Sarajevo - Bosnia
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2007
1
14
24
Trip End
Ongoing
Sarajevo,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Friday, August 17, 2007
I (Ants) hitched a ride with Paula & Digger into Bosnia while Cy went back to pick up the van with Zeke and Jen, good lad. On the way to Sarajevo we stopped at Morstar for a nosey. What an amazing place, buildings have been shot to bits and bombed, all very sombering for we kiwis who have never experienced anything like that in our lives. Also stopped by the Morstar bridge which was bombed and then rebuilt. A popular place for men to prove their bravery by leaping from it into the river below though none of our boys were keen. Experience was marred by Astro and Susie's van being broken into but luckily nothing important was taken ie passports, money.
After that we followed the river to Sarajevo, very scenic drive. Found a great campsite (nice and cheap, how we like them!)
Mostar bridge
. Then my day as a single woman was over as Cy joined us that night with the Krankenwagon, now able to change gears without a single grind.The next day we headed into Sarajevo and wandered around. Partook of the local food - like extra long sausage rolls but so much better, hmmmm. We booked onto a tour of the city, were taken out to the famous tunnel that the citizens had built to link Sarajevo to free Bosnia and sneak in supplies. The rest of the tour was a bit of a let down though - we had sketchy ideas of what the war was about and were hoping for some more information but our tour guide wasn't that informative, oh well. We did find out that the whole town was surrounded by the invading serbs except for the runway which the UN held as neutral peace keapers (not too popular with the locals) but this allowed a means for the locals to get to and from the rest of bosnia, via the tunnel. 10 000 sarejevo citizens and fighters (apparently anyone who owned a rifle was a fighter) were killed in the seige and the town is still a wreck bullet holes and burnt out buildings everywhere but the rebuild is well on its way.
A beer later and Cy, myself, Hamish and Katie, and Paula and Digger decided to check out the football game that night - Sarajevo vs Kiev. The crowd was huge, very passionate, singing chants, waving massive banners and flags
Sarejevo v Kiev soccor
. Final score - 1-0 to the visiters so we left with a few minutes to go as we were sitting in away team area and didn't want any after match trouble.Next day, Zeke, Jen, Bambam and Leila joined us at the campsite but we decided to leave because they smell funny - joke! They stayed to do the touristy thing while the rest of us pushed on back towards Croatia. We stopped just outside Morstar for the coldest swim I have ever had in my life! We followed the river to its source where it came out of the mountains and jumped in - on such a hot day it was fantastic but less than 5 seconds in and I lost all feeling in my fingers and toes.
Back in Croatia and we decided to head towards the penisula of Ston and to check out the diving, something we were keen to do all van tour.
More to come.
Ants & Cy
