SERBIA

To arrive to Serbia from this part of Romania we must to across a small part of Bulgaria, and for that, one more time we are at the shore of the Danube, which we cross on a platform that takes us to Bulgaria.

We were wondering the option of stowaways or hitch hike for a lift by boat, but for 3€ each… it wasn’t too much!


Just arriving to the new country we realized that in Romania we were like at home, now it is impossible to communicate, unless somebody speak English or Spanish... See the cartel of BULGARIA.


After passing customs, we arrived where the taxi drivers wait to catch people, especially some absent-minded tourist, and tell to them that the city is 10km far away, when we already know that it is just 4 km.
The impression of Vidin is much more undeveloped than Romania, dusty streets, the people look at us surprised, and afterwards we found the following "car garage"


We tried to ask to the people for the address that we have and although we don’t understand at all, at least we saw that the people put everything trying to help us.
Something very curious of the Bulgarians is that to say YES, they move the head from side to side, and when they say NO, from up to down. It is very funny, because although we know it, our brain is not capable of assimilating it, and we always blunder.
The guy who hosted us here, is North American, one of the many "peace-worker" that there are in all this area. He works in a school of Gypsies, teaching Bulgarian to the children, here the gypsies only speak Romance. The work that he is doing is excellent.
Respect to the city, there is a fort very well preserved beside the Danube with a great view of it.
Before leaving Vidin, we went to the school of gypsies, placed in a neighborhood of exclusively gypsies. The aspect of the streets, the markets, the houses, is totally grievous. At school there is a classroom where Patrick and other assistants teach to the children; in “Friends of travel” of Bulgaria, Patrick is seen in a picture at the school with them.
Serbia it’s only 40 km from here, so we put our cartel of Zajecar, nearby a petrol-station, but it is not very common to see a pair of foreigners hitch hiking here. The time passed, and we only saw old, broken cars and little more. We had to put a cartel with the name of Kula, a nearer city, so perhaps somebody stop... Finally stopped two men, and I asked them: Kula? They denied; and… is still impossible to put in our mind that this means YES!! When we reach Kula, the man asked us money, and I denied with the head all the time as I didn’t understand what he told me, but…of course he was understanding that I said yes. Here, gets down one of the man, and the other one said, (at least we understood), that he took us up to the border. On the way we saw the cartels of "Serbia and by Montenegro", they have forgotten to change the name after the independence of Montenegro in 2006.
He asked us a lot of money in Euros but the man didn’t know well how much it was a Euro, in the end we gave one to him; he wasn’t very happy, but that’s the problem of the language...
On every border it always surprises when two person appear walking with a backpack, but now in Serbia, out of the UE, it starts the questions, what are you doing here?, where you go?, and the typical comments of the policemen: Spanish!! Fernando Alonso!! We used our new passport for the first time with the Serbian stamp and without register at the border we continue our way.
But the border is dead, doesn’t pass a car!, so when there was the change of duty of the policemen... they pick us up and brought us to Zajecar. And from here by truck direct to Nis; to don’t have more frights, we asked before about the money, but it seems to be that here it is not habit. The driver was very happy, and he didn’t stop of calling to people to tell them that in his truck there were two Spanish, even called to a friend that spoke English, to talk with us, and inform us that his friend would leave us in the centre of Nis.
We never found a member of CS, or HC in this city, only one!, that it would not be here, and that we do not have words; he left the keys of his apartment to a friend who brought us to the flat to stay there…

The Serbs have been very hospitable, specially Peter and Jelena, who were taking care of us constantly.
The standard of living in this country is higher than some countries of the UE, as Romania or Bulgaria. There are a lot of life in the streets of Nis, the people earn good profit in Serbia, and the country is really cheap.

In Nis, we visited a famous tower, “The skulls tower”, where there were more than 900 human skulls inlaid, now remains only a few. The tower was build after one of the battles that there were here against the Turks.


We keep finding incredible people by hitchhiking, Danilo picks us up on the outskirts of Nis, and during the way I showed him the address of Paris, our following CS contact; and as it was the telephone noted with the address, he called him directly to see where he lived, Danilo brought us up to the door of Pari’s house in Belgrade. On the way he invites us to have a coffee, but little before arriving to Belgrade, one of the many fires that are devastating the area for the high temperatures, stopped us in the highway, the road itself transform in two lanes collapsed in one way, and in the fringe the cars started to run back to the last exit, of course Danilo joined that lane to arrive before to Belgrade.

From the 28th floor where we stay, we can enjoy an incredible view of all the city, and better with the company of Paris, the most positive person that we have met in the journey, and his family.

In Belgrade there are not many places to visit, but as Nis it has a lot of life. We visited the castle in front of the Danube with a long exhibition of tanks. And the largest orthodox church of Europe.


But, what is more impressive is when you turn a corner, and you find the wounds that the bombs left in this city. Belgrade is the city of the world that more times has been destroyed, and keeps not recovering nowadays. Here just 8 years ago the bombs fell from the sky for 3 months. And listening to the stories of the people makes you shudder, we feel rage because neither us, and the Serbs, can understand why! The main motive of everything is Kosovo, but... still now continues the same problem.


We took direction towards Bosnia, but before we will stop on the way in Loznica, frontier city, where we took a pair of relaxing days, as few we have normally.
Up to here we arrived by two cars and a truck, the second car that stops for us, could not have worse luck to be stopped by Serbian policemen. Here there are a lot of corruption, and the man had to pay a fine at the moment in cash, if not, the police would retain the vehicle, and only for 5 km/hr more. We would put the hand in the fire that this man didn´t arrive even to the limit.
In Loznica we organize ourselves well, and maintained long talks with Igor, finding out well about what happened here. How Yugoslavia was divided, and the posterior bombardments, which he could see from the terrace of his house.