 Oh, we made it! The scramble is over and the views are coming. The views are amazing. I think we might have a problem then. Hi, I'm Lavi and this is Oli. Over the past four years, we have been on some epic adventures around the world. Now, after converting an old van into our new home on Weirts, we are ready to hit the road and explore the wonders of Europe. Click the subscribe button to follow our journey and let the adventure begin. We are on minefield. The National Park! Good morning, world! Welcome to Odyssey. So yesterday, we made our way out of Mostar and towards the Dinaric Alps, a mountain range on the eastern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This morning, we are here in the Sojewska National Park, home to the tallest mountain in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But this is not the only reason this place is so special. It is also home to the Peračica Rainforest. One of the oldest and best preserved rainforests in Europe, the Peračica is home to over 170 species of trees and shrubs and over 1,000 species of herbaceous plants. And also the highest waterfall in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Skakavac waterfall, over 70 meters high. But today, we are going to be taking you guys on a hike deep into the Dinaric Alps to experience the stunning and relatively unknown nature that this country has to offer. So I would say, let's go! For a starting point where we start the hike, it's absolutely insane. It's like sort of a... to probably drive the dirt road with a lot of stones. Our van is so low and we hit all the time our petrol tank or the exhaust. Or I don't know, like... I'm a little bit worried. OK, so we just parked up. Look at this amazing parking spot at the beginning of the trail. We're just in the process of unpacking red tornado, inverting our camper van setup into a hiking setup. We've hit the hiking trail! Yes! So it should be a quite easy hike. The sun is shining and it's a beautiful day. So it's about five kilometers on this trail until we reach this lake that sits just under the tallest mountain in Bosnia and it's called Thronovaco Lake. And that is where we're going to be camping tonight. Yippee! Ten minutes into the trail and look at these views. So we just went past this group that were on a guided tour and the tour guide showed us two really useful things for tonight. We've got here this is a wild oregano which grows here in the mountains and we can check that in our couscous tonight. And we've also got some sorals or sorrel. Not sure how you pronounce it. And that's got a really sour taste but it's rich on vitamins. So it tastes very nice. So we can eat a couple of those later on. We're going to go really nice dinner with some local wild ingredients. I love it. So this national park, the Sociessca National Park encompasses a vast mountain area just on the border of Montenegro and over 66% of the park is covered by forest. We'll actually be crossing the border to Montenegro before we reach our lake camp for the night and then we'll be entering the Piva Nature Park. In this area there is also a crazy amount of wildlife including chamois, deer, wild boar, bears, foxes, lynxes, wild cats. It's awesome. Problem though. OK, so we actually arrived here at the lake. But we did not realise that there was actually a sort of border here with a sort of checkpoint. And they wanted some documents from us and they wanted also an entrance fee for this park which is separate to the Sociessca National Park that we were in before because this is now the Piva Nature Park. And we have zero money with us. Yeah, we've absolutely brought no passports, no documentation, no money, nothing at all. So we sort of just sitting around here and he's going around and doing stuff and they ate some food here. So I'm not sure maybe we had to chop some wood for him or something. He's alone here in this remote mountain hut here. And I was told that he sort of on and off is staying up here for six months a year and he works for the Piva National Park. So let's see what's going to happen. So he said it's all right to pitch up the tent here which I'm really thankful for. He said we could camp down here by the lake which looks like an absolutely beautiful place to camp for the night. Look at his surroundings. But we're really, really thankful that we were able to actually stay here for the night. Otherwise we would have had to hike all the way back out to the van. So yeah, really lucky actually. So let's get pitched with our tent. Okay, so we have a little bit of a problem in that one of our tent poles is broken and we only just realized this. Now we're just trying to figure out how we can get this to be sturdy and hold the tent up. We're gonna try to make a splint and see if this works. Sort of like a pole sheath. So that is our splint from a peg and some tape, really, really old foot tape. This is our home for the night. We've had a very relaxing afternoon. I did a bit of reading. Levy did a walk around the lake. It was very, very nice to relax here in this beautiful, beautiful place. Yeah, you just want to spend time looking around, taking in the nature. It's so beautiful. It's really nice. So now we're just cooking up some dinner. We've gone back to our trail food days, our hiking food days and we have for dinner tonight, some couscous. And then we prepared some pesto and some dried tomatoes. I put them both just in the tapa here. Look at that. And top that off with some sweet corn. So that'll make a really nice couscous meal. Yummy. Et voilà. Yummy. We have our coffees here. It was a surprisingly rough night, actually. It was not actually as peaceful as you would imagine. We're sleeping at about 1,500 meters, so it was really, really, really cold, even though we had jumpers, even though we had sleeping bags that are supposed to be comfortable until five degrees. It was really cold. And then at about midnight, 12, 30, a huge group of people arrived and just started setting up tents all around us and chatting and making a fire and playing music from a speaker. And it was quite surreal. Everything was nice. And then suddenly, as soon as the