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HITCH-HIKING
IN MOSTAR...
UNREAL
CHRISTMAS DAY ATMOSPHERE IN MOSTAR
A TOUGH
NIGHT TO ENTER KOSOVO
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HITCH-HIKING IN MOSTAR...
It was Christmas day the one I
arrived in Mostar with James, a nice and funny irish guy who was travelling alone for some
months in the east of Europe. Just we got off the bus I saw a huge christians cross
rising from the top of a mountain facing Mostar. "I wanna get there", I thought.
After a while we were heading to that cross, cutting through the fields, when we stumbled
across mine fields. We tried to skirt them
but we realised our only chance was to follow the long hairpined road. Ok....let's
hitch-hike!
It didn't take that long till a jeep stopped a loaded us. He was Tony: a french father and
english mother restaurant owner born on Sweden and lived in Libia, Italy, Croatia and
finally in Bosnia. He was simply a wonderful person and, el of luck, was heading, right,
to the cross to "meditate", as he said. I trusted his confidence driving on
unpaved roads through mine fields... anyway we didn't blow up ;-) He took us along
the war line where tanks and bunkers still were lying over bullet
case layers. It seemed unreal, but definitely it wasn't and I saddened thinking that in
the place I was stepping now, not more than seven years ago people were shooting down each
other. |
UNREAL CHRISTMAS DAY ATMOSPHERE IN MOSTAR
When I arrived in Mostar I
didn't immediately realised the atmosphere till I crossed the river and got to the
christian part from the muslim one. In fact the river separates the two religions: on the
east side there were the minarets towering, a very lively atmosphere, every shop opened
and many people walking. While just few hundreds meters towards west, where there were
steeples instead of minarets, the silence was prevailing; every shop closed, few people in
the streets, left out the continuos pilgrimage to the remains of the "presepio"
built with the original statues of the '500 century, burnt by three muslim guy two days
before. Coexistence of different culture is tough, really tough. |
| A TOUGH NIGHT TO
ENTER KOSOVO
I was walking in the evening in
the Sarajevo outskirt when I saw a bus parked in the darkness with the sign
"Sarajevo-Prizren"; "..uhm.. it looks strange,... anyway Kosovo is my next
leg hence I gonna get it", I thought. When I asked to the driver he looked so
surprised I wanted to take that bus. He was sure I was mistaking bus and asked me several
times about my destination. At the end he wasn't really convinced but anyway let me in.
First of all I didn't understand why he was so surprised, why there were just three
people inside apart me and why the bus was leaving from that unknown dark place for a such
long trip (about 13 hours). Anyway the most important thing was to cross the border
without visa problem. I didn't have any visa and I knew I didn't need, but you never know.
After a while the bus left and any my doubt disappeared when it entered the Sarajevo bus
station where many people were waiting for it with their ticket bought at the bus station
ticket office. I understood that the bus driver was cheating the bus station selling
directly the ticket for a cheaper price in advance. Maybe the three people on the bus with
me at the beginning were driver's friends, that's why he was surprised... maybe he thought
everybody knew about his cheating, that it was written even in the lonely planet ;-))
Anyway my travel started and in few hours the bus reached the bosnian border. Some guards
got on and checked the passports. Looking at mine the guard didn't understand
anything about the visa, getting nervous asked me something, but when I answer
"Govorite englesky?? (do you speak english?)" he threw the passport against me
and got off the bus. It restarted and immediately stopped and the serbian border. I was
worried they pushed me back claiming a visa. As usual the guard got on and collected all
the passports. After half an hour the driver came to me and asked me to follow him. When I
got off I froze up; it was 2 am of a cold winter night in Serbia, but shortly I reached
the warm container of the border guards. As I thought they wanted a visa, but I
stood the ground saying I didn't need. I had to be confident if I wanna got in Kosovo. At
the end they told me something I didn't understand, I signed some documents, paid 5
euro and got a piece of paper written in cyrillic . 10 hours later I was in that charming beautiful Prizren.
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