At first I wanted to go to Scandinavia, more precisely I wanted to go from Bucharest to Moscow, then on to Murmansk and do the smugglers' route to Kirkenes, in Norway, a trip which was meant to cover, among other issues, Galdhopiggen Summit and the North Cape. However, as always, long planned trips never accomplish the way we'd thought they would and some problems at work (resulting with me quitting) and at home (a never-ending painting of the walls and also resulting with me quitting) made me cancel this trip and say as we always do in such situations: "next year, for sure" (the equivalent of "never"). I therefore decided to go for a few days in Făgăraș Mountains, in Romania. Some people from Belgrade which I had met on the internet said they wanted to come too, but they intended to go to Durmitor Mountains, in Crna Gora, first. So the idea emerged. A day later I went to the railways agency had the railway pass done and the following evening I found myself on board of the now so well known R260, destination Belgrade. My plan was however a bit strange. As I did not want to spend money on accommodation, I wanted to take a night train from Belgrade to Bjelo Polije, but that gave me a full day in Belgrade. An older idea was to go and visit Subotica, but that was more or less impossible from Belgrade in a daytime. Without thinking too much (which some consider as having negative effects on one's brains), I got on the train and said I would make my mind on the way. I was to share my compartment with a short and quiet guy heartly holding a large suitcase. At a certain moment, the tiring heat and the stillness of the train waiting for the right time to depart was interrupted by some noisy voices down the hall, in English:

"Stupid bitch and her handwriting, I can't read the seat number from this reservation!"

Two backpackers dashed into the wagon, almost taking the door with them.

"What a shitty train!"

Then there was silence for a few seconds. Then, call it misfortune, two quite nice girls passed by the wagon, on the nearby platform.

"Ah, dude, would'ya ask them how much? Ha ha!"

Eventually, after some other such comments which made it clear that at least the taller of the two was American, they went inside their compartment (which was not also mine, thank you, Brahma!) and things settled down. Two girls with a lot of bags and things got on the train and in the compartment where I was. They were from Podgorica and had come to Târgu Mureș, in Transylvania, for some students' exchange and a summer course. After they gave me a lot of good advice about Montenegro, we all tried to get some sleep, even though I did not get that lucky. I woke up several times, because of conductors, thunders outside or because of the empty night I was crossing. Eventually I decided to give up and kept on staring in the black night. It was heavily raining. When we got closer to Timișoara, all of a sudden I started packing my things and, after saying good bye, I got off the train. The decision had been taken: after all, Subotica was said to be nice. So, instead of the smooth and "safe" way to Belgrade on the international train, I was to take the tricky way with 3 local trains to Subotica.

Waiting for my first one on the platform, I kept on looking at people coming and going from long distance trains. There was this old lady with an even older bike showing her daughter to the train at 5 AM and shedding some almost dry tears after the train departed. Eventually, after a newspaper seller tried all tricks in the world in a desperate attempt meant to make me buy I don't know what magazine which was supposed to be "dirt cheap", my train came. It was a regular double-decker full of people, as it was coming from Jimbolia and now was returning back there. I sat on a sticky bench in that dense and humid air after the rain. Other people silently moved in and soon the train departed towards the end of Romania. Just a minute later, when I could already feel the draught coming from the toilet, it suddenly and brutally stopped: someone had pulled the emergency cord. A few minutes later it happened again. I had this feeling we were not to get to Jimbolia on time. This was a train with no stations: those which wanted to get off would just pull the emergency cord. Simple as that. A few minutes before reaching Jimbolia, some soldiers came and checked everyone's documents, as well as where we all were going. Then the train got to the final station and we all got off. The station was quite well defended by soldiers and - unless I had known where I was - I would have thought there was some war happening between Romania and Serbia (and it would have been strange, as there has never been any conflict between the two countries). I was told to stay in the waiting room , which I did and, some 30 minutes later the customs officer came and checked our documents. It was a very peculiar and obviously bribe-fit way of doing that. We all stood in line and only one was allowed to enter the small customs room at a time, with his/her luggage. Everybody - except me - was an obvious cross-border smuggler, carrying huge bags of God knows what. I remained the last one, as the others stack together. When entering the customs room of that ruined station, the officer strangely looked at me.

