Rafting the Tara River

Thursday, July 18, 2024, Rafting on the Tara, Žabljak, Montenegro The Tara River Canyon is located in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's the second deepest canyon in Europe (4,300' deep) after the Sulak Canyon in Russia, and the third deepest in the world. The Grand Canyon holds second-place title. Within Montenegro, the Tara canyon is protected within Durmitor National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We checked out of our apartment at 9:00 and walked over to "Durmitor Freedom" the guide company. We'd arranged yesterday that we could leave our backpacks with them because we were moving to a different apartment. We don't know how long we'll stay in Žabljak so I booked the first apartment for only 2 nights. It wasn't available tonight so I'd booked a different apartment close to Voli, the supermarket. I normally hate switching places close to each other because there's normally a multi-hour gap between check-out and check-in times but we were going to be rafting all day and the agency said they'd store our backpacks so in this instance it wasn't a problem. It's not as though we had a lot to pack and transport. We just had to make sure we didn't forget anything. We were transported by minibus to the rafting center where there must have been about 100 clients. It turned out that only the two of us and a party of 8 French people (two families who were friends, vacationing together) had signed up for the full-day trip. It was a bit chaotic at first. After a brief introduction, everyone was told to get a size-appropriate wetsuit, booties, life vest, and helmet before we were all transported to the river. All ten of us full-day trippers were assigned to one raft together with our oarsman, Momo. There must have been at least a dozen rafts that set off at more or less the same time. We took short breaks for optional swimming and diving. The river was amazingly clear with a green-blue hue. In contrast, the Futaleufu (on the Chilean/Argentinan border, that we also rafted on) was almost sapphire blue. This being summer, the water was relatively low and the rapids were very tame. It was nothing like the Futaleufu with its rapid succession of class 4 and 5 rapids. "Come back in April", Momo said. "It's a very different experience then." At the halfway point all the rafts stopped, ours to pick up the lunch packets that we were going to eat 30 minutes downstream. However, another major thunderstorm was just starting. Momo advised us to retreat to a covered picnic area to eat lunch there. We were joined by 4 Israeli women who were doing the full-day trip through another agency but in light of the thunderstorm they'd opted to bail and were awaiting transport back to Žabljak. Their husbands had been called up to fight. They'd fled to Montenegro and couldn't even handle a rainstorm. After an hour the storm let up and we returned to the raft. Neither the French nor us were bailing, either literally or figuratively. Momo had to tip the raft to remove all the rainwater. From that point on we had the river to ourselves and two kayakers. It was magical. Waterfalls were pouring into the river that, in places, was shrouded in mist. The canyon walls towered above us. We finished rafting at 5 pm but it took an hour's driving to return to Žabljak. The exit road was wet, dirt, and steep. Momo's 30 year-old VW van had a hard time climbing the steepest parts. The tires were almost bald. Before we started up the hill he was filling the radiator's expansion tank with water from the Tara. The van really protested, with all sorts of rattles and squeaks. It sounded as though all the rubber bushings had rotted out. At one point we had to get out to lighten the load. The staff pushed and the van made it up. The driving was a lot hairier than the rafting. Momo was very proud of his 30-year-old van that he said he bought new. "30 years only? That's nothing.", I said. "We're still driving our 37-year-old Ford Bronco II 4x4 that we bought new in 1987". As we departed I gave Momo €20 and suggested he put it towards purchasing a new set of tires. Back at the agency, we picked up our backpacks and walked less than 5 minutes to the new apartment. The street number was 10 so we went inside and I messaged our hostess. She said she was waiting for us but we were waiting for her. It turned out that Žabljak had recently changed the street numbers so the old 10 was now 14. Huh? We managed to connect nevertheless. This apartment wasn't as modern as the previous one but it was more to our liking. It was more spacious, cheaper (only €128 for 2 nights), quiet, cool, and centrally located. It's almost as large as our own house and in the perfect location in the centre of town. Voli was less than a block away so, after our dismal experience yesterday at Or'O (which was just across the road), we went to Voli to shop and made our own dinner. Free Music for Videos 👉 Music by Eli Lev - Water - https://thmatc.co/?l=390CD7F1