So leaving Sarajevo, the next stage of my travels involved a trip to Mostar, a small city near the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was quite badly damaged during the war including an ancient bridge that was rebuilt in 2002 and is now a UNESCO world heritage site...
Getting there of course involved another bus journey that being in Bosnia inevitably means more awful Bosnian music playing throughout the journey, lots more smoking breaks, and many eating very meaty smelling pastry. And of course whenever you sit down on a bus your IPod always runs out of battery (an engineering fault I swear) and I ate all my food ten minutes in (this is definitely just my fault).
In Mostar I stayed at a hostel that everyone in Sarajevo who had come from Mostar had been talking about, creating a definite air of mystery around it. It was another family run hostel with the owners living right beside, a brother and sister both in their 40s (who are a bit mad, Bata is huge and very loud while his sister looks crazy and instantly made me a sticker for my bed complete with mountains). To top this all off their mother cooks you breakfast in the morning, she speaks little english and does not ask you want you want for breakfast just puts a huge plate of food in front of you and keeps giving you more until you somehow escape, a lovely family but very eccentric.
Bata also runs a tour every couple of days that supplies you with a complete Mostar experience. This takes place in his mini-van, now technically this only has 8 seats but due to very lax Bosnian laws he somehow manages to get 14, you sit on laps and deck chairs in the boot (I am seriously not lying). In Bosnia drivers think you are insulting their driving if you put on a seatbelt! While bundled up in the van Bata then puts on his new favourite music which fits neatly under the genre 'turbo-folk', it needs to be heard to be believed! The tour took in some amazing waterfalls with pools you can swim in, Burek stops, and a visit to a lovely little Bosnian woman's house who gave us apple cake, coffee, and amazing fresh figs! So quite an tour all in the name of research!
Waterfall funs, of course I didn't jump!
It was on this tour that I met what are most definitely the most American Americans! Two were called Jay and John and were 'cali-boys' living in Newport (they were like have you seen The O.C? cause its exactly like that), we went out in the evening and they were both like omg you look so cute! While another group of Americans from Chicago carry a bleach pen around with them! The girl spilt a tiny bit of juice on her dress and was like omg who has a bleach pen, to which all the Americans held theirs out (apparently they don't leave the house without them!).
So until this point research had been reasonably successful. Mostar unfortunately planted two possible travel suggestions in my head. Firstly a Swedish Economist asked if I wanted to go hitch hiking to Montenegro with him and secondly two German girls in a campervan offered a trip to Montenegro with them...Faced with this sort of dillemma, I took one look at the slightly odd Sweed with a hilarious English accent then another at the two German girls and their very cool van and of course went with the Germans....
Chucking my luggage in the back of their van, off we went. Clearly though when they heard I was a geography student they made the mistake many do of presuming that means I study maps and am therefore the perfect map reader. So planted in the passenger seat I was expected to get us to Montenegro, 15 minutes in I ensured we had already been round Mostar 3 times but somehow I did manage to get us towards the border. Unforutunately this meant going up a lot of hills and one down side of the retro van is that is doesn't do hills in the heat very well and very quickly the poor engine needed a break. Quite used to this the Germans cope by having a picnic stop every time this happens complete with a picnic table from the boot, so beside the road we had an improptu lunch. With the engine cooler we could resume our border mission - my next failing was that I didn't realise there was such a thing as local border crossings which cannot be crossed by international tourists, so my short cut although scenic resulted in denied entry. At this point camping for the night seemed the best option which meant chucking all the bags in the front and sleeping in the back of their van. For them after 2 months this was very unexciting but for me it was a dream come true - I felt like something out of an indie road trip movie dream! Stopping beside a lake also meant that when we awoke, we jumped in the lake for a morning 'shower', the indie road trip dream just kept getting better and better!
