There are two ways to travel around the Former Yugoslavia. You can take a flight with a national airline through an airport in a third country, which remains startlingly expensive (remember what flights used to cost before the budget airline revolution?). Or you can travel overland, which is extremely cheap but requires vast reserves of time, patience and ingenuity. By necessity, that's how I travel.
I recently went for a visit home to Ireland. Flights out of Sarajevo itself cost between 400-500 Euro, involve a stop-over in Budapest, and an overnight stay in Dublin for both incoming and outgoing flights (the curse of living in Kerry). On the other hand, Aer Lingus have just started flights from Dublin to Dubrovnik which are much cheaper, require no change of planes and get into Dublin airport in time to make a train or flight to Killarney. As my flight left Dubrovnik on the Monday morning, I decided that I would use the opportunity to have myself a pleasant day of Adriatic sightseeing. So I booked a sobe (guesthouse) and bought a bus ticket from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik for the Sunday morning. How very pleasant and straightforward, no?
Except... a wild Saturday night got in the way. What can I say? This 'problem' of spontaneity and random adventures is the very reason I love Sarajevo so much. We started out in the former Olympic stadium watching our friend's ice hockey team win the Bosnian championships - it was shown live on television, I'll have you know - before going to a friend's house to watch the Bosnian football team beat Romania in a qualifying game for the European Cup. Within minutes of the game ending, it seemed that everyone who owned a car in Sarajevo had taken to the streets, and was parading around town beeping their horns. The city centre came to a literal standstill as traffic gridlocked and played a symphony of car horns. Following which we ran to Mash, a bar of pulsating trip-hop, sofas and "group" cocktails which come in a wine carafe with long straws so that you can race each other to the bottom of the drink. From there we had to run to Sloga, an old theatre turned into a nightclub where bands and DJs alternate throughout the night. Sloga's Hollywood-style tat and greased up Bosnian menfolk and fog of smoke and dirty beer all literally stink of Yugo-chic - and it's fantastic. Danced for hours. Except that I kept staying for "one more song", and then the clocks changed for spring, and when I left the nightclub after 4am I realised that it was in fact, well after 5am. And I had to get up at 8am.
Fast forward several hours of unconsciousness, and I gradually surfaced from sleep only to realise that my bus had left town two hours earlier. The only bus to Dubrovnik. Queue frantic stumbling around the apartment and panicked phone calls to friends who speak Bosnian and could call the non-English-speaking bus station for me to find a bus - any bus! - that would take me somewhere - anywhere! - remotely near Dubrovnik.
Twenty minutes after I woke up, I had left the apartment and was running up and down my street looking for a taxi to take me to the most far-flung bus station in the city (of course), where I managed to make the last bus out of town with only moments to spare. To be quite honest, in hindsight I'm amazed that I didn't forget my suitcase, wallet or passport.
It was only when I was safely installed on the bus, bouncing up and down rhythmically on my seat above the rear wheel, that I started to realise how unwell I felt. Last night's mixture of the potions and brews of three different bars and a house party would haunt me for the next five hours. The bus wound it's way along curved roads between hills, through gorges and over mountains. Oh it was beautiful, but oh did I curse the gods who made it impossible to build a straight road anywhere in the whole damn country. We stopped and started at every village in Eastern Bosnia - and picked up any number of people who just stood by the side of the road. This was not a coach service between cities but the closest thing Bosnia has to a public transport system. Most of the pickups only went as far as the next town, and all of them seemed to have to squeeze in and out of the only remaining seat beside me on the back wheel, with their shopping bags and boxes and children. And amidst all of this, I was fully sure that someone was going to take my suitcase out of the hold, even if only by accident. It was a long, long afternoon.
I finally ended up in Trebinje, a very small town in southeast Bosnia, just across the border and about 30km from Dubrovnik. Trebinje is surprisingly beautiful. Although inland, it's built entirely of white Adriatic stone and even in March had the mellow warmth of a Mediterranean evening. But it was 6pm on a Sunday in the off-season, and other than a few cafés everything was closed and dead. Something had possessed me before I left Sarajevo to look at the single page of the Lonely Planet that describes Trebinje and to make a mental note of the name of a single hotel. I took one look around the deserted streets and decided that there was no way I was going to walk around town looking for a guesthouse. Ten minutes later, a taxi had dropped me at the door and the young woman who single-handedly ran the whole hotel alone was checking me in, somewhat in shock that someone actually wanted to stay there, unannounced, on a Sunday night.
I was the only person in the hotel. A laminated list of prices was taped to the reception desk. For 30 Euro I had a clean, crisp double room with an en suite bathroom, a small plasma screen TV on the wall, and a large plateful of eggs, cheese and ham in the morning. On the other hand, special rates which were advertised as "The Daily Rest" cost only 20 Euro for a double room. What wonderful value for an afternoon in bed; the problem that I gleefully imagine is the difficulty in this small town of getting in and out of a hotel in daylight without being seen by prying eyes.
I decided to venture out and "see" Trebinje, seeing as how I had gone to all this trouble to get there, but it took all of 20 minutes to circumnavigate the whole town, all the while getting incredulous looks from the locals who were out strolling around in exactly the same manner I was. A new girl walking around town? By herself? A foreign girl? Who on earth is she and what is she doing here?? No one could understand why I, a solitary pizza-eater, was standing on their bridge admiring the sunset. Perhaps it wasn't the most orthodox way to have dinner.
I bought a slice of pizza from a hatch in the wall, got some of Bosnia's best snack food from a kiosk - pretzel sticks filled with peanut butter in the middle, they are genius - had the increasingly startled hotel lady make me a large mug of Bosnian-style coffee, and then at 8pm got into my hotel bed, watched the History Channel - the only English-language channel on my plasma screen - and finally cured my hangover.
