We thought with the mornings dramas behind us we would now have a trouble free ride into Dubrovnik... haha no. Now that its 10:10 am we now have a problem getting on a 10am bus. We run to the bus station, the great race style- asking directions from people mid-stride as we run past them. We cant find the bus, so Lyn heads into another company's office and asks for us- "Your bus is gone. you need to call them and stop- I will not call them" so she gets a phone number and we continue the great race antics of now trying to find a pay phone. Sorted- theres one in front of the post office around the corner. Problem: It only takes phone cards. Thats cool- one of our group has a mobile in their bag... oh snap "Number disconnected" Ok... theres a telephonist in the postie. As Lyn and the guys are in the queue for the telephonist I crack the shits and go to give the bus company a serve for telling Lyn to piss off and sort it out for herself. As I get to the bus station, I see the owner of the travel company we got our tickets from and run to him- he cant speak English, but I'm pretty switched on at the old "actions without words" games- He starts his turn. Two words, one involves tapping your left wrist with your fingers, the next word was holding your hands at the 10 and 2 O'clock positions and pretending to steer... I figured it wasn't code for "My wife cooked me an incredible dinner last night and I had a rakia chaser" so bolted to get the others and came back to him, showing off my own interpretation of the game through the post office windows to our group inside after banging so hard it rattled the doors. The owner led us straight to our bus, parked up next to its furious driver after we have now delayed the whole thing 20 minutes, and after paying another fine of 2 Euros per bag (no idea why) we were on the bus and off!! Oh, except for Josh, who they didn't like his ticket and made him buy another. Bosnia: You are welcome to come, but they really don't want you to leave!
The day before was spent in a tour of the town in our newly acquired travel group of 7: Me, Lyn, Ola a student from Albania just moved over to study in Sarajevo, David, Elias, Josh and Guillam- all backpackers from Canada, Switzerland, Australia and France. The first stop of our tour was the Tunnel in Sarajevo that was used as the lifeline to the rest of the world when the Serbian army surrounded the town and tried to wipe it off the map. It was spectacular when we first came into town- The entire city is built in what looks like an enormous volcano crater, and as we skirted the rim in our bus we saw all the sights of town lit up from above and it looked awesome! Its hard to picture that just over 10 years ago, there were blokes seeing the same sight from where we were, but looking down the scope of a rifle and just picking off every last moving target in town instead of marvelling at it. When I say every last moving target, I mean anything- Women, Children, the old, animals- whatever. I didn't appreciate it until I saw office blocks on film- people at work, people eating, people walking on the street, then a shell flies in and Boom! theres a flash and people are blown apart, and a fire engulfs the building again and again. After seeing nothing but normal people, their workplaces, their houses, their cars being blown away by missiles, gun fire and grenades on film for 10 minutes solid it gave us a pretty harsh appreciation of what the hell this city went through. Hard as it would be leaving my home town if I lived there, after trying to get to work and slipping over the blood of people from your hometown pouring down the streets, I'd be out of there. Oh yeah- that wasn't an option because the entire town was surrounded by a foreign army with guns and artillery, and you have a rock. The fact it took 6 months for the UN to move in, and even longer before they actually became active in the area is an embarrassment and the 4 years of killings it took to stop is a crime.
The tunnel was installed as a means of entry and egress from the city- it was the only way in and out. The UN Negotiated with the invading Serbian army and took back the airport- the only break in the surrounding ring of Serbian forces in the surrounding hills, and from there the Sarajevo government got engineers to dig for 4 months a 800m long 1.6m tall tunnel from one side of the airport to the other, then through trenches to beyond the sight and range of the Serbs and their sniper positions in the hills. At its peak, 2000 people a day flowed through this tunnel, and over the years it was in operation, that number got to millions. It became the conduit for telecoms, electricity, oil, food and people. The videos we saw of old ladies carrying sacks on their backs of 40kg of food for their families, bend double and shuffling through the semi-frozen water inside the tunnel really said alot for the brevity and defiance of the people that chose to live on in their city under siege.After the Tunnel tour, we saw a few other parts of town like the winter Olympics bobsled track, some lookouts, historical buildings and the Olympics museum. It caused a few mixed reactions seeing the more crooked than a dogs back legs Juan Antionio Samuranch actually puling the humanitarian string and bringing global attention to the Sarajevo area during Barcelona's 1994 Olympics- I reckon it was to save some face though after the kickbacks from Coca Cola over the Barcelona games though... Every place we went to though, there were still buildings as far as the eye could see with shrapnel damage, hastily patches blast holes and scorch marks.
