From Croatia to Mostar
As soon as we got into car, I knew that this was going to be something amazing. There is a great group of hyperactive people who can talk for hours in a fast way and still manage not to bore you and from the very first second I was sure that Tijana belonged to that group. She studied in an American school in Sarajevo if I remember correctly and because of that can speak English very fluently; but no, it wasn’t a thing of language, it’s more about her personality.
Her level of energy was one of the highest I have ever seen in a person; like the sun constantly producing energy through the nuclear reactions occurring at its core, her cells seemed to work with the nutritients in a rather different way than an average human body cell, somehow much more efficient than mine for example. We found out that she is an orchestra conductor, just think about how much the chance to meet a female orchestra conductor through hitchhiking actually is? Well, nothing is impossible, or to put it a la Napoleon the word impossible doesn’t exist in Bosnian. She conducted orchestra for the musical “King Lear”, to which also Angelina Jolie attended; so she had a photo with her actually. What made it funnier for us however was the fact that we had talked about Angelina the day before in a rather strange manner. Dorota seemed thoughtful at some moment and I asked: What are you thinking of? To which she replied in a simple and cool manner: “I’m thinking of Angelina Jolie”. Hmm yes exactly one of those issues we think of everyday. But apparently she just foresaw that we were going to meet someone who met Angelina, not bad girl, not bad.
So we entered Bosnia through a very small border gate seeming like in the middle of nowhere and although at some point Tijana mixed up the roads, a new highway was being built and she was trying to make use of it, she figured it out in the end how to go to Mostar. Actually she was driving to Sarajevo, the city where she lives but since Mostar is also on the way she could drop us there. We passed through some very sparsely populated small villages of Hercegovina, looking very quiet and peaceful. Mainly churches were to be seen until Mostar and that’s because we were going through the Croatian territory of Bosnia. The most interesting thing about Bosnia is its multi-religiousness; Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy share the land quite fairly. In a sense it’s the only country in ex-Yugoslavia still preserving the multiculturalist traditions of the old socialist regime, of course in a rather dialectic way, together but separate… Listening to the Bosnian singer Laka on the CD player, the time passed quite easily. Tijana was rather passionate about him, even jokingly expressing her wish to marry Laka in order to have the most creative and bright children ever :) Laka represented Bosnia in Eurovision too, by the way, something I vaguely remembered since generally I prefer to watch the voting part only. You can listen to one exemplary song of him from here; a song Tijana sang all the way.
We arrived to Mostar in the early evening, the sun was about to set. Tijana had to go on to Sarajevo but for us it was the end, so she dropped us out in the center of the city, very close to the old town, to be more specific just next to the tourist information. One crucial thing to mention is that she had given us her phone number, inviting us to stay at her flat when we were to be in Sarajevo, which was an important step in our wonderful experience of Bosnia and Sarajevo in particular, thanks to Tijana and Lelo, an unknown guy yet.
How we found the best hostel in town and met the best people
Like 99% of people Mostar was synonomous with the old bridge, Stari Most, before I went there. Considering that even the name of the town comes from the bridge (bridgekeeper) it's not a false impression actually. I recall that the opening ceremony of the rebuilt bridge which was aired on Turkish television since it was partly financed by Turkish government. The Ottoman bridge from late 16th century survived four centuries until finally getting destroyed by Croats during the war years. Just this fact can prove the blind stupidity of people of which Einstein was rightly sure, you should be really fucking dumb to bomb a 400 years old cultural heritage claiming that it was of strategical importance.
Mostar is very small, that it's the second-largest city of Bosnia and Hercegovina tells more about the small size and population of Bosnia than the bigness of Mostar. So one can walk from one end to another in a really short amount of time. The city is divided into two parts, the Muslim part around the Old Town and the Christian part which of course covers the church area. One can see a huge and really ugly-looking cross out of cement on a hill, erected recently in order to make Muslims angry. Hereby I have to agree with the founder of Turkish Republic: "I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea"
Where were we? Oh yes in front of the tourist information. As soon as we got out there was a sudden chaos, two women coming, rushing to Tijana's car and talking with her. After Tijana has gone, their aims became clear: To arrange a hotel for us. They were working for the tourist information and probably had agreements with some of the hotels/pensions but the prices they offered to us were unacceptable. So we moved on after thanking the ladies.
