Rada's Garden Hospitality in Ulog

If you want good hospitality, ask Mrs. Rada. You will pay little for a meal or a place to sleep in a caravan

Let's dance the Balkans stage 8 from Planiska kuka and Ulog. Our journey continues in this wild part of the park. The views follow one another uninterruptedly on the beautiful dirt road that climbs in hairpin bends towards yet another nameless pass at over 1700m above sea level; the morning light helps to make the images we managed to capture with our shots more intense. Then we descend for over 23km. Some indications of Orthodox churches appear, but we are unable to identify them on the route. Further on, still downhill, we take the dirt road along the Neretva valley, which from here on will be the common thread for a good stretch of our journey. The limestone rocks, descending, have given way to the flysh, which are more erodible. Perhaps this is why the remote valley we are traveling through is unique as it is the only one whose outflow collects the water and carries it towards the Adriatic. In the rest of Bosnia and neighboring Montenegro, due to the coastal chains, the rivers carry water towards the interior of the Balkan area, paying tribute to the Danube. The Neretva instead flows into the Adriatic further south in the only outlet to the sea of Bosnia: the port of Neum.
The desolate valley of the Neretva, devoid of inhabited sites (and with some signs of pleasant places, but without the place itself), leads us in the torrid afternoon with a long up and down sometimes even repetitive towards Ulog, an isolated and abandoned place. Fortunately along the road there are frequent fountains, where we can find refreshment.
We have no references to accommodation here; we have brought what is necessary for a night in the open.
There are no more than 30 houses, the cows graze in the gardens, most of the houses are abandoned. On the "main" road, strictly unpaved, some old vehicle loaded with agricultural products passes rarely.

Silvia has an intuition: near the river and the road bridge there is a house with a beautiful vegetable garden and a little more cared for than the others. We ask for hospitality. Mrs. Rada will prepare us a hearty dinner (in addition to breakfast the next day). With her husband they put at our disposal an 80s (or 70s) caravan positioned in the vegetable garden, with a small water tank, also taking care of putting the sheets on the inflatable mattress, providing us with blankets for the night. The husband connects a 24V battery and let it light! What a romantic place!
The bill will be a few Euros. Truly well spent!
Late afternoon, it is still over 30°C. We look at each other and smile at the sight of the blankets, throwing them in the most hidden corner of the small caravan. We are at the edge of the river, the caravan is not insulated (or if it was, it was!) during the night the percentage of humidity rises and the temperature drops. Groping in the dark, we recover the blankets.