"Where are you going?"

"Durmitor Mountains, in Montenegro "

I still have this feeling he did not understand any of both terms.

"Could you say it again?"

"Some mountains in Montenegro, South of Serbia, they are called Durmitor"

"And are you alone? Isn't it dangerous?"

It was useless to tell him that Montenegro was in no war zone - for the time being - and that Serbia - for one - was either more civilized and safer (at least as far as I could notice) than Romania. He then briefly checked my documents and eventually let me go, with a strange look on the face. Then I walked to the train on a platform guarded by soldiers. I helped this lady carrying two huge bags of toilet paper to put them on the train. Actually it was a bit of an exaggeration to call it a train, there was only one wagon and a tiny, ancient locomotive pulling it. I got into a compartment and waited for the train to start. In the station, the Serbian employees (locomotive mechanic, conductor) and the Romanian ones were standing at different ends of the platform, staring at each other and probably making jokes at each other. Eventually the time to go came and, after he himself brought some big bags of merchandise and threw them in the locomotive, the mechanic started the engine and we departed Jimbolia. During the train ride, I listened to a full and eloquent speech on how to start and get successful with smuggling. The speech was held by an old woman and was meant for a middle aged man which seemed to be a freshman in this "university".

"You first start with a few rides here or to Bulgaria and then, once you get the drift and the money, you can go on with things like Turkey or even Greece..."

About 15 minutes later, after a slow and enjoyable ride through the fields, we got in Kikinda, where we all got off and were shown to a customs hall, with a big table in the middle. First, I was taken apart, together with two other people, because we had no "history" here, we had never crossed into Kikinda before and were not on the computer. Then we waited in line. Everybody would put the luggage he/she had on the table in front of the customs officer and that one would say a bribe price. It was so obvious and funny, that I could hardly keep myself from laughing. A lady in front of me put her luggage there and the customs officer said in a bad Romanian:

"Two bags, 1000 Dinars"

"But I only have a few things here, I don't even have 1000 Dinars", she tried to hassle a little.

"Go to the kiosk outside and change, I'm waiting here and so is your luggage", the customs officer firmly said.

Then it was my turn. I raised the backpack and put it on the table. The customs officer strangely looked at me. Another one came and they said something in Serbian, then smiled.

"Where are you going?"

"To Durmitor Mountains"

At least they knew what I was talking about. I was going to open the backpack, to show them I really had no merchandise inside, when he smiled, said a short "no", and made me a sign to go on. I went off the hall with them staring at me. As I could not find the train schedule in the station, I asked this railways employee, a quite old man, and, despite the fact he only spoke a few words of Romanian, he tried really hard and wrote on a piece of paper the hour I had my train, some 40 minutes later. As always, Serbia was a mostly welcoming country to me. I then got out and sat on a lawn, by a street with old houses. Across the street there was this terrace with some people which seemed to me like torn from some movie made in the 30s.