Of course mission one was to find the bridge and get a grasp of the town. We crossed the Stari Most on the river Neretva, where one can see the old town clearly. There were a number of tourists but most of them were again Turkish people, taking advantage of the long holiday. By then I was beginning to learn not to be surprised of seeing Turkish tourists :) As usual one question was in our minds: Where should we spend the night? On grass areas near the river perhaps?
We decided to give the hostels in the old town a try, hoping to find a very cheap one. The first four or five tries were rather unsuccessful, the room prices were simply too much for us. Of course our limit was very low too but anyway again just when it all seemed hopeless suddenly we have spotted an ugly looking sign with Omer Lakise, Rooms written on it. The buildings and the entrance with metal bars looked very creepy, giving us hope for a good price. So we went through the yard and rang the doorbell. We asked how much is one room for both of us but the answer she had given to us wasn't exactly satisfying. So we said that we could only give the half-price, which she accepted, with the agreement of the old man who came a little bit later. It was after the usual "Where are you from?" talk, and perhaps being from Turkey had its first benefit for us, who knows? The old man, Omer Lakise, showed us our room but before that I had to put my smelly shoes outside by the way. He began to talk in Turkish to me, as Elma later told me he learned it just from books, but anyway he could communicate quite well. Although he looked a little bit grumpy at first, we soon found out that he is a great man actually.
The room was perfect, very comfortable, and quite big with one double-size and two single beds. It was on the third floor where there were another room like ours and a quite decent bathroom, the bottom floor was saved for Omer and his daughter, Elma, the lovely woman who opened the door for us. The second floor had some rooms as well.
It was the shower time, with Dorota enjoying her privileges again, so when she was taking a shower I had the chance to take a look at the house. Just next to the bathroom I saw a small library, with many great classic books from German literature like Goethe and Schiller and some were even about meta-literature. Combining this knowledge with a certificate on which the words "Prof. Lakise" could be read I assumed that Mr.Lakise should be a professor for Germanistics, which turned out to be correct. In the bottom floor an article from Der Spiegel could also be seen, where there is a photo of the old professor showing around to German tourists. Well you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand that he has worked as a tourist guide as well.
After taking our showers, extremely happy about having a place to sleep and take showers, we went out for a walk and dinner of course. Dorota found the old town amazing with its Eastern flavor but for someone from Turkey I think it is not that interesting. It is pretty however you can't deny it. We had our dinner in one of those traditional restaurants. The Bosnian cousine is pretty much the same as Turkish one but unfortunately lacking in taste, in a relative way of course. So for me the dinner wasn't so good at all, maybe other restaurants were better who knows?
Soon our tiredness began to tell and it affected our moods badly so the evening was pretty uneventful, just sharing a beer while sitting on a platform at the entrance of the bridge. Before it got late we went back to our hostel and slept.
I woke up earlier than Dorota and after paying a visit to bathroom, saw the sweet Elma downstairs. She offered me coffee and we had a nice chat on the balcony at the second floor talking about her and politics in general. If I remember correctly she studied politics and law for license and master and she was in the process of finishing her thesis for PHD. According to what she told me, she normally lives in Zagreb, working for a German foundation, using her German skill acquired from her amazing father for sure. Of course the main topic of our chat was again the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the tragic experience of Bosniaks throughout the war. She said that the ugly looking buildings nearby were destroyed during bombings, her uncle used to live in one of them but then during the war years he escaped to USA. All in all it was a very nice chat with a very bright, intelligent and cultured woman, I enjoyed it very much.
When Dorota finally woke up she found us chatting downstairs. Together with Elma and Omer we discussed what to do and decided to go to Blagaj, a small village which seemed nice to us and also recommended by the then newly appointed Turkish consul of Mostar. The Turkish consulate in Mostar should be the best Turkish consulate in the world with very polite and helpful officials including the consul himself but anyway we went out for a walk, first to see some destroyed buildings according to the directions Elma gave to us and then find a way to go to Blagaj. A part of Mostar close to the front line is full of those buildings. I mean charapnel traces can be seen on almost any building in Bosnian cities but the buildings in Mostar were so much damaged, one can't imagine the hell people lived in back in the 90s. Dorota took lots of photos, her favourite theme in Bosnia. Having eaten our bureks however it was time for Blagaj.
