Our friend from Belgrade, Paris, is helping us a lot looking for friends of him that can host us in some places, the first place was here in Sarajevo, but we didn’t know that his friend was the Pastor of the Evangelist church in Breza (near Sarajevo), Mladen. It was very interesting to know all the people of the church, and their different ideas respect to the rest of Christians as well.
Bosnia is a country of majority Muslims, in Sarajevo what stands out more are the big quantity of mosques, with its towers that are seen from the moment that you arrive. Unfortunately practically everything is in reconstruction after the hard war suffered in the country. The buildings that still withstand are totally perforated, and not only in the capital of the country, even in the smallest town of Bosnia.
At the begging we would spend a pair of days with the people of the church, but they received us so well that we were two days more; in those days they explained us the hard moments lived during the war. We also went with them to a lake to collect some stuff of their camp, and like this we went back to Sarajevo.
Up to Mostar the road goes by valleys and mountains, and the beauty of this country surprise us again. The group of the church went in the same way than us and they brought us to the city, which was totally devastated, and its consequences are seen nowadays everywhere. Apart of the war of Yugoslavia, Bosnia had the conflict of religions; in Mostar, Muslims and Catholics fought each other, in both sides of the river, without mercy. So, this country received the worst part of everything. The historic centre of Mostar is totally restored.
In the following photos are some of the buildings that we have found, mostly in Mostar, and many of them even with the trenches.
During the next days we didn’t have contacts of CS or HC, for that we were finding places to sleep somewhere, and it’s funny, because every day we made plans, and we NEVER slept where we thought. The same day of Mostar we decided to leave in the afternoon and to sleep somewhere on the way to Croatia, but to hitchhike here is not really good, so we went with the first car that stops, even when he wasn’t going to our destination. Again we went back to the Adriatic coast but by the Croatian side, although we spent the night in the only coastal city that Bosnia has; Neum. We pass a very little comfortable night on a beach of rocks, anyway, the view that we had in front of us during the sunset and sunrise, it doesn’t have price. The coast in this side of the Adriatic is formed by big mountains that die directly in the sea, and numerous islands in its crystalline turquoise waters.
When we get up in the morning, the idea was to go to Split, after three hours hitchhiking, we decided to go to Dubrovnik, a little nearer right to the south, it was moments that we needed all the possible patience in our tired bodies.
Dubrovnik is really beautiful, a big fort bathed by the sea, with a whole city inside; the rest of the city extends through the slope of the mountain with roads at different levels; there is not flat space between the sea and the mountain. And again the beach to sleep; well, with the noise of the discos, we couldn’t sleep too much…
Rhumb to the south we keep hitchhiking in this infernal road for the hitchhikers; one guy from Montenegro who came driving nonstop from Germany (18 hr.); takes us up to the border of his country. The idea was to take us further on, but the papers of the car were not in order, and we left him on the border. Again with the patience level at maximum we tried to stop some car to go to Kotor; this time tourists, who usually no stop, pick us up. Thanks to the fact that they were tourists, they chose the longest and prettiest road to reach Kotor, where there is a fort of the style of Dubrovnik, but with a wall and small towers that rise on the slope of the high mountain.
As we don’t have where to sleep, we prefer to keep going, and to know more places... but is being very hard that people pick us up here. It was very sad when we saw other local hitchhikers at our side that were taken in one minute after arriving, we were thinking even in a kind of conspiracy against the foreigners; but always there is somebody in last minute who save us. A man takes us again to the coast, to Budva, a place that keeps being beautiful as all the seaside here; with excessive tourism, but we look for better hotels...
The day after we arrived to Podgorica, the capital city f Montenegro; although it was not our plan to visit the city, the man who brought us made a touristic tour through the centre for us, and left us in route to keep traveling. Three days sleeping somewhere outside is tired, getting up every day at 5:30 in the morning, don’t rest well; that, keeps pressing, but every moment is an adventure, this makes that the tiredness remain to one side and forget it. By truck we went towards the north of the country; if Bosnia liked us for its nature, Montenegro....is wonderful!, we go through mountain roads, beside a small canyon with a river, and arriving so high that we saw big valleys from above.
In route, we choose a town where we can sleep, and with another truck more, we reach Berane with the gaze of all the habitants, if the Montenegrin coast is very touristic, here they are not used to see foreigners, even when we went to the cyber is the revolution among the people! Casually we could talk with a boy about Kosovo, it is an unknown place for us, and we don’t know which are the conditions to be able to travel in our way; well, about what we talked to what we did in the end… is totally different. Going out of Berane, we found a very good place to sleep hide in a field where we said: -here we will sleep all the time we need to make up for the last days; but our dear friend of travel, the rain, woke up us at 4:00 in the morning.
The journey to Kosovo couldn’t be more intense; the idea was to hitchhike to the following city, and to catch a bus to the border, but... we couldn’t be more fortunate, the guy who picks us up, was a policeman of the customs in the border with Kosovo, so we save a lot of time, and besides the guy bought us something for the lunch! With other guys we arrived to Kosovo; officially it belongs to Serbia, but is ruled by its own, even the stamp of the customs is as if Kosovo was an independent country (At the time of this travel it wasn’t independent). Peje is in the plain of the valley, which we see from the mountain as we keep going down. On the way we saw destroyed houses, even small neglected neighborhoods that belonged to the Serbs who have had to run away out here. We have been warned of the danger of Kosovo, and although we didn’t see any danger, (excluding the anti-person mines in the mountains), we decided to search for something safer than the street to sleep. In a Muslim “country”, we went to the Catholic Church to ask the priest for accommodation, in any place that he could. But the guy who did of translator between us, didn’t think twice, -Come to me home! he said. After four days sleeping outside; a bed, a shower, and homemade food... is something that arrives straight from the Heaven. Visar and his family, gave us everything in this day... Respect of the city, the best it’s to get lost through the bazaar of the centre, where the most important mosque of the city is; but apart from that we had an interesting meeting with one of the Spanish troops that works in Kosovo. They told us about what their work consisted (basically same as “civil policeman” in Spain), and about how was Kosovo some years ago, ensuring that the situation now is much better. Probably with the supposed independence that they will get soon, Kosovo keep improving little by little. They were quite glad to speak with Spanish, and they assured that we were the first that they saw here.
Despite of the advises to don’t hitchhike here…we did it, and it’s a great country to do so, here the people who do it, don’t put either the hand or anything, simply they wait on the road (as waiting for the bus), and the people stop to pick them up. And although it is common to do it, seeing two foreigners doing it, surprised to the people a lot, because here there is not tourism.
With the truck of Coca-Cola we reach Pristina, the capital city. On the way, demolished buildings keep being seen, churches... but also some curious traffic signals like this one…
We expected a more destroyed city, and although it is not, is seen a little crushed and old. Visar and Blerton showed us all the city centre; it was very funny when we went to the main and oldest mosque of Pristina (550 years). It was closed, but our friends talked with the gardener, (we don’t know which story they told him), that he was agree to open it for us, but we had to pass a "control" before. The Spanish government is against the independence of Kosovo, so the gardener asked us if Spain had changed opinion, but the definite answer was ours: Were we agree of the independence? If the answer was YES, we could see the mosque; so, YES of course we are!! Although this is our real opinion, after see what we had seen.
The worst thing of Kosovo is that the word “corruption” is in everywhere; EVERYTHING is corrupt; in front of the supposed building of the government (which doesn’t exist), we saw plenty of photos of disappeared people during the war, still with expectation to find somebody.
The night in Pristina was cool, these two guys took us to the Hard Rock (unofficial), and we enjoy a lot listening heavy metal, and metal bands of Kosovo.
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