I haven’t written anything for a while and it’s not due to a lack of material, events, sights, knowledge gained or utter debauchery, as there has been plenty of that. It’s due to lack of free time, I’ve been one busy dude! Hahaha
Leaving Dubrovnik was really really hard for me. I could have spent another month there. Staying at Villa Divine was the best choice of the trip. It was the best environment I have ever encountered. I had a daily routine of getting up whenever the hell I wanted, grabbing some coffee and breakfast, chatting with 5-10 different people staying at the hostel to see what was going on, flirting with all of the lovely the girls that worked there, then heading to the beach with a bottle of wine, a book, and my hammock, come back home, reflect a bit and then meet up with some people and hit the streets in search of some good food and later a rowdy bar. It was glorious. Here are some photos of my routine in sequential order
I’ve still kept in touch with about 10 people that I met during my stay there. We want to have an annual meet up somewhere in the world, I hope it really happens! I booked for 2 nights and ended up staying 5.
On my last day they were 100% booked out, however the owner himself and a girl from the hostel made this offer…
I happily accepted it and slept in the hallway. The owner put the bed frame together for me just for that night. I told him I could really just sleep in my hammock on the beach, but he insisted that he wanted me to be more comfortable than that. Hospitality level was through the roof at this place!! I loved everything about it! I knew I needed to see some more of Europe and use my rail pass, there is too much to see and learn over here, too many people to meet, and too many experiences to be had to stay in one place for too long.
So I took a bus to Mostar, Bosnia since virtually no train lines cross the western Balkan countries boarders. It was a really beautiful city and the hostel was pretty inviting, but I was still in that Croatian style of thought and living. So laid back and absolutely care free.
The city of Mostar was really pretty. It is the East meets West of Europe. The blend of Eastern Orthodox, Muslim and Roman Catholic. It was very evident in their architecture as well as food and atmosphere. You could literally cross a street and it was is if you crossed into another country. I went on a 10 hour tour with the Hostel owner’s brother around Mostar. The owner and her brother had both made it out of Bosnia during the war, but wanted to return home after the war was over. Their stories were extremely depressing and sad, but they were just happy to be alive and loved sharing what they had experienced, both the owner and her brother said that sharing what happened had a therapeutic effect.
They had to cleverly disguise the torture, one method was to feed people in camps boiling hot soup, making them eat it when it was boiling or starve to death and then making the claim to the UN that these people, just couldn’t wait to eat, it was their own faults. People burned holes in their own throats doing this, that was disturbing to learn, people can be so evil its sickening. This place was the closest thing to an active war zone I have ever been in, quite the culture shock coming from my previous daily routine. Crazy it was only a bus ride away, this place felt worlds apart.
We did go to the waterfalls during the tour, which were pretty dope, something I felt more at ease experiencing.
The next day me and some friends I had made went to what is known as “The Sniper’s nest” which is kind of strange seeing as there were many buildings used by Croatian Nationalists as snipers nests. This one is just more famous than any other, probably because it was the tallest building in the city, it used to function as a bank up until around 1992…
Sometimes the gate is open to enter other times you have to climb the fence, it was open the day we went…
Notice the lady in her Kitchen? How about this place for a view? Also very interesting to see is the ultimate dichotomy between brand new beautiful buildings juxtaposed by bombed out, decaying, and overgrown ones surrounding. That’s normal in the city for Mostar in 2016, 20 years since the end of the war.
My guide told us that all of the new and nice buildings were paid for by the Croatian government. He claims that the “Bosnian national government has turned their back on the city of Mostar.” Apparently to play on the only decent soccer field in town you have to sign contracts written in Croatian, not Bosnian.
Side note, the Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian languages are extremely similar, much closer than any other group of languages on the this planet…This was super confusing for me, because the couple of phrases I’d learned during my 2 weeks in Croatia caused me to stand out like an Australian in America. The exception being they all don’t really like each other, whereas we are cool with Australians. So I was honestly afraid to use any of the language that I’d learned for fear of offending or upsetting some locals when I was in Bosnia and Serbia, I just stuck to good ol’ English.
My tour guide claimed nothing bothered him, he claimed Bosnian people were too resilient and that nobody could upset them, no matter how unfair the circumstances. “We say fuck you” with a smile on our faces was one of the lines I recall. These undertones of hatred were something I felt was buried within everyone in Mostar, still boiling up and seeping out occasionally,no matter how hard they tried to cover it all up and act cool about it. I know I couldn’t be cool about it, it was horrendously unimaginable and inhuman things that happened only 20 years ago. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what living through and being directly effected by such things would do to me as a person. I just know that I make every effort not to lie or cover things up with a fake smile. Honestly is the best and healthiest policy in life.
Another example of buried hatred I saw was what I deduced to be the countries motto, as it can be found everywhere:
Don’t Forget
Do Forgive
Forever
I feel this even has a subtle undertone of hatred, something is off about it. It is similar to a quote that I like from a famous psychologist, Thomas Szasz, this quote says,
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
Which I 100% agree with, the way they say it in Bosnia, ending with “Forever” to me kinda stands out as a really bitter, unforgiving end to a seemingly peaceful motto. Hell, could just be a translation error though?? haha I don’t really know, just something I picked up on during my time there.
Anyway it was truly insane to walk around in what used to be the cities largest bank around the time I was born. I was still able to find 100’s of .223 rounds lying in broken glass and sulfate attacked cement. Some of the graffiti on the walls made arm my hair stand on end. It was an eerie place to explore, never been anywhere like it.
After checking out the sniper’s nest we all caught a bus to Sarajevo. The ride was gorgeous. I wish I had known they had such cool little mountain towns sitting on lakes, would have really liked to stopped off and stayed there.
Made it to Sarajevo and went right to my hostel, the other three people I was with were in a different hostel, unfortunately. My place was super cool though. It was called the doctors house hostel, I’d recommend it. Met some really rad people at the hostel and played some fun games and chilled at the hostel.
Apparently two of the British dudes we were playing Cards Against Humanity with had a good looking German boss…I sent her that photo with no explanation hahaha, the Brit’s insisted it would be funny. I hope they still have their jobs when they get back seeing as they were like 30 and their boss was apparently a happily married women with kids.
Went on a walking tour which was pretty insightful. The city was under a siege for 44 months about 11,500 people were killed during this time. People lived in basements and ate food provided to them by the UN that was so spoiled even the worms and maggots that once thrived in their had died and dried up. The joke of the city is that everyone living their was missed by somebody….a sniper! Hahaha kinda dark, but at least they joke about it. The overall tone was definitely lighter than Mostar, but still pretty somber.
This is the corner where Franz Ferdinand was shot kicking off WWI.
These are known as Sarajevo roses, they are over 100 throughout the city and are made of shrapnel from grenades or other artillery that killed at least 3 people. They are subtle reminders of the war, Don’t Forget, Do Forgive, Forever.
Walking the bob sled track
Honestly my highlight of Sarajevo was the fact that Tall Peter, a guy I had met in Dubrovnik flew over from Split to meet up with me. Other than that the weather matched the overall feel that I got from Bosnia, somewhat dark and dreary. It’s still too fresh of a wound for blue skies there.
This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy my time there. Because I did, if I could go back and do it all over again I would take the same exact route. I learned so much and gained a new level of appreciation for how great my life has been currently is and will continue to be. It was just a stark and surprising contrast from the neighboring countries that I had already visited. In my opinion nobody “wins” at the end of a gnarly civil war, like the Yugoslav war, however, in my opinion Bosnia definitely lost this war.
-Cbutter
cbutter107 