Campervan funs
Border crossing number two was more successful although two German and one British passports did make them slightly suspicious but we were allowed in AND I got another stamp. Montenegro was definitely worth the effort as the countryside is beautiful, I was on IPod DJ duty making it a very tuneful drive obv! One of the German girl's boyfriend was arriving that day so we had to head to the capital Podgerica to fetch him from the airport. Although capital cities are usually exciting places to go, the guide book describes this one as 'nothing special and not worth visiting unless you find therefore there' so worth a visit! Laundry and internet were the main concerns not culture however so Podgerica would suffice, however the furthest we got with laundry was an offer to either dry clean or buy a washing machine so we gave that a miss. With the aid of the relic of a netbook I got off ebay for £99 (this thing is seriously so slow you want to hurl it out the window) we did manage to make brief internet contact while sitting in the swishest cafe in Podgerica (not saying much).
Now it is at this point things started getting slightly interesting, of course running late for the airport pick-up (the girls joked it was their only appointment in two months and typically they were running late). Due to this stress the van was reversed into a bollard and five minutes later the whole exhaust system fell onto the road. Definitely an allowed situation to bite my nails I felt. Standing in a dodgy capital city with two German girls and an exhaustless van was not really how I planned spending my Wednesday and it was of course in the middle of this my mum rang. Not through worry of course but to inform me her Glee tickets had arrived, she wasn't particularly interested in my predicament. The German girls presumed I had sent some sort of plea to her but I assured them Glee was the more pressing issue for her and 'as long as I was having fun'...
By some odd twist of fate a nearby nail salon provided the help required, not through free manicures but one of the nail techincians' brother and father fixed cars and if we waited until she finished work we could follow her to her house... So we drank beer, Lea's boyfriend got a taxi to us, and a few hours later we were following this woman in a very noisy van to her house...`
Now Bosnians are known for being hospitable and as I discovered being offered coffee was not too unusual but having only been in cities this hospitablity is not as noticable. Whereas in the Montengeran suburbs it was very clear, when we arrived we were immediately sat down in the house while the whole family peered round at the new arrivals! Then we were offered alcohol of course in the form of strong home made spirits, called roykia, everyone knows someone who makes it and the alcohol content always varies but it smelt pretty strong! Then we were given coffee and then amazingly even though we were in the middle of nowhere the laptop appeared asking if we were all on facebook! So my first Montenegran friends are now connected via the medium of the internet...
The other thing you notice in the Balkans is that people are very proud of where they live even if to the untrained eye it looks like a dump... While the Dad fixed the car the crazy brother and sister took us on a tour of the local hot spots, firstly a waterfall (bit of limestone scenery for the geographers). I must add here that it was dark and pretty slippy but using their mobile phones they were determined we saw! To be honest it was so dark I saw nothing but hey ho they tried! Next we went to some abandoned wedding venue to look over the city, again saw nothing but I am sure it could be nice! By now we were pushing midnight and the car was amazingly fixed so we presumed freedom was nigh! Of course not, its dinner time in Montenegro and even though all shops were closed the brother knocked on the bakery door until they opened. Despite insisting we weren't hungry we were all told we were going to eat the food (the sister was slightly mental and socially retatarded despite meaning well!). So back home the whole family gathered round to watch us eat the very greasy pastry covered cheese and apple cake, shouting MAKE whenever we stopped. Weird hospitality I will give them that! I must also add that for some reason the brother and sister kept mentioning Hitler to the Germans which was hilarious for me but did create an awkward atmosphere they seemed oblivious to! So at this point we were like surely we can leave but OH NO, we had to now stay the night as it was 1am! The weird sister tried making us sleep in her bed but we managed to stop her and all slept in the brother's room...
The next morning after more hours of being forced to talk and eat food and several photo opportunities we finally managed our escape. I must add though that overbearing as this family were they did have very good intentions and most importantly fixed the car completely FREE - you would not get that in Britain for sure!
So there we go after a bit of Montenegran hospitality the road trip could continue, first stop the beach. We managed to rent an apartment on the very beautiful coast pretty cheap and had a day lounging beside the Adriatic Sea and exploring the pretty city of Kotor before I had to get a bus to Durbrovnik, where now I am sitting writing this at a very over priced bar (my iced tea is 4 pounds) but I am definitely paying for the view of the sun going down over the city walls... Life is not so bad eh...
Dubrovnik sunset...
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