Bosnian Express

Sarajevo in the summer was an absolute joy.  My feet weren't soaking wet this time around and I managed to find a nice hostel, across the bridge and up the hill in a part of town I had not yet explored.  Okay, well actually, I didn't go to this area to find the hostel.  In fact, I walked into a storefront advertising a hostel, paid, and then discovered the hostel was a good ways out of the centre and that I would be shuttled there.  After I had paid I learned this.  Anyway it was by no means a bad place to stay, and it had a kitchen so I was able to make chicken soup, and I can't imagine what else anyone needs in life, if I'm honest.  

The one drawback of this hostel was that we were each given a key and we couldn't lose it because the front desk was in the centre of the city.  I was sharing the room with a Polish girl and she was studying Serbian and she then left to go partying but left her key behind I realized nothing would be more annoying than her banging on the door at 4am because she had left her key so I grabbed it and ran down the street after her.  She had made it a good way, almost to the bridge, and when I gave her the key she gave a disinterested, "Oh, thanks" and kept walking.  At the time this really annoyed me but I seem to have really lost steam about the whole thing and now am on to bigger and better issues to be annoyed about, like the escalation of tipping culture and why milk comes in bags in Ontario.

Oh, but then the girl still did bang on the door at 4am because she didn't know how to use the key.  To her credit Eastern European keys and locks are really wild and it takes some getting used to, but on the other hand she's from Poland and she should have been better equipped to handle this situation. 

The next morning I rose at 5am (so really, she did sort of a favour to me by waking me up) and went to the train station to catch the train to Budapest.  Can you believe there is a direct train to Budapest from Sarajevo? I cannot.  There is only one carriage and it chugged along through the Bosnian hills, past Zenica and to the Croatian border.  I was at first worried this wasn't going to Budapest but then I saw an old couple and the woman was eating a yogurt with Hungarian writing on it.  This comforted me, especially the idea that she had brought enough yogurt from home on her trip to Sarajevo to last her the whole way through.  When we arrived at the Croatian border the guards lethargically looked at my passport and then neglected to stamp it, so I basically was never in Bosnia.  

I sat adjacent to a Slovak couple who I absolutely loved and we talked about Bratislava, and Eastern Europe, and Hungary, and everything that I love.  It turned out that the train was late (surprise!) so we would be late getting into Budapest and the Slovaks were at risk of missing their transfer.  The conductress was a savvy old girl equipped with many life skills (except proficiency in English) and she asked me if I was Hungarian.  Thinking she had asked if I spoke Hungarian, I responded with "Yes, a little."  She stared at me blankly and then found someone else to translate.  Whatever, it's a hard language so good for me for even trying.  Anyway, she led them through the train to the front of the carriage so that they'd be the first to presumably leap off the train and onto the one departing for Bratislava.*  Anyway, once I disembarked at Deli, my adventure had ended and I resumed that mundane life of living and working in one of the great capitals of Europe.

*Though, as we all know, this probably did not help because trains from the South arrive in Deli, and in order to get to Bratislava they needed to hop on the metro and go to Keleti to catch the train to B-slav, so I think it's safe to say they were effed but I guess we will never know.

Bosnian Goulash

The crowd waiting for me was a jolly group of Bosniaks with a huge bogracs* full of tasty goulash.  All I could think about is how, if I lived here, I'd be home by now.  And trust me, there are few places I would rather live.  The beautiful Bosnian countryside splayed before me, spicy goulash in a massive cauldron over the stove, and a LOT of beer continuously proffered me by an exuberant and enthusiastic Russophile all led me believe that I have been going about this whole "life" thing wrong altogether.  

LOLz, I am loving these Simpsons screenshots.

One of the women in the crowd spoke English, as most Bosniaks who live in Germany apparently do.  Whether she speaks German or not is neither here nor there, because English is more than enough for me.    In any case, they were so warm and friendly and they served me stew, and beer, and talked to me about all sorts of things.  I really, really valued this time I had.  We also jimmy rigged a tarp over the picnic table when the rain came in.  The food was so good, and everything was so good.  Usually I have something cheeky to say but I just don't.  This was a really nice experience.  

In any case, like all nice experiences, this one had to come to an end when I realized that I needed to be hitting the old dusty trail and get to Sarajevo.  I started walking and one of my hosts tried flagging down cars.  No such luck.  So then two of the ladies drove me to the nearest village where I thanked them profusely and got out to find a French motorhome on the side of the road complete with a French family inside.  They were not even remotely interested in helping me.  Like, not even.  And I even speak a bit of French. Like, I spent some time in Tunisia in case you were familiar. 

