"Kaludjerske Bare" Nacionalni Park Tara by johnsakura

This is a very interesting story about my visit to this place. I have this colleague at my University class which came to Portugal maybe 11 years ago due to problems in former Yugoslavia Republic. Because of her contact I decided to visit Serbia for the first time in 2001 which I only visited the North (Hungarian Christian Serbia) in winter time. I stayed most in a place called Mali Idos.
This time I came back again to Serbia determined to see more of the country's origins. The thing is that Marija (my friend), she has her grandmother living in Kaludjerske Bare, Tara Mountains right on the heart of the National Park and just a few kilometers from Bosnia i Herzegovina.
So my adventure was quite thrilling and this entire journey was full of expectations. Lila (Grandmother), was indeed a wonderful person that on the first day of my arrival called her granddaughter and said: "...Marija the loafer has arrived...", and in the last day she called and said: "...The traveler is gone...the house is now more empty."

Me and Lila in her front yard.

I got out of Skopje (FYR of Macedonia) early in the morning. 8 o'clock I was on the bus heading to the border with Serbia Montenegro. The bus took me thru Nis after Uzice. In this journey I could see all the Southern cities which were bombed by NATO. I passed the border city of Kosovo Bujanovac.
When I got to Uzice already by the end of the day I had to take a 45 minute mountain bus all the way to Bajina Basta. At this time I had no more connections to the top of the mountains where Kaludjerske Bare is located. So I just went to the petrol station right in front of the bus stop and ask for a ride to the top. They didn't speak any English but after a while I was inside a 4x4 with 2 guys and a giant tank of Diesel on the back. We stopped for the guys to drink some beers. I paid for the beer and they end up giving me a ride 20 km away from their place. They were going to another village. Lucky me they were nice people.
I finally found Lila and she was fantastic right from the start. I had my own room of the upper part of the wooden house. Lila gave up her life in Belgrade, sold her flat in center city and came alone to Tara where she bought a small wooden house; Great experience.

huge straw pack i nKaludjerske Bare Tara

Tara was declared a National Park in 1981. It is in the mountainous region of Western Serbia and it spreads on the Tara and Zvezda mountains, in a large bend of the river Drina. The area of this national park is about 22,000 hectares and its altitude varies from 250 to 1,500 meters a.s.l. The park management office is in Bajina Basta.

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