Bosnia and Herzegovina

Mostar, Bosnia

Bosnia was not scheduled on our original itinerary, but in the true nature of this sort of travel, slated items are always subject to change. After Santorini, we took a ferry back to Athens and had a flight out of the Athens airport to Dubrovnik. We got to our hostel after 10 p.m., but were greeted with a “slightly alcoholic drink” (it was straight brandy with a dollop of honey) from a kind and friendly elderly couple in their kitchen. (More on the hostel and Dubrovnik to come). Alcohol was consumed, a slideshow was presented and before we knew it, we were signed up for a trip to Bosnia with our hostel and scheduled to leave at 9:00 a.m. the next morning! Man, what a convincing sales pitch. Bret the Canadian also came in mid-presentation to sign up for the trip and said that it would be a great way for everyone in the hostel to get to know each other. We couldn’t turn down Bret the Canadian!

Kravica, Bosnia

After a brief night of exploring in Old City, Dubrovnik, which landed us at an Irish pub with some (more) Canadians we met on our flight, we called in a night to get up for our bus in the morning. Eighteen people from our hostel + the hostel owner (the son of the family whose kitchen we found ourselves in) came along for the Bosnia trip. The first stop was at a local fruit stand along the way to sample, well, local fruits! Nothing out of the ordinary, peaches and plums and grapes (all amazing fresh and delicious). The next stop was the town of Kravica, Bosnia to swim in waterfalls. This place was-a pretty well kept secret and with the exception of our group and some locals, it was not crowded at all. The area was littered with dragonflies and the water was freezing, but well worth the dip to gain access to the groves behind the waterfalls.

After the waterfalls, we had lunch at a place called Udovice, where we had lamb, potatoes, salad, cheese, chocolate cake (not to mention amazing wine and brandy).

The next stop was Mostar (pictured at the top of the post), a Muslim town, to see jumpers jump off of the Stari Most (Old Bridge), which is a reconstruction of a 16th-century Ottoman bridge that crosses the Neretva river. In the “jumper’s club,” we had coffee and Turkish delight, while we paged through the signatures of the jumpers. While walking back to the bus, I got into a conversation with a perfume salesman sitting at a table under an umbrella on the side of the road (who thought I was Mexican). “You are from New York?! I do not believe it. Why do you come to Bosnia? There’s nothing here!” Au contraire, perfume salesman, au contraire.