Going back to the station, I could see no other train than "the one", I had come with. However noticing a small, bus-like automotive, I asked the first railways employee I saw "Molim, za Subotica?". As his answer was affirmative, I got on the picturesque vehicle and soon it started. I don't think I had ever had a more interesting train experience as far as the means of transportation itself was concerned. It was so funny, it was crossing fields, villages and it also reversed a few times. Apart from the lady next to me, which smoke probably more than a pack of cigarettes during the 2 hours ride, this was a hit of my travel. Then I got to Subotica in a terrible storm. Luckily, by the time I found the luggage room and deposited the backpack there, it was over, so that I could venture in the city, of course, after rapidly changing some money and getting the first burek sa mesom I could find (which was not as easy as in Belgrade, as the Turkish influence was lighter here, while the Hungarian one - much stronger). The city was extremely pleasant, similar somehow to Oradea in Romania, but much, much better maintained and preserved. Those typical old streets would come next to busy pedestrians where the cafes, restaurants and antique shops abounded. The diverse and still original music would fill all the place, especially around the city hall. This was absolutely worth the effort to come here. The pleasantly lazy Monday afternoon, the good weather and this relaxing city with thousands of bikers were exactly what I had needed for long. I spent my last hour of Subotica in the railway station, looking at passengers and trains. It was somehow weird, as I was to leave for the mountains on a train heading to Bar, to the coast. After three Hungarian speaking local people joined me in the compartment, I soon fell asleep and only woke up in Belgrade, in this brand new underground station they were just completing in Novi Beograd. This was kind of strange, I was used to the old one down the old part of the city... I kept on falling asleep and waking up until the train crossed into Montenegro and stopped in Bjelo Polije, where I got off.

It was a concrete, rusty station and it was really cold outside at 5 AM. After taking a short rest, I decided it was unwise to take a local train and waste this way a day of my 5 days railway pass on such a short distance, so I got out and started hitch-hiking to Mojkovac. Without being too lucky, I walked through the city. The houses looked rather standardized and the town itself was - I don't know why - tiring. I exited it and continued walking. After crossing 2 other villages, I stopped to drink some water and rest a little, when this guy with his tractor came from some yard behind me, yelling something. I thought he wanted to give me a ride and asked "Mojkovac?", but he started yelling even louder and came after me while I was leaving the place. Some few kilometers afterwards I eventually got a ride with a truck.

"Aaaa, Romania, Temesvar i Arad!", the driver said and probably kept on telling me stories of his travels there, but in his language.

It seemed he hadn't liked it too much there, as he had been robbed by some gypsies or so. Eventually we got to Mojkovac and he dropped me exactly at the crossing where the road to Zabljak started. I stood there for 3 hours or more, in a desolating sun and nobody stopped. Most of the cars passing were local and they were coming and going all the time. In the end this bus arrived and I got on it. It was going to some close village, a few kilometers away (and Zabljak was 69 km. away), but it was fine. After getting off, I walked through these small communities until the road got up on the wooden mountain slope. Tara Canyon began there. A car driven by a young man stopped and took me to a place where I had this great view. Down the valley there was this village called Bistrica and to the back I could see the blue water river, with the road hanging on the very steep slope.

Some 20 minutes later, a van stopped and I had one of the most thrilling parts of my trip, with this guy driving like nuts with over 100 km.p.h. on those tight curves along the canyon. The scenery was impressive, with very big pines, the steep rocky valley, many tunnels and this wild river down there. I got off in front of the spectacular bridge over the valley and a long walk started, as the road was going uphill in tight curves and - of course - nobody would stop to pick a backpacker with a heavy load on the way up. An hour later I got on the ridge. On the other side, the scenery was totally different, with wide typical karst platforms, lime stone rocks every now and then and - of course - no water at all. Most houses had these big water tanks. I continued walking through this nice landscape until this car stopped and gave me a ride. The driver was from Montenegro, his girlfriend was from Belgrade and they both were very nice people. After getting off, in Zabljak, I went to a hotel to buy a map of the mountains and discovered what I had been told before, meaning that the Serbian Dinars were useless here, only Euro ruled the place. Even if Montenegro was still a part of Yugoslavia - a federation with Serbia - it had its own rules and used another currency.