It was the first day of Ramadan Feast so the buses to Blagaj didn't work at all. We were even not sure about using them at first but the fact that they weren't available led us to the one and only option: Hitchhiking. Going up to the main road to/from Sarajevo we began to hitchhike. We spent lots of time trying to do it and walked some to get out of the town. Fİnally a driver took us to Blagaj, although he was going to somewhere else he went just a little bit out of his way for us; it's a quite usual attitude in Balkans, by now it should be clear.
Our "hosts" ,Elma and Omer, had given us a card of one of their friends, Samir, who is in charge of a kind of museum/pension, a historical Ottoman house there in Blagaj. But as we are looking for house of Velagic we ended up in the wrong Velagic house since it seems that there are two different families with the surname Velagic in Blagaj. However the wrong Villa Velagic turned out to be the right one for us; we asked a man we saw if Samir is there, he said it is the other Velagic but invited us kindly inside. It was the first day of Ramadan so his wife had cooked "baklava" so we had sweeties out of nowhere, and of course something to drink as well.
The man was the owner of Villa Velagic, a very nice villa with very comfortable and modern rooms for tourists near the Buna river whose spring is in Blagaj by the way. He spent something like five years in Turkey during the war years since Croats told him either you go away or we kill you, so he made the reasonable choice of coming to Turkey. Therefore he knew pretty decent Turkish and we talked in Turkish mostly, a great feeling to be able to speak your mother tongue with other people. After some time we thanked him and said goodbye. On the way out he made an interesting comment: "How come a Turk be friends with a foreign girl? What we have learned is a Turk never becomes friends with girls." Was it just the bad image of Turks or his Islamic beard, I don't know. But what I know that he is a great represantative of Balkan hospitality. Thanks Kemal!
So back to the mission. This time we knew how to get there and soon found Samir inside the Ottoman house with a huge garden with some bungalows on it. We told him that we are staying at Omer Lakise's pension and gave him the regards of Elma and Omer. He chatted with us for a while but then had some things to do so after very little time there we moved on to see the tekije (tekke) and the spring.
Tekije was closed for restauration and the spring didn't seem as beautiful as in the photos we saw and what people told us, I don't say that it wasn't beautiful but it was nothing extraordinary so we got disappointed with Blagaj a little bit. The spring is inside a cave and I tried to swim in the cold water of the river against the flow but unsuccessfully since the cold temperature of the water didn't allow me to swim speedily for long. After having some tea, we decided to go back to Mostar.
Our drivers this time were two very nice and funny young men working for the ecological center in Blagaj, Adnan and Ekrem. There is an ongoing ecological project for hawks in Blagaj so they work for that project. On the way to Mostar we stopped at a supermarket for some dog food. When we arrived to Mostar after a short ride it was already evening , Adnan and Ekrem, coolest people from Mostar offered us to drink beer together which we gladly accepted since we had really nothing to do. They took us to a comfortable and quiet pub where we had some beers and a chat. Of course they weren't lazy tourists like us so they had to go home soon but before that Adnan gave us his card so that in case we need any help in Mostar we could call him. In Dorota's language such a nice guys! I just hope that our ways come across again with all those nice people like Adnan and Ekrem. Many many thanks to you!
After saying goodbye to Adnan and Ekrem, we went on to eat some döner-like fast-food stuff if I can recall correctly. The rest of the evening was spent drinking the great Bosnian beer Sarajevsko bought from an oil station and having a look at the nightlife of Mostar; the youth seemed to have some real fun there. Actually we found some places just by following some young boys and girls at night :) Our last stop however was the green area near Neretva where all the young people of Mostar summon and drink together. It was fun observing them and also drinking the drinks of the guys sitting next to us, who left the drinks there and went away.
Before returning to the hostel, we went to have a look at a very interesting disco, the disco was carved up in a huge rock so you were basically inside a cave. Actually at first we went inside for toilet but then stayed there because of the nice atmosphere. The center of attraction was a dancing transsexual however, she was sadly beaten by some guys who told her to fuck off. Dorota and I were watching her dance and talk to some people. What however made fun for me was Dorota's explaination for the beating she got; "Dressing up like this she degrades the honour of manhood." she said :) I really miss those kind of racist/homophobic (just kidding of course) comments of Dorota, it made me laugh all the time.
When we went out of the disco and started to walk back to our hostel two street dogs decided to follow us and they just didn't leave us alone. We responded of course to their love and stroked them quite a while on street in front of our hostel. In return what we got were two barking dogs in order to protect us, quite touching. As emotional as it was for us, it must have been annoying for other people around. I say that because suddenly we saw a zombie coming out with a huge cleaning brush in her hand shouting. No way that old woman could be a human being anymore, she was definitely a zombie. We were scared to death as the dogs were and went to our pension immediately. Beware of old women in Mostar!
