Bosnia and Herzegovina was the first country
where I actually could feel, that the journey started, that I’m abroad now and
it’s a lot more different from home.
Almost every house wants to be at the national
road, so the villages, towns merge and there is no uninhabited land between them.
All the homes here are generally big and have two floors and a balcony. In the
restaurants, Muslim music is played, and minarets take place of churches to be
the highest roof of the towns. Sheep are grilled on a pin next to the road
(pecenje), that would be unimaginable under EU regulations on health safety.
There are many open markets, which remind me more of the souks in Lebanon than
the farmer’s markets in Hungary. And the traffic starts to become a little
chaotic, where the honking is only a sign for “I’m coming!”.
We had the first “cevapi” of our lives, Bosnia
is famous for it: it’s little sausages made of the mixture of three kinds of
meat, grilled, and served with pita bread and raw onion. This is the kebab of
the Balkans.
Our first cevapi and Bosnian coffee
Another speciality we tried was the Bosnian
coffee which is similar to its origin - the Turkish coffee. It is a light
alternative though as one serving is usually enough for two small cups. First
they boil the water, then the ground coffee is added, and when the mixture with
the bubbles start to raise, the coffee is ready to be served. Most of the time,
it’s consumed with sugar.
Dinner in progress
Our host in Osijek was sure, despite the signs
in GoogleMaps, that the way to Sarajevo is going to be totally flat. A
motorcyclist from the Zupanja festival ensured me, that until Tuzla (about
halfway to Sarajevo) the road is flat. Well, until Tuzla it was very hilly, and
after that we climbed two times 1000 m high mountains, and we lost our belief
in human.
The first climb was horrified. Why were we
doing that at all? By a road bike it’s challenging, by a tour bike with heavy
panniers it’s madness. It took us about 4 hours and countless encouragements to
get over the mountain until we arrived to the valley where Kladanj was located.
We’d stopped at the first shop and asked for lodging, and voilà, in less than
an hour we found ourselves in a room at Đuldina’s family,
where generations live under one roof. We went out for dinner and talked about
the locals: the people of Kladanj have very limited chances to work, many moved
to Sarajevo or to Western Europe, but those who stayed love to go out for a
coffee, and they have plenty of choices in town. We noticed, that in Bosnia
everyone drinks coffee and smokes… all the time!
Our room at Duldina’s. Finally we don’t have to
set up the tent!
Next morning Linh felt ill, and we wanted to
stay one more night, but Đuldina’s granny refused our wish. We
went to the centre to grab a coffee and think of the solution a bit. We asked
at the police station, but they couldn’t arrange anything for us. Some minutes
later they brought a man who spoke some German, and seemed a bit arrogant with
his statements: “I own this city”, “How much can you pay?”, “This is a town,
not a humanitarian centre”. After him we decided to leave the city centre, and
asked others, until we ended up in a room of a hotel which has been closed down
for 9 years.
The couple who lives there used to run their
hotel with a mini-market and a resort up in the mountains, but the war in the
early 90s ruined their business, as tourism dropped to zero. They fell from
wealth to poverty and since then they’ve been trying to survive, and work every
day to avoid going mad. “You never know what’s on the other side of the
mountain.”
The wife couldn’t stop cooking for us, in one
evening we ate about five different dishes, as she never accepted “no” as an
answer. She just ignored it and gave us more food. Meanwhile we had very
meaningful talk about life, ups and downs, and how the husband smuggled whisky
to Oman when he was a truck driver. This man got balls!
Morning coffee from the hotel’s balcony: view
to the town and to the foggy mountains, meanwhile listening to the flowing river
under us.
The next morning, after getting literally
stuffed with food we tried to refuse, we took off. We faced the second 1000 m
long mountain, and Linh’s thighs refused to work again. After many breaks, close
to the top it was raining and pretty cold. As Linh’s motivation reached the
lowest point, we tried to hitchhike trucks for a while, but the result was only
soaked rain jacket and very cold feeling. After 40 minutes I forced us to continue
to ride, and we got upper and upper again until we reached the mountain pass.
On the way down we couldn’t go fast as the road was wet, and we didn’t need to
pedal, so we were pretty cold. This was a very unenjoyable ride up and down.
We arrived to Olovo, which has the meaning lead,
the next town in the next valley. We just stopped in front of the bakery, when
a man approached us: “Do you need help?”. Ten minutes later we were in the
house of Emir, a member of the local Bicycle Club. Wow, this was fast!
Emir is a soldier, working to seek all the
remaining mines in Bosnia and he walked us around the town, which seemed to be
much nicer than the previous ones we passed. In Olovo there is less vestiges of
the war, the houses seem newer, and the whole city feels friendlier. Emir
wanted to help us in every possible way, he gave us hundreds of advises
regarding to Bosnia and his brother (who will soon join the army as well) checked out our bikes in search for
anything to fix.
Emir’s brother, Dino and 2Bikepackerz in Olovo
Emir and his brother, Dino told us over a
coffee and cigarette that they were both very sporty. Everyone smokes and
drinks coffee here. The war pushed Bosnia into very deep poverty and recession,
as we heard it from Duldina and from the hotel owners. But the young brothers
in Olovo make their living from the leftover of the war. Luckily not everyone’s
life is so dim here.
While lighting up a match and starting another
cigarette, Emir told us, that on the way to Sarajevo there is one more uphill:
about 15 km long, up to 1000 m…
(To be continued...)
Péter
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