katiesfootprints: Bosnia

Wowza, has it been hot lately or what!!! This hasn't seemed to suppress our appetites at all though...

We arrived in Mostar, Bosnia early in the morning and already it was sweltering, I was feeling well rested though as this time on our overnight bus it was my turn for the window seat, bonus! We found our hostel and signed up for a tour for the day out to some ancient towns and relaxing by a giant waterfall. As we step outside to grab our ride an Audi is waiting “excellent” we think as the first four hop in “I wonder what our car will be”...? Oh, here it is now, “it kind of looks stolen...” as we jump in to the old people mover and note that the stereo has been ripped out, not a great start. Off to the petrol station where the driver can't figure out how to get the petrol cap off “it's not my car” he confesses... reeeeealllly? The rest of the day was a dream though – we visited some natural springs on the Buna River at Blacaj that was also home to a Tekija - an old Turkish house, which strangely enough still has two inhabitants – dead for the past umpteen years, kind of odd. Pocitelj was our next stop and this was the ruins of a fortress and mosque. The heat was getting kind of ferocious (we're talking 40 degree days here, way more than this Southern Hawkes Bay girl can handle) and so it was off to the very impressive Kravice Waterfall for some swimming and bathing for the rest of the day.

That night we managed to tag along with a tour group that had a few other kiwi's on board for dinner and drinks and hit the hay relatively early. We did have big expectations for the evening as when we arrived we discovered that it was the end of Ramadan and no one had been allowed to drink for the last month. It was a three day celebration though so we guessed they were pacing themselves.

The next morning, and after a lot of talk of jumping off the famous Mostar Bridge (25m high), Helen was pushing me to inquire into the training required to do such a daring potentially-fatal leap of faith. The guys at the dive club weren't very accommodating in their efforts to help us - and after asking our guide what she thought about us jumping she couldn't even speak at the shock of such an idea to give us an answer so we decided against it. Have to leave something for next time. We had hired a local guide earlier in the day and she showed us around the city, talked about the outlook Bosnian's have on life post-war (she was only 18 and therefore hadn't really been through the war for any of her own stories) and took us to a traditional Bosnian house for the man that has four wives – lucky guy.

On to Sarajevo that evening where we promptly picked up a recommendation for dinner and strolled around the old town until we found it. Galatasaraya's was absolutely delicious – bear in mind we have been eating Cevapcici (basically long meatballs) for every dinner for the past week nearly, but these were something else. It came out in the wash that the old timer who owned the place and was chatting to us throughout dinner was an “ex-footballer for Bosnia, very famous, the best” according to the couple he was eating with. We are pretty much famous by association.

Later that night we joined forces with a couple of others from our hostel and headed out to Sloga – a club that took forever to find and when we did it looked empty. It was a Monday night so who could blame them, but when we climbed the stairs we were greeted by a very lively room full of Salsa dancers – perfecto, I love Salsa (even though I can't dance)! I grabbed a beer and was just taking my first sip when someone grabbed the bottle out of my hand (and mouth), put it on the table and pulled me onto the D floor, apparently it was time for me to Salsa. I have taken approx. 10 salsa lessons in my life and that was a few years ago – now, I have two left feet to dance with. What a disaster! This went on awkwardly for another ten minutes before I was given back to my friends. I'm onto my second sip of beer when I am startled by some questioning as to where I come from... “are you from Cuba?” “ummm, no, why?” apparently it was because I dance so well. Smooth. I try to prove to this guy that I do not dance so well and show him the two and a half steps I know before he tells me off for leading, again I am very ungracefully pulled around the dance floor until he too realises I can't dance, and lets me go again. It was fun though, all you guys out there reading this you definitely need to take the initiative more often and ask a girl to dance!

The next morning after no where near enough sleep we rose early to do a tour of Sarajevo. What a most humbling experience - our guide, Haris, was about our age but had obviously seen so much more in his life time. We agree that we feel so ignorant/sheltered coming from a place like NZ (as great as it is and as much as we love it) especially when we talk about the worst thing we ever found dead was our pet lambs – not our next door neighbour who'd been shot. To go on a day like this and hear about how as a seven year old kid Haris had to go through an 800m tunnel and then walk for another three days just to bring back twice his weight in food for his family, really makes you reassess what you take for granted. At one point someone was complaining about being hungry and Haris asked him “do you eat every day?” oblivious to the point the guy replied with “yes”, “lucky you” Haris responded. But all credit to them, Sarajevo has come a long way since 1995 and the city is beautiful and thriving. So yes, we visited the 800m tunnel that was Sarajevo's lifeline during the war – it went from the city underneath the airport and came out on Bosnian territory not under seige. Next stop was the Bob Sled track from the 1984 Olympics that was misused during the war by the Serbs. We then soaked up the panoramic city sights before entering Sniper Alley where people were murdered from a far if they tried to leave the city. We visited another traditional house, similar to that we saw in Mostar before another meal of Cevipcici.

Helen and I had to leave the tour early unfortunately as we had yet another overnight bus awaiting us. Our taxi driver was just hilarious – he spoke a bit of English and laughed heartily at everything we said, he thought it was the funniest and most preposterous thing that it was currently winter in NZ. We spent the last of our dina on food that is really good for us and hoped like hell we were on the right bus to Macedonia. Unfortunately the bus to Skopje only runs twice a week so we didn't get to spend the amount of time we would have like in Bosnia, my favourite country so far, beautiful scenery, amazing people and delicious food.

Pocitelj ruins and mosque