sun went down, everyone just went crazy. There's a lot of night activity. Well, that's that. I mean, the sun's risen now. So it's time to drink a coffee and then it's time to hit the trail. Yes, and our tent is over on the other side of this lake now. And I didn't actually tell you about this lake. This is called Lake Thronovachko. That's my best pronunciation I can do. And it's 700 meters long and 400 meters wide and lies at an elevation of 1,517 meters above sea level, which is why it was so cold last night. But up here behind us, this is the star of the show. And this is what we're here for. This is Mount Maglich. And it is 2,386 meters high and represents the border, the exact border, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. And that is the mountain that we're going to climb. Yippee! So after the lake, the trail goes up, up, up. And now we are climbing and the lake is already far down behind us. Yeah, we're having awesome views from here already. We are just 30 minutes into the hike and it's just incredible. Oh, yeah, people are going up from up here. You can actually see that the lake is the same shape as a heart, which is really nice. We've just taken a break. We're about two hours in now. And we've just left Lake Tronovačko behind. It was down back that way. And now we are heading and we're out of that valley now. And we can have a brand new view. Of loads of beautiful mountains. The mountain shepherds. We were told down there that they take their cows up all around these mountains because it's cheap pasture. So they can just roam with their cows for the whole summer up and all around all the mountains, living in these like little shepherd's huts. That feeds their cows pretty much for free for the whole summer. We also got some popcorn. Yeah, the guy in the mountain hut, the guy who let us stay last night. It was really, really nice guy. And this morning gave us some popcorn, which is really nice. Our mountain cinema with our mountain snack. Yeah. So anyway, three k's more to go and an elevation from about 300 meters about Maglič. Here we come. We have just sighted the peak Maglič just here. This place where we are right now is actually two meters higher than the peak. But because this is over the border in Montenegro, where we are right now, it's not really anything special. Whereas once you get to that peak, then you're at the highest mountain in Bosnia, even though it's two meters lower. But it looks like a really serious scramble at the end. So we're going to go up close to it and see if we feel like it's within our capabilities to get to the top. Getting really close now. Have a look just up there and see the flag. We've reached the part, which is pretty much going to be scrambling from here. Have a look. You can't really see more. You have to take now step by step and just hope that you don't don't crush her. We made it. The scramble is over and the views are coming. The views are amazing. Here is the top of the mountain. Oh, because this is a really like small peak on its own, you really have a 360 degree panorama around you. Now we can just relax, take the views in and draw a rest a little bit. And we can still see the lake where we started today. All the way down the bottom there. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's a real jam. Narik Alps are absolutely incredible. It's been so, so nice chilling out here at the summit of Mount Maglich. It's amazing and totally different to our experience as Snowden. If you haven't seen our video, Climbing Snowden, then you can check that one out here. But, yeah, I mean, look, we're totally, we're totally alone here at the peak. The tallest mountain in Bosnia. But we still have a long way to go to get back to Red Tornado. We have about five kilometers to get back to the camp, pack up that. And then about another five kilometers through the valley until we get to Red Tornado. So better get moving. That was terrifying. I hate it when you can see all the way down, like half a kilometer just straight down in front of you. Like, oh, my God, down the hardest part. You know, I really was not sure when we came and saw that peak behind us. I was not sure we would be able to get up there, to be honest. We don't have a huge amount of skill in mountain climbing, but we made it up, we made it down. And it was awesome. Often you don't even need skill, you just need to be brave. The last time for today that we have this, and I can still see our tent from here was actually harder than going up. Yeah, because we were under the crazy sun the whole time. It was really hot and in the morning it was so nice and cool. But look where we are. We have arrived back at the tent. We have done the downhill. We came from all the way. That's not even the peak, but that's just where we came out of the valley. But what a crazy journey. That is crazy. That is crazy. Well, we're picking up now and then we have another five k to the van. Yeah, the journey is not over just yet. So let's do it just like that. Packed up and ready to hit the road. To the van. To Red tornado. It's amazing. Even after 10 hours of walking. You still don't get tired of this view. You can see the sun is just about to set behind the mountains. We have a couple more k's to go until we get to the van. But still very pretty. This is the end of the road. The tornado. I'm so glad to be back here. Absolutely. And still with the beautiful mountain views here. And this is where we'll be spending the night. Inside Red tornado, a lot less cold, a lot more cozy. I'm very looking forward to that. So we're just going to cook up some dinner now. So that is it from our mountaineering, exploration and wild camping in the Bosnian Alps. It has been a crazy adventure. I am absolutely dead. Same. But we really hope you enjoyed following along on our adventure. If you did, please give the video a thumbs up. We'd really appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel. We will see you next time. Oh, yeah. If you enjoyed watching this video, you would help us a lot by subscribing to the channel by clicking here. Thanks so much for watching, guys. We will see you next time.