My 19th Birthday

On Saturday we did the real hiking. We were unable to hike Mount Midzor, the original mountain we had planned to go to in Serbia, but due to transportation issues, we found ourselves with no way to get there. So we were stuck,without a back up plan. We took a bus to Nis, like we and planned and fortunately, our hosts at the hostel were wonderful, and recommended a hike in Nis that was happening the next day. It sounded like a good plan and we agreed.

So the next morning we got up nice and early and met the hiking group. At first we assumed it was going to be kind of a touristy thing, where we have a guide who takes all these random people up the mountain with him. As it turns out, we had actually joined a regular Serbian hiking club. It was open to the public, but not touristy whatsoever. Hillary and I were the only people not from Nis on the hike. This group regularly sets up hikes whenever they can/when the weather cooperates and has hiked all over. They were very cool, very friendly, and super excited to have two foreign faces accompany them on this hike.

The bus took us to the start of the hike that began at the top of a small village. There were quite a lot of us, probably 20 or 30 people, and there was another hiking group that had gone up right before us. So lot's of people had come out for this!

The base of the trail

Our friends from the hiking club! (Stephan and Milan)

Marko

Prepare yourself for an onslaught of photos. Mostly of views, mountains, clouds and trees, if you get bored you can just skip to the end. I understand.







Super sticky mud!






Sokolov Kamen, that's the summit we climbed


The whole crew!

Thus began the real hiking!


This was my first time hiking anything of this scale















We made it to the top! All 1523 meters!





Some of our group



Cool vegetation



The Serbian-American team!

The guide pointed out an herb that makes great tea









The way down!






Back at the bottom we were driven to the hiking club meet-up where they served us dinner and we got to eat with good company.



We were served bean soup, salad and bread. All very yummy.




To celebrate my 19th birthday, Hillary had bought a doughnut/dessert thing and stuck a bunch of candles in it, Stefan offered his lighter, and with my eyes closed they constructed this:


After which they proceeded to sing Happy Birthday and I blew out all the candles, and we shared the doughnut between the five of us,






It was an excellent birthday. One of the best I've had. I was fortunate to get to spend the day with all these amazing new people and I got to hike an amazing mountain, and I was like, how come I don't do this everyday? And my legs screamed at me and I remembered. But all in all it was totally worth it, and easily my favorite thing I've ever done in Europe. Maybe it was because it was my birthday, maybe it was the incredible view, maybe it was the surprisingly, kind and generous people we had met. Whatever it was, my day had been made and I was ready to go to bed.

Thank you to all those who wished me Happy Birthday, your comments were not forgotten, I appreciated all of them.

Until next time!
     -Natalie

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