Anyway, I continued to walk and approached a group of villagers who I assumed would be just as interested in me as the last group was.  They weren't!  They were mildly amused, but none spoke English.  I asked if they spoke Russian.  No one did and shyly turned away.  I asked, "Hungarian?" and they all burst out laughing.  Actually, we all had a good chuckle about that one.  And we needed it.  Sometimes, after a long day, it's good to laugh.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be picked up by a kindly older man and his daughter. They were from Uzice and he was driving her back to medical school in Sarajevo.  We stopped for a Turkish coffee and Turkish delight and then continued on our way.  We went through the backroads to Sarajevo and he told me all about the Bosnian war and how awful it was.  They dropped me off at a remarkably convenient place (I was hoping I could get to the train station to catch the evening train to…Zabreg?) but they dropped me off at the next best place: a cafe with wifi, where I was able to check that the train left an hour before.  So Sarajevo was mine.  More than Milosevic can say. 

*Look, I live in Hungary.  So naturally I'm going to toss in Magyarisms like they are a commonly accepted thing.  And you're just going to accept it.  

Distress on the Drina

So Visegrad was great for, like, ten minutes, until I realized I needed local currency and there were no banks or ATMs, and that there was absolutely no bus to Sarajevo.  I had just disembarked from the last one.  So I had a coffee to calm myself, and then decided that I was only in Visegrad for one reason: to see that bridge and then find a way to get out.  So I walked to bridge, which was beautiful and well built for something from the middle ages, and then began the arduous task of walking along the road to Sarajevo.  I stopped to sketch a few helpful signs, that might get me as far as Gorazde or Ustipraca, but neither of them seemed to help me much.  In fact, it looked like the world was finally getting sick of my shit. 

Aren't you excited about the bridge over the Drina at Visegrad?

How about now?

I walked for a really, really long time, and the weather was not looking promising.  Cars passed, buses passed, and I also encounter stretches in which no one passed for a long period of time.  Then I encountered the tunnels.  This was so awful.  There were a series of tunnels in the roads with absolutely no lighting that seemed to twist a bit so that there was absolutely no end in sight.  They were so dark. Once I started to walk into the first one, I realized how awful it was, as I could hear the echoey water dripping down, and my own breath, and footsteps as a tepidly inched my way through.  When a car would enter, I would hear the rumble echoing through the tunnel, and enough light would allow me to see far enough ahead so I ran as fast as I could until the car passed I couldn't see anymore.  It took forever to make it through the tunnels.  This is probably the only time I have felt honestly nervous, almost exclusively because I could not see a thing in front of me.  Oh, and also because it was a dark tunnel in Bosnia.  

Interestingly enough I met someone coming the other way.  He was a Czech who was coming from Gorazde and he was headed to Visegrad.  He also had a miner's light thing on his head because he was anticipating the tunnels apparently.  What a resourceful Czech!  He was very friendly and we briefly chatted before going on our way.  He also was having no luck with the hitchhiking, which made me feel better that it's not me, it's them.

Once I made it through my 3rd or so tunnel I resolved that I just could not do it anymore.  It was so nerve racking.  I saw a bus parked on the side of the road with Bulgarian plates.  I figured Bulgaria owed me for some ancient debt so I knocked on the window and the driver absolutely shut me out and refused to talk to me.  Disheartened, I continued walking and heard shouting from a house up the hill from the road.  A bunch of people with a fire were yelling towards me and gesturing me to come over.  I figured that literally nothing could be worse than the tunnels, so up the hill I went to join them.  

A Surreptitious Slip into Srpska

After the rain shower I went for a walk and discovered that Užice is one of the loveliest cities in Serbia, and I had some delicious food at a great restaurant that was decorated like a Serbian peasant farm house.  I love culture!  I got the meat platter and some cheese and Macedonian wine, as well as a dessert, all for like 8 euros.  I absolutely love Serbia.  Then I walked around the city and discovered things really pick up when it gets a bit later and everyone is out doing their walk-about in the city around 8pm, and after the outdoor nightclubs really pick up.  It was seriously bumpin.  I even sent an email to both my brother and sister about how bumpin "this town in Serbia" is but they never responded, and even scolded me later for not telling them which city, and only giving them a few hours notice. 

Anyway, the next morning I got up fairly early, dined in the hotel restaurant, and then prepared to get myself out of the city.  I walked to the "Orient Express" cafe, which was an old train car by the side of the river converted into a cafe for a coffee en route to the bus depot where I got on the first bus out of town heading West to Sarajevo.  Getting on the bus I became acquainted with a Belgian girl who was very nice and was planning on seeing many different villages and points to note along the way and who gave me her contact information which I tucked into my book and has since joined the pile of addresses scribbled on notes from people I keep meaning to contact and then somehow don't.  Don't judge me.  You do it too. 