After walking across the resort, I went to Crno Jezero and enjoyed the beautiful view, with the mountains falling down onto the lake and these black clouds making the view even more spectacular. I then went to this campsite and set my tent, just minutes before it started raining. It kept on raining all night, which was very relaxing and pleasant for the tired backpacker. I woke up the next morning in the same rain. Laziness was mostly welcome anyway... At about 9 AM or so the sun showed its face among the grey clouds, even if not for so long. This was however hope enough to make me pack things and start hiking. After passing by the Crno Jezero again, I started going up in the same mourning-like weather. An hour later I got out of the woods. The fact that these mountains had been formed of some kind of lime stone had resulted in two things: the main ridge was very fragmented - so there was no path following it for too long - and one would find water only very rarely. The very dramatic scenery was awesome and this made my day. After passing by a sheepfold and a small hut belonging to the National Park, I got closer and closer to the main ridge. Crossing a rocks filled glacial circus, I approached Bobotov Kuk, which looked quite impressive from this side. I reached the saddle under the summit and saw on the other side this compact mass of clouds getting closer. Thinking that maybe I wasn't to get a second chance, I left the backpack there and started going towards the summit. 10 minutes later, though, a mostly heavy rain started. The rocky path was very slippery now (limestone and water, what a delight), but I did not intend to give up. I reached the summit without any chance of either a view or picture. After the few seconds spent there in an absolute joy and ignorance regarding the weather, I came back to reality and started going down, among dark clouds, fog, water flowing down the rocks and thoughts about what there was to come. After reaching the backpack place, I picked it up thanking God for the the fact that I had covered it up before going down on Bobotov. I slowly started going down on the other side towards a glacial lake which - as I had been told - also provided some small place for camping. On the way down though I twice slipped and fell on the path because of the wet rocks and mud.

The rain was no longer so heavy and a quarter an hour later, after passing by a memorial dedicated to a dead alpinist, I could see among some fog clouds, the Zeleni Vir. Not having the time to enjoy the breathtaking view for too long, I set the tent and rushed inside. I lazily stayed inside, listening to the steady noise made by the raindrops on the tent cover, and only got enough energy to make a tea after the darkness fell. The night was contradictory, as sometimes it was rainy, some other times there was absolutely no sound or noise. During one of these silent periods, the night broke into a million pieces, with some goats which probably came from the rocky slope to the lake to drink water and made a huge noise doing so.

I woke up in a cloudy morning and after I ate some strangely tasting porridge, I saw the sun shining outside, among some clouds. The happy thought "a beautiful day, yippeee!" briefly vanished 10 minutes later, when the clouds came back and it started raining again. When eventually the rain ceased, I packed things and started the way down. After following the glacial valley for a while, the path turned to the right, went up a bit and then reached a saddle from where I had this magnificent view over Skrcko Jezero, bordered by the vertical walls falling down from Bobotov Kuk. The way down to the lake was kind of tricky, as the rocks were wet and muddy, but eventually I reached the hut above the lake. There was only this guy taking care of the National Park and he spoke no English, but explained to me that there were a few Czechs which had gone my way, meaning up the Planinica and then down the valley to Zabljak. Then he showed me the "new" way up, instead of the one I had seen on my map, which was, I could see now, printed in ... 1986. I started going up the steep and grassy slope and thought for a while that I was lucky with the sun shining again and no trace of rain. A few minutes later I regretted having thought this as I almost stepped on this snake, which was enjoying the heat on a small rock exactly on the path.

"Clouds, rain, chilly wind, please come back!"

I got this stick and started to hit with it the places I was going to step onto, but this did not prevent me from meeting yet another snake some 10 minutes later. After an hour of going up the slope and hitting everything that did or did not move, I eventually got - in the fog, thank you, merciful God - on Medede Zrijelo Peak, which was quite grassy and flat, if compared to the rest of these mountains. After a well deserved picture and some "water on board", I started going down on the other side, enjoying the grey and breathtaking looks of the gloomy Bezimeni Vrh. Going down and following the Czechs' traces on the soft ground, I started looking for a place to camp and eventually found it close to two ruined sheepfolds. I went to sleep in a calm weather, with a splendid blue sky and the last sun rays reflecting in some remote ranges. All night I could only rarely hear some light wind blowing in the nearby nettle bushes.

