Two days ago we arrived to Pula. We were a little exhausted and so it was good to stay in one place for more than a day. Seppel is going to stay here one more week for the TransHackMeeting, I’ll probably be here some more weeks. Here is the report of our hitchhiking tour through Croatia and Bosnia – again a lotta text. Do people really want to read all this? I’ll try to keep it short (haha), but there was just too many things happening:
From Pula to Rijeka (2004-06-11): Our last odyssey in mind we had mixed feelings about this route. We started quite late in the afternoon, but everything went well. From the roundabout in the centre of Pula we were taken by a young man in his tuned BMW to a crossing 15 km outside. Like many pupils here he used to hitchhike to school a lot. After a little while a construction engineer took us to a motorway crossing near an emergency lay-by. From there a professional basketball player living in Berlin and running a little tourism business in a town nearby took us all the way to a service area just outside Rijeka. We stood there for a while and walked on along the motorway a bit until a young breathtaking woman just finishing her psychology studies picked us up at a drive-up and took us some kilometres around Rijeka. Spellbound we got off the car, walked a bit on and because it got dark we looked for a little green near the motorway, put up our tent, had dinner and went to sleep.
From Rijeka to Bihac/Bosnia (2004-06-12): Our spot to start was quite bad, because we were on the motorway already. We walked up the road a bit and back because we didn’t find anywhere where cars could stop and see us long enough beforehand. After two or three hours a Bosnian guy on his way to near Bihac picked us up. Actually we were going to go to Zagreb and on to Serbia, but why not Bosnia? After three hours drive we stopped for food in the first town in Bosnia. Our driver was a bit in a hurry and went on. When we were going to pay the waitress told us he already had paid for all of us. What a sincere man! We walked on through the town a bit. Bosnia feels more like Serbia than Croatia. The war has left its marks on the people, the buildings and the economy. When we started hitchhiking the second car stopped and took us two villages further. Waiting for half an hour and a window maker in a small Dacia with no English at all stopped. Trying not to break any of the wooden laths in his car we went some more kilometres and stopped at a little cafe-bar place. He insisted on paying for our beer and let us off in the next village. From there we walked a bit trough the Alp-like countryside. People bringing in there hay all around. Then Elvira, a young woman on her way to a town near Bihac stopped while talking to someone on the phone. With her still talking on the phone we went on. There was water in the petrol of the car, so the engine kept stopping. She could not speak much English, but she obviously was delighted to have so strange passengers onboard. We got off and a shady looking guy brought us into Bihac. He was very friendly and in a good mood. We had a little walk through town and crossed the river Una and bought some food. We went to the road to Banja Luka and after a very short time a car stopped with squeaking tires. We got into the car and the young driver speeded up. He said he is doing a race and he overtook before bends and hills at a very high speed. Also I had the feeling he is not fully aware of everything that’s happening around him. [..] We were telling him we are very afraid, he replied that he is, too.. Panic!! After begging him and his girlfriend for a while they would eventually stop and let us off. Pretty shocked we decided not to go on. We found a small camping ground near the river and went to bed after a little dinner. It started raining at night.
From Bihac / Bosnia to Sarajevo (2004-06-13): We walked from the camp ground to the small road to Banja Luka and waited in the rain infront of a tiny bus stop like shop only selling one type of cigarettes and one type of beer. It had no customers in the hour that we waited there. Were we scaring away the people? A man took us in his old Lada the windy path with many rocks on the road to a town 20 km further. We warmed up and had some really cheap and rich food in a muslim fast food place. While walking to a good spot to go on we noticed a big jeep of an German aid association. We thought they would give two Germans some aid by giving a lift but “nix!” accompanied by a shaking pointing finger was everything we could get out of the Bosnian driving crew. We tramped further though the rainy town until a young man picked us up and gave us a lift to the next village. No car stopped and our clothes were soaked so we decided to stop a bus to Banja Luka. We had a little tour through town, it was still cold and wet. We went to an Internet cafe and found out that if we go south a bit lovely sun and high temperatures are waiting for us. We discarded our Serbia plans and took the bus to Sarajevo late at night.
From Banja Luka to somewhere near Metcovic / Croatia: We arrived to Sarajevo early in the morning. After another little rainy city tour trough the cute city centre with medieval shopping streets we took a bus to Mostar. We stepped out of the bus at high noon. There it was, burning sun and tropic temperatures – yes! 🙂 We walked through the city, passing by houses, lampposts, gates riddled from bullets of various sizes coming from all sides. We had a small meal, observed the summery street life and circled the city along the bypass road. At the end we got our first lift from a truck driver on this tour. It was a farmer with a small lorry carrying vegetables. He pointed to some ruins along the road and told us Serbs used to live there. He himself was Muslim. He left us at a wide crossing near the Croatian border. From there an older French smokers couple in a rented car took us to the road towards north Croatia. After some walking and waiting for lifts on the quiet road an older man coming back from cultivating his garden brought us some kilometres north towards Split. He let us off at his village. It was dark now, so we looked for a nice spot for our camp. There was a beautiful lake not far from the sea. [photo] Listening to the frog’s drowsy chant we fell asleep.
Still more text to come, please check back later..