Cijevna river canyon - Montenegrin Colorado

I almost completely forgot how interesting it can be when driving a car, sitting on the back seat, while someone else is driving (and the steering wheel is not in your hands), and all your attention is focused on the areas you are passing.
When I'm also a passenger next to the driver I always keep an eye on the road ahead, and I'm focused on driving as if I were the driver, so I never look around.
But when I sit in the back (like a director 😀), I can sleep, type on my phone or laptop, and I can also look out the window and try to take some photos of interesting landscapes.

So last week, I was on the road between Podgorica (the capital of Montenegro) and Tirana (the capital of Albania).
I looked around.
River, stream, mountain, and lake.
Green vegetation, grass scorched by drought, cloudy or clear sky.
Enjoyment everywhere I look.
I took some photos from a moving car.

Only after reviewing them, I noticed that on one of them I caught the reflection of the car in the mirror and me with the phone in the window.

I have to brag, these photos, taken with a mobile phone at a speed of about 80km/h, don't look that bad.

They are areas with rivers, extended riverbeds that look like lakes, but also a marshy area of Skadar lake, inhabited by Pelicans, for which that marshy area is known.

And just one look through the car window was enough to ask a colleague to stop the car so I could see the landscape I liked.

"Yes, yes, that's the Canyon of the Cijevna river, I go down there by canoe every spring," said a colleague who recreationally engages in mountaineering, canoeing, and marathon running.
"But I've never been there in the summer either, and I don't know if it's possible to go down to the river bed when the water level is low. Let's see."

Considering that it is the end of July and that the temperatures are at their maximum, it is not that the water level in the river bed was low, but the river bed was as dry as powder.

We left the car and headed across a clearing towards the bridge we crossed a few minutes ago.
When I mentioned arid regions, I was thinking of this kind of scene.

A plain with yellowed grass, one stone house in the distance, and this lonely monument, overgrown with bushes, makes for an excellent photo.

Access to the river bed is not problematic.
We came down the old road, which led over this ruined little bridge, which was destroyed either by the construction of large bridges in the unsparing vicinity or it was washed away by the natural water of the Cijevna river.

Considering that the riverbed is now dry, it is hard to imagine that in the spring, when the snow melts from the distant mountain range of Prokletija where Cijevna is formed (which I had the opportunity to photograph from the plane on the way to Tirana), this riverbed filled the entire area with water.

The water of Cijevna flows from Prokletije, and after 58 kilometers of its course through Albania and Montenegro, it passes through this canyon (called the Montenegrin Colorado 🙂) and flows into the Morača River.

"Low water level?" I repeated my colleague's words. "Well, there is no water here for a single glass".

For this reason, this canyon was of great interest to my colleague, who was very surprised, because he only now saw how deep the river he was canoeing was actually.

We started "upstream" (along the dry course) hoping that there might be some descent to the river bed, but as the depth was greater than 5 meters, we lost hope that it would be possible to descend to the bottom in a shorter distance.

The colleague went a little further, because he was convinced that it was possible to descend, but after 15 minutes, he returned, stating that at this moment, when there is no water, the descent is only possible with ropes.

He was delighted and was already making a plan in his head to repeat the tour of this canyon with hiking equipment.
He was very persistent in his search for an approach, that at one point I held him while he looked towards the dry bottom of the riverbed 😀

The rapid water that flows through this bed in the spring, from melting snow and in the fall, from heavy rains, has cut carbonate rocks, limestone and dolomite for thousands of years, so there are many caves, cracks and underground watercourses in this canyon.

My colleague convinced me that the rocks are strong enough and that there is no risk of falling, so we walked without fear, but very carefully, over the natural bridges, along the edges of the canyon.

In one place, I also came across a part where the water had deepened the rock down.

It's hard to describe in words, and it doesn't look good in the picture either, because everything is in the color of stone, but I imagined the contrast of the stone and the clear blue water that flows here, when there is water at the bottom.

The river bed is full of cracks in this part of the canyon, and this heart-shaped crack is by far the most beautiful.

After we properly moved away from the bridge where we descended into the river bed, aware that the approach to the bottom of the bed is possible only in a few kilometers, which we could not afford this time, we decided to return.

On the way back, we stopped by the monument, which is located in a very unusual place (even more unusual than the location of that lonely monument in the plain) and thought about the last wish of the one who was buried there "To forever listen to the roar of the Cijevna", except for these dry months, when there is no water 🙂.
His wish was certainly not fulfilled for most of the year.

And regarding wishes, a colleague wished and firmly promised that during this summer, he will repeat his arrival in the Cijevna canyon and find a place where he will descend to the bottom of the riverbed.

I'm expecting his pictures from the canyon "from below", and I'm sharing these pictures in from "above" with you.

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Thank you for stopping by my post and I hope you enjoyed the photos and the story I shared with you

All photos are my property, taken with a mobile phone