The first night we spent alone in the pension but the next two days people began to come to stay, although we didn't have much time to talk with them, we left our vodka bottle to French guys for example. They were on a world trip by cycling, a really common thing to do these days it seems. There were some other people as well but I can't remember exactly who they were. As we found out, Lakise's pension is mentioned in LonelyPlanet guides so by luck we have found the recommended pension in a guidebook without the guide itself. My advice to future travellers in Bosnia, don't take a guide or whatsoever, be spontaneous as much as you can, you'll see things will work out in best possible way :)
Third day was the day of hitchhiking to Sarajevo. But before that we decided to go to Pocitelj, a historical sight close to Mostar. I think it was that day I tried the buredzici,recommended by Adnan, sth. similar to our mantı, tasting nice but again not like ours, sorry fellow Bosniaks I'm a little nationalistic when it comes to couisine :)
So we packed all our stuff, leaving just our bags in the pension hitched to Pocitelj. The town had a nice citadel on top of a hill near Neretva. After drinking a tea at the roadside and talking to a Turkish tourist group afterwards we began to go up the hill. When we were climbing the stairs to the top of the citadel, a female tourist made the comment of the day: "You can go all the way to the very top". Hmm thanks lady for your very insightful comment, it was of great help :) We listened to her advice and after having a panoramic look upon the river of Neretva went down again. It was time for Sarajevo, as Tijana was waiting for us to come since we sent her an SMS stating that we are coming!
So we went back to Mostar, took our backpacks from the pension and said goodbye to our beloved Elma and Omer. We went up to the road to Sarajevo and tried to find a good hitching spot, which we could only find after getting totally out of town, near a petrol station again. After I paid a visit to the toilet of petrol station we didn't wait much to find a car. But it was much better than a normal car, we found the most interesting and coolest man of Sarajevo, Lelo
Looking back now, I believe that we had a huge huge luck in finding the best people out there. The great life story of Lelo and the unbelievable Tijana will be told in the next part, maybe the best one of the whole trip!
As soon as we got into car, I knew that this was going to be something amazing. There is a great group of hyperactive people who can talk for hours in a fast way and still manage not to bore you and from the very first second I was sure that Tijana belonged to that group. She studied in an American school in Sarajevo if I remember correctly and because of that can speak English very fluently; but no, it wasn’t a thing of language, it’s more about her personality.
Her level of energy was one of the highest I have ever seen in a person; like the sun constantly producing energy through the nuclear reactions occurring at its core, her cells seemed to work with the nutritients in a rather different way than an average human body cell, somehow much more efficient than mine for example. We found out that she is an orchestra conductor, just think about how much the chance to meet a female orchestra conductor through hitchhiking actually is? Well, nothing is impossible, or to put it a la Napoleon the word impossible doesn’t exist in Bosnian. She conducted orchestra for the musical “King Lear”, to which also Angelina Jolie attended; so she had a photo with her actually. What made it funnier for us however was the fact that we had talked about Angelina the day before in a rather strange manner. Dorota seemed thoughtful at some moment and I asked: What are you thinking of? To which she replied in a simple and cool manner: “I’m thinking of Angelina Jolie”. Hmm yes exactly one of those issues we think of everyday. But apparently she just foresaw that we were going to meet someone who met Angelina, not bad girl, not bad.
So we entered Bosnia through a very small border gate seeming like in the middle of nowhere and although at some point Tijana mixed up the roads, a new highway was being built and she was trying to make use of it, she figured it out in the end how to go to Mostar. Actually she was driving to Sarajevo, the city where she lives but since Mostar is also on the way she could drop us there. We passed through some very sparsely populated small villages of Hercegovina, looking very quiet and peaceful. Mainly churches were to be seen until Mostar and that’s because we were going through the Croatian territory of Bosnia. The most interesting thing about Bosnia is its multi-religiousness; Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy share the land quite fairly. In a sense it’s the only country in ex-Yugoslavia still preserving the multiculturalist traditions of the old socialist regime, of course in a rather dialectic way, together but separate… Listening to the Bosnian singer Laka on the CD player, the time passed quite easily. Tijana was rather passionate about him, even jokingly expressing her wish to marry Laka in order to have the most creative and bright children ever :) Laka represented Bosnia in Eurovision too, by the way, something I vaguely remembered since generally I prefer to watch the voting part only. You can listen to one exemplary song of him from here; a song Tijana sang all the way.