The first night we got into town we had no accommodation booked so headed into town and just did a quick hike up the main drag with our packs looking for someplace cheap at 10pm... It started at 70 Euro per night, and by the last hostel we got to it was 10 EUR each. We checked in, did a hike of town, our own mini pub crawl and got crashed out. At one of the pubs we started chatting to a couple of blokes that have spent their lives in the city- We talked to them about the life here, and how things are now with the segregated countries. It seems things are pretty well back to normal for them, but if anything they are more well rounded and accepting than others that haven't been through the same tragedies. They also confirmed that the "endless nightlife" in Sarajevo is a lie promoted by lonely planet "We have jobs to go to tomorrow! I have to get sleep!" Admittedly, this was at midnight on a Monday night. The point of smoking being allowed in bars is still frustrating me here- your eyes sting, your clothes stink, and its just all round choking. Id like to think it wasn't that bad back home when smoking was legal in bars. The hostel was pretty average- beds in dorms, a dodgy shower, that's about it. We went for a bit of a hike the next day and tracked down this sweet place- Lion Hostel and found the price was 12 EUR a night for huge comfy beds, marble floors, new showers, a common room, sat TV... oh yeah.
During the next 2 nights we basically went through and tried to convince every other tourist we saw to come along to this other hostel, and it worked pretty well. After we checked out of our first shady hostel, we scammed a free dinner of Cabbage stew, then they tried to bribe us with a free shot of Rakija to stay, but we were out of there! We didn't have the heart to tell the old lady there we were going to a hostel that was like paradise compared to hers, so when her son asked if we were going to stay up all night I just said yes... The old lady took this as "We cant afford to pay" and went on to offer us a free spot on her office floor- nice of her. Once we managed to break free of there with all but 2 of the other residents of her hostel, I dropped into a supermarket and picked up a few hundred biscuits, some snacks and 8 litres of beer and we cranked a poker night back at the hostel all night. It was pretty cool- because we had no poker chips we used biscuits, then because we were using cards from Vienna, the queens were "D" for Dame, and Jacks were "B" for ... yeah I cant remember- I might have to ask Guilleum again. I know his answer will involve his favourite word "JAFA" though "Just another fucking Australian" first time I'd ever heard that one I have to say. He had good laugh too when he bought Jaffa cakes from a shop and gave them out to all the Aussies. It was a pretty good game all up- The winners came down to Elias, David the Casanova from Canada and Guilleum. We have nicknamed David that because in the first day we met him, he got a girl off the streets' number, organised a private tour from another girl he saw in a church, arranged a date with another girl that was on her way out to meet her boyfriend and sweet talked the resident chef into a breakfast date. It was nice of Josh to step in and remind David of his appointments the next day as they came up.
There have been some awesome sights around here- the $3.50 huge pizzas we had for lunch, The spectacular mosques and churches, a thriving mall that weaves its way through cobblestone streets between the mosques, fountains and sparkles with metal workers wares, smelling incredible all day and night long with traditional Bosnian restaurants, bakeries, pubs and cafes. We did learn a valuable thing from cafes here: Turkish coffee is brewed with the sugar inside it- Bosnian it is added in the cup. That and theres a bunch of different coffees you have at different points of the day, breakfast (large) lunch (small), all the way through to the one that, in lay mans terms, "Its time for guests to go home now" coffee. haha. On the point of Turkish hospitality, we also discovered a new cocktail none of us had ever seen before: the "Adios MotherF#$ker I and II" - Its stronger than a long island iced tea- need I say more?nice.. we just drove past a shopping centre in between two huge mountain valleys, a good 15km from the nearest town of any substance and it is huge. That wasn't all that impressive though- it was the two mini sideshow alley rides out front- The ranger and The rainbow style spinning seated rides that each had seats for 6 kids.
Now we have just crossed the border into Croatia- wow what a difference. The rocks have all turned white like the photos luci has in his house, there are enormous lakes with white stone walled buildings and terracotta tiles all over the place, and the hills are all covered in Mediterranean shrubs, like the stuff we find on beach dunes. I cant believe an entire area can change in appearance once you cross in imaginary line, but it has.
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