I was cheered by the sheer absurdity of watching, in these ridiculous circumstances, the overblown pomposity of a documentary about The Blitz ("Facing everything that Hitler could unleash upon them, the British airforce was Fearless. Organised. Airborne - and Ready").
Until I saw the next documentary, a literal history of torture. Each episode examined a particular historic method of torture, running experiments and reenactments on animal carcasses and then bringing in doctors or scientists to examine the damage and explain in medical terms how the torture worked. Lucky me, I caught an episode about the Rack, which used a pig's leg to demonstrate the effectiveness of the process. The doctor in question was absolutely amazed at how - contrary to all expectations - the crack heard when tightening the rack hadn't in fact snapped the ligaments but only broken the bone - a femur. I was - and still am - profoundly disturbed by this program, which is the reason that I'm writing about it. I watched, dumbstruck, until I eventually managed to snap myself out of my trance of horror and change the channel. I didn't even want the station to take the credit for high ratings for this show. The profound irony of airing this in - of all places in the world - Bosnia defies belief, and elevates this example of alarmingly bad taste to a position where it becomes downright shameful.
Next morning Keko came to pick me up and take me to the airport. Keko's number was given to me by a colleague who had made a similar detour to Trebinje some months back. He drives a silver GTI Volkeswagen Golf, specially modified so that he can drive using only his hands. Keko does not have the use of his legs; as he told me along the way, he had a motorcycle accident a few years back, and now makes a living driving people around. He's not a taxi, he told me repeatedly. "I only drive my friends. Friends like you" he said with a wink. Keko's quite the dude - he's probably about 30 and told me he used to be a DJ, and I imagine he's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the ladies.
He doesn't have much English and I don't have much Bosnian, but we had the chats regardless. I tried to tell him the story of how I had ended up in Trebinje, because I had too many parties on Saturday night. "Oh, me too!" he interrupted. "I had very hard party Saturday night. I got out at 6 in the morning!" Oh, so Trebinje has good parties then? "No, not really", he shrugged, shaking his head. Well, full marks for effort regardless then?!
I ask him about being a DJ. He used to like playing "different stuff, not the Balkan stuff. I like this," he says pointing to his car stereo. "Something different for club, you know?" I like it too - mellow, funked-up jazz mixed with some trip-hop. I ask him who is the musician or DJ. "No no! This is mix!" Oh. Oh right then. I knew that. "But this not for club!" He looks at me wildly, amused because I'm a total amateur. "This is too quiet. I make it better for parties". Well, of course you do.
Keko has friends, lots of friends. "I have many friends in Dubrovnik, and even in Sarajevo. Maybe I'll come there in August. For parties. Sarajevo has good parties."
"Sarajevo does have good parties," I say. He nods sagely. "Yes. You like Sarajevo?" I do. "Well, maybe I'll see you in August. I'll come with some friends. This is your number for Sarajevo?" He gestures to his mobile phone. It is. "You have apartment in Sarajevo?"
I'm amused with where this conversation is going. "I do," I say, "But I think you would have a problem there because I have many stairs". He says "Yes!" and looks delighted. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what 'stairs' means.
Just past the Croatian border we're stopped by plainclothes police at an informal roadblock. Their detailed questions about where we are from, where we are going and what we do make it clear that this is not a routine check. My guess is they're looking for someone specific, probably following a tip off. Afterwards I ask Keko if this is normal. He shrugs. "No. But this road is for Montenegro. You see Montenegro? It's over there." So it is; we're high on a mountain road, with a magnificent view of the coast, and those hills just over there are another country. "After Montenegro is Albania," Keko shrugs, "and there are bad people there". Hello, organised crime. Well, it wouldn't be a proper road trip without a few of the best Balkan clichés along the way.
When Keko finally drops me off at the airport he wishes me Sretan Put and asks if I'm on Facebook. I smile and say that I am but it's very hard to find me. He laughs uproariously, beams a big Balkan smile, shakes my hand and zooms off.
Inside, the airport is deserted. I have started to panic that after all of this I've come on the wrong day, before eventually seeing one little check-in desk lit up in a far corner. The girl tells me that only 15 people will be on the flight - it's Aer Lingus' very first flight out of Croatia since October last year; the schedule has just restarted for summer. Sitting at the gate, I watch the Irish brigade shuffle off the incoming flight. The word 'shuffle' is not an exaggeration: 80% are of a certain age and are undoubtedly pilgrims going to Međugorje. Many are using walking sticks, and there is more than one pair of crutches on the plane. Međugorje is, in fact, in Bosnia, and I've talked to people before about what a shame it is that Bosnia gets absolutely no benefit from it. Almost all pilgrims fly into Croatia, stay in Croatia, pay in Euro or Croatian Kuna, and probably don't even realise they've entered another country when going to the shrine on day trips. It's a heartbreaking waste of potential for Bosnia.
As I enter the plane I see those homely, freckled Irish faces wearing those blue-green uniforms, which is the point at which every Irish person begins to feel like they're almost home. My assigned seat - of course - is in the very back row of seats, so I'd only walked halfway through the plane before I asked an air hostess with a smile if I won't cause too much trouble by sitting somewhere closer. She laughed and told me it's no problem.
"To be honest though," she confided, "We're surprised there are even 15 of you flying with us today. We didn't think there'd be anyone". I try to surpress my smile - this might be the first direct flight to Ireland out of the entire Balkan region in six months, but it's hardly difficult to get here. How isolated and remote a place - how different a world - does she think this can be, after all?
The air hostess watched me for a moment, and then continued confidentially, "Do you mind me asking? But.... how exactly did you get here anyway?"
Oh, if only she knew.
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