We arrived to Mostar in the early evening, the sun was about to set. Tijana had to go on to Sarajevo but for us it was the end, so she dropped us out in the center of the city, very close to the old town, to be more specific just next to the tourist information. One crucial thing to mention is that she had given us her phone number, inviting us to stay at her flat when we were to be in Sarajevo, which was an important step in our wonderful experience of Bosnia and Sarajevo in particular, thanks to Tijana and Lelo, an unknown guy yet.
How we found the best hostel in town and met the best people
Like 99% of people Mostar was synonomous with the old bridge, Stari Most, before I went there. Considering that even the name of the town comes from the bridge (bridgekeeper) it's not a false impression actually. I recall that the opening ceremony of the rebuilt bridge which was aired on Turkish television since it was partly financed by Turkish government. The Ottoman bridge from late 16th century survived four centuries until finally getting destroyed by Croats during the war years. Just this fact can prove the blind stupidity of people of which Einstein was rightly sure, you should be really fucking dumb to bomb a 400 years old cultural heritage claiming that it was of strategical importance.
Mostar is very small, that it's the second-largest city of Bosnia and Hercegovina tells more about the small size and population of Bosnia than the bigness of Mostar. So one can walk from one end to another in a really short amount of time. The city is divided into two parts, the Muslim part around the Old Town and the Christian part which of course covers the church area. One can see a huge and really ugly-looking cross out of cement on a hill, erected recently in order to make Muslims angry. Hereby I have to agree with the founder of Turkish Republic: "I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea"
Where were we? Oh yes in front of the tourist information. As soon as we got out there was a sudden chaos, two women coming, rushing to Tijana's car and talking with her. After Tijana has gone, their aims became clear: To arrange a hotel for us. They were working for the tourist information and probably had agreements with some of the hotels/pensions but the prices they offered to us were unacceptable. So we moved on after thanking the ladies.
Of course mission one was to find the bridge and get a grasp of the town. We crossed the Stari Most on the river Neretva, where one can see the old town clearly. There were a number of tourists but most of them were again Turkish people, taking advantage of the long holiday. By then I was beginning to learn not to be surprised of seeing Turkish tourists :) As usual one question was in our minds: Where should we spend the night? On grass areas near the river perhaps?
We decided to give the hostels in the old town a try, hoping to find a very cheap one. The first four or five tries were rather unsuccessful, the room prices were simply too much for us. Of course our limit was very low too but anyway again just when it all seemed hopeless suddenly we have spotted an ugly looking sign with Omer Lakise, Rooms written on it. The buildings and the entrance with metal bars looked very creepy, giving us hope for a good price. So we went through the yard and rang the doorbell. We asked how much is one room for both of us but the answer she had given to us wasn't exactly satisfying. So we said that we could only give the half-price, which she accepted, with the agreement of the old man who came a little bit later. It was after the usual "Where are you from?" talk, and perhaps being from Turkey had its first benefit for us, who knows? The old man, Omer Lakise, showed us our room but before that I had to put my smelly shoes outside by the way. He began to talk in Turkish to me, as Elma later told me he learned it just from books, but anyway he could communicate quite well. Although he looked a little bit grumpy at first, we soon found out that he is a great man actually.
The room was perfect, very comfortable, and quite big with one double-size and two single beds. It was on the third floor where there were another room like ours and a quite decent bathroom, the bottom floor was saved for Omer and his daughter, Elma, the lovely woman who opened the door for us. The second floor had some rooms as well.
It was the shower time, with Dorota enjoying her privileges again, so when she was taking a shower I had the chance to take a look at the house. Just next to the bathroom I saw a small library, with many great classic books from German literature like Goethe and Schiller and some were even about meta-literature. Combining this knowledge with a certificate on which the words "Prof. Lakise" could be read I assumed that Mr.Lakise should be a professor for Germanistics, which turned out to be correct. In the bottom floor an article from Der Spiegel could also be seen, where there is a photo of the old professor showing around to German tourists. Well you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand that he has worked as a tourist guide as well.
