Welcome to Sarajevo

Trip Start May 24, 2005
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Trip End Ongoing


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Sunday, July 17, 2005

One day. Most of it spent sweating half our body weight on two, un-air conditioned, eight hour bus journeys. The scenery was very pretty - much like you might expect a traditional Swiss Alpine village to look like: forested hillsides; houses with steeply sloping rooves and window boxes spilling red and purple summer flowers; gardens carefully manicured with many a small orchard bearing fruit.

One afternoon. Not long, but enough to see the Tunnel D-B museum just outside of Sarajevo, which provides a chilling reminder of how the international community stood by as the Bosnian Serb forces laid seige to the city for 43 months, depriving it for long stretches of water, food, electricity and communications. The tunnel created a channel for such aid (but mostly for weapons and ammunition for the resisting Bosnian army) and 20 metres of it still exists, the rest having collapsed some time ago. We stand for a while by the taxi, looking over to the airport that was once captured by Serb forces, then taken over by the UN, and which now, in the light of a July evening in 2005, lies quiet as the hills that once hid Serbian troops.

One evening. Even as the light fails, you can make out the scars of war in the city: pock-marked buildings and pavements with round holes. But the cafes in the centre hum with youth drinking coffee and eating cake into the small hours. Youth is breathing life into city.

One blot in the landscape. Our Croatian landlady, Yasmina, who accosted us at the bus station, struck a decent deal then proceeded to up the price every time we spoke to her, talking fast and free, wheeling and dealing and eventually leaving us high and dry without breakfast sandwiches or a taxi to the bus station in the morning. But that, thankfully, is no reflection on Sarajevo.
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