Our journey started on the freezing cold morning at the end of November. It was probably one of the coldest morning I had experienced since I had been here. The plan was to leave from Ljubljana at 5am and drive through Croatia to Bosnia. We had such a beautiful mornings to drive! Then again I don't think I have been driving around with the car at 6 am that often :)
The closer we got to Bosnia the more e got snow! Finally some sign of winter over here! I did regret missing snow and cold when we got to Bosnia tho, cause it was freezing! Yes I am from Finland but believe it or not, I feel cold aswell! And I didn't bring my proper winter jacket along with me cause I didn't think it was going to be that cold. Stupid child.
When we finally reached Sarajevo I was the one who was driving. I toke one wrong turn and got stuck in to traffic jam. I had no idea where I was and I was hating the traffic and bosnian drivers. I was hungry, tired and completely lost. The street were small, there was cars everywhere and the navigator was not useful not so ever! It was taking us to street which did not exist or you could not simply driver there. I was completely furious so Margarida had to take over the car and find a parking for us. After many wrong twist and turns we finally found a garage to park our car to and went look for our hostel. Unfortunately we thought the hostel was a bit closer to our parking place that it was and we ended up walking 20 min to get there.
As a student you want to save money when you travel right? Well so did we and what would be better way to cut cost than choose the cheapest hostel in town. Hostel Ljubicica 4€ per night, right in the center and that place was really worth the price! The reception was a like a small smoking room filled with smoke and it was cold inside the hostel. One hostel guest told us that the hostel is illegal and that's why it was so cheap, not sure what he meant by that. I didn't take any photos inside the hostel but this is what our front yard looked like:
The day continued with lunch and sight seeing which basically meant walking around the center, town hall, visiting mosque, catholic and orthodox church. And it was so cold! But how can one country be so cheap! I bought super cute glows for 2€, loved them!
The visit to mosque was actually very interesting. We had to do it all proper way, take our shoes of and wear a scarf over our heads. It was very spiritual. One gentleman was kind enough to show us around a little, talk about his religion and tell about his role in mosque. It was really special.
Finally we also had to buy some bosnian beer for the evening. When we got to the hostel earlier that day it was completely empty but luckily in the evening people found their way back. Meeting new people in the hostels are the sweetest thing really. I had an interesting conversation with an american 30-something jazz artist who support himself with music. Also met a canadian pack packer, 17-year old norwegian guy and group of polish erasmus students from Zagreb. They were no fun tho :p
Dasha told me before I left that Bosnian food is great and it sure is! For lunch we had some Bosnian burek. Burek is originally from Bosnia and other countries have made their own version of it and now my Slovenian burek has been ruined forever! I loved it before but now that I know what the REAL burek taste like, its hard to go back...it was delicious! And again, cost like nothing. In the evening we had dinner in another Bosnian restaurant and had another Bosnian typical dish ćevapčići. Can I just say yum yum yum!
After a long day of traveling we had big plans to go out and all. We asked from reception for good place for drinks. Unfortunately I can not recall the name of the place, Popular it was for sure since the place was packed! But since we couldn't find a place to sit we decided to change our location to another pub across the street. I could not help myself but order a Sommersby since I saw it was on the list, god I miss cider! We were all really tired after long day even tho I really wanted to go out we decided to go back to the hostel after one drink. Tomorrow was a new day!
Plans for our day 2 was to check out the Tunnel of war. Before that 5 girls could not help but to do some shopping! Christmas presents, souvenirs for family etc. I for example found gorgeous bright orange Urban headphones. They made me too happy and I just had to buy them, even tho I don't actually have an ipod thanks to Pivo race and Companieros.