After taking our showers, extremely happy about having a place to sleep and take showers, we went out for a walk and dinner of course. Dorota found the old town amazing with its Eastern flavor but for someone from Turkey I think it is not that interesting. It is pretty however you can't deny it. We had our dinner in one of those traditional restaurants. The Bosnian cousine is pretty much the same as Turkish one but unfortunately lacking in taste, in a relative way of course. So for me the dinner wasn't so good at all, maybe other restaurants were better who knows?
Soon our tiredness began to tell and it affected our moods badly so the evening was pretty uneventful, just sharing a beer while sitting on a platform at the entrance of the bridge. Before it got late we went back to our hostel and slept.
I woke up earlier than Dorota and after paying a visit to bathroom, saw the sweet Elma downstairs. She offered me coffee and we had a nice chat on the balcony at the second floor talking about her and politics in general. If I remember correctly she studied politics and law for license and master and she was in the process of finishing her thesis for PHD. According to what she told me, she normally lives in Zagreb, working for a German foundation, using her German skill acquired from her amazing father for sure. Of course the main topic of our chat was again the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the tragic experience of Bosniaks throughout the war. She said that the ugly looking buildings nearby were destroyed during bombings, her uncle used to live in one of them but then during the war years he escaped to USA. All in all it was a very nice chat with a very bright, intelligent and cultured woman, I enjoyed it very much.
When Dorota finally woke up she found us chatting downstairs. Together with Elma and Omer we discussed what to do and decided to go to Blagaj, a small village which seemed nice to us and also recommended by the then newly appointed Turkish consul of Mostar. The Turkish consulate in Mostar should be the best Turkish consulate in the world with very polite and helpful officials including the consul himself but anyway we went out for a walk, first to see some destroyed buildings according to the directions Elma gave to us and then find a way to go to Blagaj. A part of Mostar close to the front line is full of those buildings. I mean charapnel traces can be seen on almost any building in Bosnian cities but the buildings in Mostar were so much damaged, one can't imagine the hell people lived in back in the 90s. Dorota took lots of photos, her favourite theme in Bosnia. Having eaten our bureks however it was time for Blagaj.
It was the first day of Ramadan Feast so the buses to Blagaj didn't work at all. We were even not sure about using them at first but the fact that they weren't available led us to the one and only option: Hitchhiking. Going up to the main road to/from Sarajevo we began to hitchhike. We spent lots of time trying to do it and walked some to get out of the town. Fİnally a driver took us to Blagaj, although he was going to somewhere else he went just a little bit out of his way for us; it's a quite usual attitude in Balkans, by now it should be clear.
Our "hosts" ,Elma and Omer, had given us a card of one of their friends, Samir, who is in charge of a kind of museum/pension, a historical Ottoman house there in Blagaj. But as we are looking for house of Velagic we ended up in the wrong Velagic house since it seems that there are two different families with the surname Velagic in Blagaj. However the wrong Villa Velagic turned out to be the right one for us; we asked a man we saw if Samir is there, he said it is the other Velagic but invited us kindly inside. It was the first day of Ramadan so his wife had cooked "baklava" so we had sweeties out of nowhere, and of course something to drink as well.
The man was the owner of Villa Velagic, a very nice villa with very comfortable and modern rooms for tourists near the Buna river whose spring is in Blagaj by the way. He spent something like five years in Turkey during the war years since Croats told him either you go away or we kill you, so he made the reasonable choice of coming to Turkey. Therefore he knew pretty decent Turkish and we talked in Turkish mostly, a great feeling to be able to speak your mother tongue with other people. After some time we thanked him and said goodbye. On the way out he made an interesting comment: "How come a Turk be friends with a foreign girl? What we have learned is a Turk never becomes friends with girls." Was it just the bad image of Turks or his Islamic beard, I don't know. But what I know that he is a great represantative of Balkan hospitality. Thanks Kemal!
So back to the mission. This time we knew how to get there and soon found Samir inside the Ottoman house with a huge garden with some bungalows on it. We told him that we are staying at Omer Lakise's pension and gave him the regards of Elma and Omer. He chatted with us for a while but then had some things to do so after very little time there we moved on to see the tekije (tekke) and the spring.
Tekije was closed for restauration and the spring didn't seem as beautiful as in the photos we saw and what people told us, I don't say that it wasn't beautiful but it was nothing extraordinary so we got disappointed with Blagaj a little bit. The spring is inside a cave and I tried to swim in the cold water of the river against the flow but unsuccessfully since the cold temperature of the water didn't allow me to swim speedily for long. After having some tea, we decided to go back to Mostar.
