Alright back after some R&R, rest and more rest that was not on a bus, so here we go again with another poorly written entry. There’s just too much to talk about to worry about grammar!
First things I got wrong or forgot to mention in my extremely tired state last night:
- The little town in Montenegro we stayed in was called Rozaje and the hotel was 5 stars not 4. Regardless, it was a warm comfy bed, a wonderful bathrobe, and delicious breakfast the next day
- Driving up to the Serb/Kosovo border (quotes around it depending on if you recognize the border or not, the Serb guard definitely didn’t) there was this amazingly beautiful man-made lake that went on forever.
- On the way into Prishtina we saw the Clinton statue, that was pretty cool.
- You should really not let IAF majors spend that much time together on a bus, we go a bit loopy in an incredibly fun kind of way
- Did you know “you can’t get there (Serbia) from here (Serbian soil at Kosovo/Serbian border)?” when you’re standing on the border of Kosovo and Serbia, technically on the Serbian side? Apparently I missed something in physics class
- We had 3 options at that crossing: 1) whine at the US embassy to get them to force us through which would’ve likely taken a few days 2) try for the cooperative committee 3) Montenegro
- The Yugoslav team came in 3rd or 4th in that first world cup. A third place game may or may not have been played and records are shaky. FIFA recognizes it as 4th.
Alright back to the epic
Yesterday morning we took a few minutes after breakfast to explore the town quickly before getting on the road again. We’d been given a later call time of 10am (thank you!) so everyone could catch up on some rest that was not in a bus, especially since it was about 10:30, 11pm if memory serves me right, by the time we arrived. It is quite a little town but quaint. Today the scenery has been just as beautiful, although it’ was different in Montenegro. In Montenegro, it’s all mountains that are extraordinarily sheer. The trees seem to hang on for dear life to prevent sliding down into the gorges below. Also, they’re mostly untouched. Every now and then you’ll see where some farmer has decided to fight the odds and carved a home out of the mountainside but generally, it is untouched by man except for the road. One can understand why people, especially the Turks had trouble conquering here – it’s just flat out hard to maneuver. We were a much more subdued group at the border crossing between Montenegro and Serbia. Usually the call to prepare our passports gets everyone out of their drowsy dozing, book reading, movie watching, and general window gazing and we all jovially hang out for a bit before going back to our little worlds aka naps. This time however, everyone was quiet on their own volition, everyone was a bit tense to see if we’d get through. After passing out of Montenegro with ease, it was time for the Serbian side. This too went relatively smoothly, and our passports came back with a big stamp over our Kosovo one. The only hang-up was that they’d missed some of the fainter ones so we had to take those passports back to be annulled. Thus began our driving day, stopping only for snack and bathroom breaks for the rest of the day. The only point of excitement was when our bus began to make funny noises, and memories of being stuck on the side of a Serbian highway flooded back for all. After a quick stop it turned out the bus was fine, but we did have to stop for gas (only time I’ve seen us stop for gas the whole time – our bus is apparently MAGIC and runs on adventure!).
For dinner we stopped in Mokra Gora. For those of you who knew my itinerary before I left this should sound vaguely familiar. It’s where we were originally supposed to sleep last night; we were just a day late. We dined at Drvengrad, a theoretically and mostly wooden city built by director Emir Kusturica for his film Life is a Miracle. It was a cute little townish thing but definitely a tourist trap. Regardless, it was delicious and home style, most things came in a personalize crock pot type thing. After the wood town we headed for Bosnia. This crossing was blissfully uneventful, so much so that there’s nothing to mention. On the way to our hotel we stopped to see the bridge over the Drina in Visegrad. I’m currently reading The Bridge over the Drina about a version of this bridge (I haven’t finished yet, savoring it since its my only ‘for fun’ book on the trip, but rumor has it the bridge doesn’t make it). It was dark but still really cool to see what I’d been reading about. I somehow pictured the Drina being bigger and the mountains being taller, more like those in Montenegro. Even though it seemed less epic in real life than in my imagination, it was still interesting to see the town where my book is taking place. We all knew it wasn’t far at this point and we we’re anxiously waiting to get off the bus. After taking bets on when we’d actually arrive, since we’ve all learned to add several hours to whatever Dragan estimate we get, we could practically feel how close we were. Then, Prof. Sullivan started laughing as we stopped for our last gas/snack/what now break – and not in a good haha funny way, in a this-is-so-unbelievable-all-we-can-do-is-laugh sort of way. There is a rockslide. We were about 20 km away from our hotel in Sarajevo (so a 20-30 minute ride likely) and could not get there because the road is now closed. Instead, we detour yet again. This time it’s much less extensive and we still arrive at the hotel about an hr later, around 12:15 in the morning. For this last part of the bus ride we just let loose. After over 12 hours on a bus in one day, let alone the day before there was nothing else to do. It was one of our classmates birthdays and we had to at least send him off in style. So for that last hour, almost on one was in their seat, either crammed together at the front of the bus or random dance partying in the aisle – again thank you to our driver being amazing for putting up with us, let alone for driving this long! After getting checked into the hotel (there are no elevators L at this one either) and grabbing the internet password we retreated to our rooms for much needed rest.
Note: I'm going to upload a bunch of pictures from the last few days all at once later today but now I need to get ready to start our Sarajevo adventure
See! here they are
See! here they are
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