I woke up in this terrible heat made by the sun blowing in the tent cover and thought "Oh, it must be past 10 AM!", yet it was only 7.30 or so. The weather was great, except for the ridge behind me, which was still covered in clouds... some news... After the best breakfast on this trip (which consisted of some tasty oats-and-dried-grapes-and-coconut-powder-and-some-other-things), I made sure everything was dry and light and eventually started, lazily, at about 10 AM or so, down the dry limestone valley covered in a pasture filled with rocks. Zabljak looked very nice there, down the slope, with some mountains to the black. On the way down I met some sheep led by a lady shepherd - something new for me. The hot and still summer day was just perfect for going through the pine and fir woods and it was even better when I met the first stream. It was great that the stinky animal could have a cooling wash before going down to civilization. Even if it is still questionable which is more civilized, mankind of mother nature. And even if the Durmitor National Park rangers wouldn't have agreed with me on that if they had ever seen me washing there... After half an hour of "dobar dan" every 5 minutes, because of the many people I met on the road down to Zabljak, I entered the resort and headed to the centre.

"Izvinite, kuda je autobuska stanica?", I asked the same lady from the same kiosk I had asked for a map some 3 days earlier. She pointed to the right and off I went, reaching the place 10 minutes later, not for very good news - at first anyway... The first bus departed an hour and a half later, at 1 PM, and it was going to Mojkovac and further to Podgorica. This was going to be it. As the ticket to Mojkovac (which meant waiting there for a long time and doing nothing until the night train to Belgrade) was 4 EUR and the one to Podgorica was 5 EUR, I bought myself a ticket to Podgorica, why not visit this city? After all, it was probably going to become a capital sometimes soon... A few minutes before the bus departed, I got this SMS from the Serbian people that had told me about Durmitor in the first place. They were going to reach Zabljak that day also and were planing to do some hiking there. Some luck...

Riding the bus, looking through the window, to this mountainous country and also thinking about the scenery in Slovenia or on the Dalmatian coast, I could fully understand now what an old man had told me once in Belgrade: "This used to be the most beautiful country in the world". Indeed, before being slaughtered to pieces, Yugoslavia had been a great place. Yet the most difficult thing in the world is to keep different people together and it gets worse when other interests are involved. What a pity...

Looking at the scenery and thinking at other things, I did not realize that the straight line to Mojkovac - Podgorica would be on the same way I had come, along Tara River, and the bus driver only told me something in his own language. Thing was that, even if my ticket was all the way to Podgorica, I should have switched buses at Tara bridge, which, of course, I did not. So, I found myself in Pljevlija, the end of the line, with the bus driver finally getting the drift I was foreigner, apologizing 1000 times and personally making sure I could - on the same ticket - get on the bus that was to depart Pljevlija for Podgorica at 4 PM. This gave me an hour and a half in this industrial town. After enjoying a pljeskavica, I started, somehow instinctively, towards the main street and started waving the cars towards Zabljak.

The 4 PM bus to Podgorica would have meant getting there too late and a couple of days in the mountains with friends were more important than any city in the world, without any trace of disrespect. I got three cars on the way to the resort. The first belonged to this very loud and nice family, with a very inquisitive lady asking a lot of questions in her language and this funny baby hitting me all the times. The second car was driven by a silent guy which dropped me right next to a police car, and the third, by a journalist which made it clear from the very beginning that he is a separatist and wants Montenegro out of the federation with the lazy Serbians.