Our drivers this time were two very nice and funny young men working for the ecological center in Blagaj, Adnan and Ekrem. There is an ongoing ecological project for hawks in Blagaj so they work for that project. On the way to Mostar we stopped at a supermarket for some dog food. When we arrived to Mostar after a short ride it was already evening , Adnan and Ekrem, coolest people from Mostar offered us to drink beer together which we gladly accepted since we had really nothing to do. They took us to a comfortable and quiet pub where we had some beers and a chat. Of course they weren't lazy tourists like us so they had to go home soon but before that Adnan gave us his card so that in case we need any help in Mostar we could call him. In Dorota's language such a nice guys! I just hope that our ways come across again with all those nice people like Adnan and Ekrem. Many many thanks to you!
After saying goodbye to Adnan and Ekrem, we went on to eat some döner-like fast-food stuff if I can recall correctly. The rest of the evening was spent drinking the great Bosnian beer Sarajevsko bought from an oil station and having a look at the nightlife of Mostar; the youth seemed to have some real fun there. Actually we found some places just by following some young boys and girls at night :) Our last stop however was the green area near Neretva where all the young people of Mostar summon and drink together. It was fun observing them and also drinking the drinks of the guys sitting next to us, who left the drinks there and went away.
Before returning to the hostel, we went to have a look at a very interesting disco, the disco was carved up in a huge rock so you were basically inside a cave. Actually at first we went inside for toilet but then stayed there because of the nice atmosphere. The center of attraction was a dancing transsexual however, she was sadly beaten by some guys who told her to fuck off. Dorota and I were watching her dance and talk to some people. What however made fun for me was Dorota's explaination for the beating she got; "Dressing up like this she degrades the honour of manhood." she said :) I really miss those kind of racist/homophobic (just kidding of course) comments of Dorota, it made me laugh all the time.
When we went out of the disco and started to walk back to our hostel two street dogs decided to follow us and they just didn't leave us alone. We responded of course to their love and stroked them quite a while on street in front of our hostel. In return what we got were two barking dogs in order to protect us, quite touching. As emotional as it was for us, it must have been annoying for other people around. I say that because suddenly we saw a zombie coming out with a huge cleaning brush in her hand shouting. No way that old woman could be a human being anymore, she was definitely a zombie. We were scared to death as the dogs were and went to our pension immediately. Beware of old women in Mostar!
The first night we spent alone in the pension but the next two days people began to come to stay, although we didn't have much time to talk with them, we left our vodka bottle to French guys for example. They were on a world trip by cycling, a really common thing to do these days it seems. There were some other people as well but I can't remember exactly who they were. As we found out, Lakise's pension is mentioned in LonelyPlanet guides so by luck we have found the recommended pension in a guidebook without the guide itself. My advice to future travellers in Bosnia, don't take a guide or whatsoever, be spontaneous as much as you can, you'll see things will work out in best possible way :)
Third day was the day of hitchhiking to Sarajevo. But before that we decided to go to Pocitelj, a historical sight close to Mostar. I think it was that day I tried the buredzici,recommended by Adnan, sth. similar to our mantı, tasting nice but again not like ours, sorry fellow Bosniaks I'm a little nationalistic when it comes to couisine :)
So we packed all our stuff, leaving just our bags in the pension hitched to Pocitelj. The town had a nice citadel on top of a hill near Neretva. After drinking a tea at the roadside and talking to a Turkish tourist group afterwards we began to go up the hill. When we were climbing the stairs to the top of the citadel, a female tourist made the comment of the day: "You can go all the way to the very top". Hmm thanks lady for your very insightful comment, it was of great help :) We listened to her advice and after having a panoramic look upon the river of Neretva went down again. It was time for Sarajevo, as Tijana was waiting for us to come since we sent her an SMS stating that we are coming!
So we went back to Mostar, took our backpacks from the pension and said goodbye to our beloved Elma and Omer. We went up to the road to Sarajevo and tried to find a good hitching spot, which we could only find after getting totally out of town, near a petrol station again. After I paid a visit to the toilet of petrol station we didn't wait much to find a car. But it was much better than a normal car, we found the most interesting and coolest man of Sarajevo, Lelo
Looking back now, I believe that we had a huge huge luck in finding the best people out there. The great life story of Lelo and the unbelievable Tijana will be told in the next part, maybe the best one of the whole trip!
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