In the Heart of the Balkans

I am writing this post from Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzogovina, which is kind of weird, since as a kid, I remember the name ˝Sarajevo˝ being associated with bombings or sniper shootings or some horrible thing. These days, Sarajevo is a thriving city... well, it at least looks thriving to ME. According to some ethnic groups in the area (i.e. Serbs) there is a dire shortage of their own people here, having been kicked out in the early 1990s... but that's going down a very complicated road that you can read about on Wikipedia or something. This is about MY trip to Sarajevo - not a history of who has ruled and conquered this place over the centuries.

I got into Sarajevo Wednesday night after a stunning, five hour bus ride from Banja Luka in the north. Bosnia's roadways aren't very developed, which makes it all the more adventurous. The two lane road we took from Banja Luka hugged the side of a cliff that plunged down into first the Vrbas and then the Bosna river, which starts just a few miles south of Sarajevo. 

We got in at about 9pm and, taking the advice of a local I had met on the bus, I ventured into the suburbs of Sarajevo with him looking for a cheap hotel. (I've been couchsurfing or staying with friends ever since Iceland, but the couchsurfers of Sarajevo don't seem to be as gracious as their fellow countrymen.) He dropped me off in front of this place called ˝Banana City˝- probably the sketchiest hotel I have ever seen in my life. Even if the lights HAD been on, I wouldn't have tried it. So, with night progressing, I found my way back to the tram and made my way into the city and crashed at the first decent looking place I found. It was the most expensive night of the trip, but whatever, I had deserved it after making it through western Europe for a month on an average $40 a day!

I spent about an hour or so on Thursday just poking around the city. This place is way cool - it's the first city I've been in so far where I feel like I'm really in the east. There are mosques EVERYWHERE and you can hear calls to prayer throughout the day (although I haven't been woken up by one yet) and the center of old town feels almost like... Africa or the Middle East or something. I'm not sure because I've never been to either. All the buildings are one story and made up of shop fronts. These days, they are all tourist shops, restaurants or cafes, but the low buildings and narrow streets feel much older than the standard boulevards and 5 story buildings or western Europe. Plus, the main street is being renovated now, so it's just dust and rocks right now, with no signs of any work going on to improve it soon. The uneven surface and dust rising from pedestrians gives the street an even older feel. Judging by other streets, they'll put down concrete tiles eventually, but I think they should just keep it how it is. 

Mosque to the right, shops to the left

I've spent most of the time walking around the hills of Sarajevo, from where Serbian forces held the city siege between 1992 and 1995. Nobody could really tell me about hiking trails, so both Thursday and today (Friday) I just started heading up hill and eventually found streets and dirt roads and goat paths to my summits. I have been nervous both days about landmines. On Thursday, when I climbed the southern hills, I ran into a woman herding her goats through the woods and was just waiting for her or one of her herd to get blown to smithereens, but she seemed pretty confident in her footsteps. About a mile later, I saw a big sign advertising a Greek initiative to clear the area of landmines. I guess they're finished?

Today (Friday) I climbed up Treboviča, the mountain to the north of Sarajevo. Go check out my Flickr page - I just added a bunch more pictures.  It took me about seven hours and was about 16 miles as far as I can calculate. This trip was much more exciting. About half way up the mountain, I took a road up about a mile that turned out to be a private drive. D'oh. But I ˝talked" to a workman there and figured out a way to get further up via a little footpath. This path quickly faded out though, but I happened upon a lumberjack who had lived in Augsburg, Germany for a few years, so he was able to help me get further up to where his colleague was working who then, in limited Italian, showed me the trail that took me all the way to the top. Sheesh!

Once I got to the top, I felt like I had really earned it - like I had had an adventure. And the predictable way back home was not nearly as exciting, but was much quicker, which my stomach was happy about.

It's amazing how quickly the city disappears out here. Sarajevo is a big place, and very metropolitan, but after walking about 30-45 minutes in either direction, you start finding goat herders, lumberjacks and the roads turn to dirt. It makes the city even more remarkable, because you realize that it's surrounded by a wilderness that constitutes most of the rest of the country that Sarajevo is supposed to govern.