Finally I got back to Zabljak and, after a heavy rain, I met my friends which invited me to a "brief dinner". This meant a Serbian meal a la carte. After soup, we had some crackers and chat, then some steak and salad, then coffee, beer and chat, then spaghetti and a rich sauce, then sweets and chat, then water melon, then chat... The whole thing lasted more than an hour and a half, but it was an absolute pleasure. After dinner we went out and, despite the quite heavy rain, I discovered that most people in Zabljak were out, hanging on terraces and bars and enjoying themselves. After an hour on such a terrace, we eventually went to bed, with the decision that we were to wake up the following day at 7 to head for the mountains. So we did and, after doing some shopping in the market place, we had a quite rich breakfast and then started. We went at the foothills of the mountains for a while and then started going up under the cable car wires, eating a lot of raspberries on the way. We reached the main ridge in an almost perfect weather and I immediately discovered that... my camera no longer worked due to the low battery (of course that the display hadn't indicated a low battery before, why would it?!). The view was grand, embracing all high Durmitor area, towards Tara Canyon. On one side (where we had come from), the slope was steep, but sometimes grassy or gravel-filled, while on the other side there were vertical walls and very steep and narrow rocky valleys. Going up on the ridge, towards a 2300 m.alt. peak, we saw some rabbits running among some limestone rocks. We then went to Milosev Kuk, which was the end of the touristically doable ridge path. Not willing to go back the same way, we started going down on a steep gravel filled valley and some half an hour later we reached this labyrinth-like huge glacial valley, from where the long and enchanting way to Zabljak began. That was my only rainless day in Durmitor Mountains and the light wind made it even better. After meeting the path I had used on my way to Bobotov Kuk 3 days before, we got to Zabljak about an hour later, stopping in the local military hotel for a drink. While sitting there, in that neat and typical hotel, one couldn't have missed the refreshing music, typical for the 70-80s in the former communist countries. At a neighbouring table, this old couple got seated. The lady was scrupulously analyzing the plates and the way the tables were set, while the husband, a clear figure of the "old" days, was only apparently smiling to the waiter, while he was obviously thinking at something else. He ordered something and tried the food, then, sad enough and thoughtful, stopped and started looking everywhere and nowhere, with a serious gaze, as if nothing was of any importance for him, as if he could neither understand, nor accept the present. Without saying any word that I could understand, his face said it all. No matter on which side of the fence we are, any change in this world kills some people, to allow the others be born...

Eventually the time to go arrived and we left that almost empty restaurant, with its ghostly atmosphere, that music and the eternally still couple. We reached the place we were staying at and, after some supper, some of us went to bed, while the others went out for a drink. I woke up at about 7 AM in a deadly rainy day and four of us silently packed some basic things, as we wanted to do a half a day tour, to visit a lake and hike up a peak. Thinking about the trip back home I was to start that afternoon and at the fact that my boots were almost torn apart, I thought it was better to take the sandals and the shorts, rather than the only trousers I had with me. It proved to be a good idea in that dawn-to-sunset rain, despite the strange gazes I got from some people walking in the streets before exiting Zabljak. We went up and reached the lake in the same pouring rain. We then started going towards the peak in the same conditions, but the closer and closer thunders made us go back when we were only 15 minutes from the peak. We reached the guesthouse at about noon. I and 2 of my friends started silently packing, while the others were going to stay some more days. Like always, one's house is hard to leave because of its warmth and comfort, while one's holiday or trip destination is even harder to leave because of the fresh memories and newly made friends, be them people or places. My two friends were to take the coach to Belgrade. Funny or not, the bus was 13 EUR and I only had left about 10.25 EUR. To deny the fact that I did not have enough money for the bus, I had a railways pass which I had to use. So I was going to hitch-hike to the first railway station and then make my way to Belgrade by train. While showing my friends to the bus, the sun optimistically shone and I said to myself way too confident: "Lucky me!", but immediately as the bus departed, some dark clouds started coming down from the mountains and it started raining. I walked until I got out of the town and found shelter from the rain under some firs by the road, waving cars. Without too much luck, the only one which seemed to have noticed me and flashed the lights just for the fun of it had Romanian plates. So, this was the beginning of the way back, with a typical, badly mannered and stupid Romanian joke. The rain ceased for some score minutes and I kept on walking by the road, with darker and darker clouds above my head promising a strong storm. After a short while though, a small car stopped and I discovered inside a middle-aged man wearing Orthodox priest clothes. After the usual questions I had already come to understand in their language, he showed himself very happy I was - at least officially - Orthodox and, with a simple, generous gesture, asked me whether I was hungry. He was a priest in Zabljak and was going to Kraljevo, crossing on the way Mojkovac, exactly the way I had come to Zabljak. More than everything, he proved to be very happy because of the heavy rain that started immediately as I got on the car:

"Rain - God, rain - God", he kept on saying for several times joyfully.

Despite the rain outside, inside it was very warm, partly because of the heating system which was turned on, partly because of this man's generosity and kindness. More than anything, Montenegro had proven me it was a mostly human country. I shall never forget his gratitude after I gave him my mobile phone to make an urgent call. We reached Mojkovac and he left with a smile and a handshake, which was more than one could have asked for in a lifetime.

I was to wait for my train in that small concrete railway station hall, for about 6 hours. It was weird and interesting altogether to look at the grey clouds fastly moving in the sky and the now common high, wooden hills of that lovely country, through the dirty and cracked windows of that small station. A local train passed and a few shivering passengers got off. I could hear some fragments of conversation from the other halls in the station, while night was slowly falling across either Mojkovac and my trip. I felt like a soldier waiting for the night train going to some war zone. Some other solitary and quiet passengers joined me in that small waiting room of the station. An aging man asked me something and, learning I was Romanian, he said "Rumunia i Jugoslavija - priateli", remembering “good” ol’ times and bringing back to me the “Tito - Ceaușescu, Milo - Iliescu” cliche. Eventually we could hear the noise of the train engine breaking into millions of echoes down the valley. We stood in line on the platform and got into some packed wagons. The train was coming from Bar, from the beaches, and it was Sunday night, so many people were returning home, to Uzice or Belgrade. The wagon I got onto was full of young people and it was quite choking because of the thick smoke, yet the atmosphere was vivid and pleasant, with those youngsters chatting the night away; so I gave up walking into another wagon. I spent most of the 6 hours ride on a convertible chair down the hall, trying to sleep on the backpack until, shortly before we reached Belgrade, a girl invited me in a compartment, as someone had got off.

"It is cold", she said.

I arrived in Belgrade on a sunny and quite hot morning, caught by a huge mass of people flowing out of all wagons as if they would never stop. My friend, Nenad, was waiting for me on the platform and showed me to his rented apartment in Novi Beograd. I had briefly crossed this part of the city before, yet never had really got to see it or feel it alive. Different blocks were set among wide green areas and the place seemed quiet, more like a fine residential area and less like what one would expect from a communist architectural area. Belgrade was changing though. What had once been one of the most mediatized images of the US bombing over this city, Milosevic's party headquarters building, was now covered in scaffoldings, after being bought for several million euros by some shady investor.

We went out in the neighbourhood and I had two bureks sa mesom. Then we went to meet another friend from the mountains and had a long walk around Savski Lake. This was again an area I had never visited before and it was huge, relaxed and mostly pleasant, with beaches, cycling lanes, sports fields, terraces, bars and restaurants and even a bunjee-jumping crane. After long chats referring to the coming trip to Făgăraș Mountains, we went back to Nenad's apartment and I picked the backpack. I then bought a couple of CDs with some Serbian folk and some burek for the trip. Walking on the empty - as always, when it came to this train - platform along the train to Bucharest and looking at the so well known CFR wagons, I once again got the contradictory feeling I had started the trip with. I felt full and empty in the same time. Full of nice memories, of the fresh mountain air, of the great oats porridge, of my new friends' smiles and of those three words the old man had told me in Mojkovac. And empty of dreams, of destinations, of targets, empty like a newly born baby which is waiting for the days to come to learn things, to learn to walk and trek this world.