The bus wound its way through fairly mountainous terrain towards Zlatibor, which had some sort of significance as a destination, and then towards the village of Mokra Gora where the Belgian girl dismounted.  We also followed some train tracks where the train does a perfect figure-8 descending the mountain.  I really wanted to see it, but then I realized that it probably does the figure-8 in the mountain and ultimately you just can't see anything and the hassle of getting out and then trying to get another ride would not have been worth it.  So we went through the Bosnian border, where I did not get a stamp much to my dismay, and continued on. 

Once in Bosnia - and by Bosnia I mean the Republika Srpska (which explains why I did not get a stamp) - the landscape was almost the same but you definitely got the feeling it was no longer really Serbia.  We stopped at some roadside eatery where I snapped a few pics, and the woman beside me was hilarious and spoke a limited amount of English.  I told her how much I love the Balkans and how beautiful they are, and she bellowed, "Yes, the Balkans are beautiful… BUT THE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!!!" and then started firing her hands in gun motions up in the air and cackling.  I love the Balkans so much. 

Anyway, the bus dropped me off in Visegrad* and I happily got out and had a look around this adorable little city on the Drina which played such an important historical role in connecting the Sultan with his European possessions.  I think. 

*Yes, THAT Visegrad.  Or, I guess if you're more Central European and less Ottoman, then it's the other Visegrad.  In Bosnia.  

Yugoslav Weekend Getaway

I don't know if you know what it's like to live in Budapest, but being in the very heart of Europe is almost unbearable when you know that you can access so much in such little time.  I mean, except for the Balkans are so inaccessible.  You can't fly into them, no trains run there, and the entire region is almost unmappable.*   So quite obviously this is the most alluring thing when you're in Budapest is the prospect of a trip into the depths of the Balkans, specifically Albania.   While I could not convince anyone else to go to Albania with me, I was blessed with the opportunity to take a long weekend due to an "SAP outage" at work (don't even ask me what that means) so I decided to hope on a train to Belgrade, because I hadn't done that in a long time and it's such a great deal.  So on Thursday night I hoped aboard the train with a bunch of Borsodi Búza Sör (you have no idea how amazing the Hungarian beer scene is) and settled in for a surprisingly comfortable sleep.  

As usual it was fantastic to arrive in Belgrade on a summer morning at 5am.  I live for this. I walked up to Ruski Tsar and got a slice of pizza, then over to the main square on the crest of the hill where the cafes were starting to open.  I ordered a coffee with mineral water, and watched with contempt as I saw so many backpackers invade the city.  I tried my best to conceal my own backpack, of course, but at least I was a local.  I decided that Albania was literally impossible to get to in a three day weekend, so instead my plan was to go to Užice, a nice little town on the Bosnian border in the south, then cross to Sarajevo, and catch the direct train back to BP.  The train to Užice left at around 11am, which is terrible because I feel like I was wasting so much time, but as the old adage goes, time's never wasted when you're trapped in the Balkans and can't do a single thing about it.  

The train to Užice was actually the train to Bar, on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro, which meant it was packed to the brim with sun seeking Belgraders looking for a good time.  I got into a cabin and was seated opposite a rather regal looking woman who kindly offered me exotic cookies and homemade cherry liqueur, then proceeded to tell me that this train was the "best of the best" of Montengrin trains and that her friend designed it.  Then a woman with like 7 kids burst in and started screaming in Serbian and we all had to leave because she had reserved it, and then join the rest of the common folk in the corridors and dining car.  Everything about the preceding events makes me love the Balkans even more.  

By the time we made it to Užice it was about 3pm and I was ready to get some walking in.  Užice is a great city that I had woken up in during my trip to Albania the previous December, and I looked at the town by night and vowed to return one day.  Today was that day.  Here I was, poised at my destiny.  It was a tiny but bustling city, with all low buildings except for one enormous concrete tower shaped like a rocket, and I could not wait to find out what awaited me.  I marched right to the centre and found the tourism office, where the receptionist told me that there were no hostels and only one hotel, which he promised was cheap."

"It's about 26 euros.  It's the tallest building in town.  You can't miss it.  It looks like a rocket.  In fact, we call it 'The Rocket.'"

"Oh, you mean The Rocket?"

"Yes!  You've heard of it?"

You should seriously go to Užice and see this thing.  

Anyway, as soon as I got into the Rocket and settled into my amazing room, it started pouring rain so I settled into bed and watched some American TV dubbed into Serbian and planned my next move, which I'll admit had several constraints at this point.