So the day started well but didn't quite continue the way we had hoped for... First of all when we eventually got back to the parking lot to get our car, we were not quite prepared the amount we were supposed to pay. Pretty much everyone had already ran out of cash but after turning all our wallets upside down for every penny we had, we managed to pay. The second obstacle we faced was finding the Tunnel of war. We cursed our GPS several time during our search and we ended up driving the same streets up and down so many times. We knew that it was a little bit outside of the center, about 15min drive or so but it was impossible. We asked directions from locals but the could not help cause it was so complicated to enplane. Out of some miracle we finally found our way to the tunnels but I tell you this, if you want to go to the tunnels, just take a tour guide. You will save a lot of time, effort and sanity.
My expectations of the place was that its a big bunker tunnel but it was surprisingly small... Just a short tunnel really. But they had some other cool stuff. In one room there was a short document about the war in Sarajevo and how the tunnels were build. On the other room they had some original stuff from war such as uniforms, boxes, bags and etc.
I think the motto of our trip is fucking lost all the time cause that is what were the most time! It was impossible! We reached Mostar and we hadn't actually booked a hostel. It was already dark, there no street sign, seriously I'm not kidding, not one! The GPS was not helpful and I don't know, god it was a mess! We stopped a taxi driver who promised to drive us to one of the hostel which was great! I'm not going to any details since this post is going be ridiculously long anyway but lets just say it didn't quite go they we had planned it. No surprise tho, it seems nothing goes the way we had planned in this trip! The first hostel we found was a summer hostel=closed but we got really really lucky the second one: Hostel Miran. It was cheap, I think 10€ per night(?), clean, warm and great staff. The owner of hostel was Miran was very helpful and great at his work. He really made us feel like immediately, asking who we are, where are we from and telling about his stories and history of the city of Mostar. Mostar was seriously damaged because of the war, a lot of people died, including Mirans father, grandfather and uncle. He was only 16 year old when the war started. The way he told his stories made chills run down to my bag. Ofcourse I have been studying history at school and everything but actually hearing the stories from personal point of view is quite something different.
On our third and final day of the our trip we attended to war walking tour organized by Miran. He toke us places where we would not have definitely gone without a guide. Abandoned houses and apartment-building ruined over bombing and bullet holes, hearing all the stories what had happened and I don't know...it was overwhelming. I can highly recommend Hostel Miran and his war walking tour, it's really worth it. After the tour we had lunch together and I have no idea what I ate but it was heavenly delicious. After the lunch we had to say good bye to our new friend and continue our journey. There was still one stop before starting our journey back to Ljubljana: holy Catholic place where Virgin Maria appeared.
Lost lost lost LOST AGAIN! I could just through the bloody GPS somewhere were sun is not shining, seriously how hard is it to work it was supposed to. And really it was so frustrating cause obviously we didn't have a map or a clue where we were supposed to go and we didn't know if should or should not trust the navigator. After reaching Croatia and driving highway everything started going wrong AGAIN! Part of the highway was closed so we had to take detour and mother fucking detour it was because we made another wrong turn ending up on Croatian cost and there is only one road there. On top of that it was stormy and very very windy. All of us where more or less freaking out over the weather. We actually stopped in local police station to ask second opinion if it was safe to keep driving. The only positive thing was that we had more than enough gas.
After hours of drive we did reach Slovenia alive. But Slovenian people have a sick sense of humor. They had a warning sign 'watch out for deer' beside the road, yes that's normal, but after driving for a while I got heart attack cause there was a deer near the road and I hit the brakes only to realize that the deer was actually fake! And there was not only but at least two of them! Seriously, not cool.
We dropped Kata to Koper, south of Slovenia, and headed up to Ljubljana. The trip would not be perfect without one last problem which was that highway from Koper to Ljubljana was partly closed. Of course it was I should have seen that coming up. At that point I was too tired to care cause it was so so late. I think around 3-4am or so. My bed had never as lovely as it was when I finally got home.
Oh now I actually lied it! It was not the last problem we had. The final one was that I forgot my phone in the car! Amazing. Margarida picked my phone tho so it was all good all good.
Thank you girls for amazing trip! It was definitely not perfect but as I was traveling with such positive people it didn't matter. Looking forward to our up coming adventures together xx
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