idea: the Drina is a very long river, flowing along the border into the Sava, which in turn flow to Belgrade. Hey, what about going down the river in a raft? IM-POS-SI-BLE answer everyone we talk to about it. Not navigable, dangerous, too cold, and we would not now how to build a raft anyway.

Challenge accepted!
Starting on our third day in Bajina Bašta, most of our daylight hours — that is from 10am to 4pm — will be spent selecting a building site, sketching, walking around looking for tools and materials. In a city where everyone knows each other, inhabitants give us odd looks as we carry around plastic bottles, palettes and wood sticks, chatting in French.

Back to the raft in a moment. We also enjoyed the town and its surroundings while doing that

Scary lake

Tara park is a great nature reserve, with bears, lynxes and wolves. It is only 15 km away, the ideal distance for a 2-day raid on a sunny weekend. Haaa, back to walking with the backpack, this feels like home! Nothing special on the way there though, so here come the pictures, for your viewing pleasure:

Yes, this is on the 27th of November.

Isn't it wonderful? We had to deserve it though. After a calm evening near the campfire, we go to sleep early, soothed by the sound of the lapping of the nearby lake. A few hours into the night, I wake up with a jump: something made a noise, not far. I listen silently for a few seconds. This time I am sure of it, some wild animal is prowling around the tent. We had carefuly taken all food away from the camp before, I hope it will be enough to keep it uninterested by the tent itself…
BANG!
Something just hit the tent, the back side of which collapses on us. I wake up Florian in a hurry so he can grab the hatchet while I make a firelighter ready, then we hold our breath. We expect the tent to be torn to pieces by a paw anytime. Something scratches a side of the tent. It seems to be hesitating. It stops scratching, and climbs on our legs, in an attempt to reach the front side, which is still standing. It weights something like 20, maybe 30kg. It looks more inquisitive than agressive. It attempts to nibble at the tent, and cleave the canvas. Finally, after maybe 5, maybe 10 minutes that feel like forever, it goes away.

We won't ever know for sure what it was. Maybe a large dog, maybe a bear cub. We can only inspect the damage in the morning. Nothing that cannot be easily fixed, but given how sharply the tent strings were cut, we are glad it was only curious. We talk about this on the way back to Bajina Bašta. Tomorrow, Aleksandar shows us the mountains.

Canyoning and whatever

After a good night in the small house, Aleksandar comes to pick us up with a friend of him, Rile. Heading to Tara park again, but in another part. We will spend the day there, climbing up the mountains and walking down the rivers. Aleksandar, used to going everywhere here, has us go down sheer drops, and we struggle following him as hi jumps from rock to rock. Magic places:

Going wild!

Nice isn't it? And suitable for drinking!

Aaaaaaaw…

Warm springs, 18°C during Winter, but smokes because of the very cold weather!

A short visit to Rača monastery ends the journey through this wonderful place. I decide to give a hand to the local saint.

Last preparations

From delays to problems, the whole raft thing takes us 3 weeks. Us, and our friends in Bajina Bašta, Igor, Rile, Aleksandar and his father. Eventually, we can set the departure date to Saturday 3rd of December. Our raft is made of a main float and a floor. The float is made of 178 2-liter plastic bottles, 4 palettes, 19 wood sticks, 100m of wire and 100m of string. Aleksandar's father then built the floor on the top of that, from 2 beams and a dozen planks. Then he added a table to hold our stuff. Ready to go!

Wait! Before leaving, a last evening in Bajina Bašta must feature party, coffees and night clubs! Anyway, the great departure will be in to-be-published-soon™ article. In the meantime, here are a few additional pictures I did not manage to feature above:

More about this car in next article!