A few snapshots – in words, not pictures.
We stepped off the train and made directly for the shade. It was hot. I’d been worried about this. I tend to visit places with the promise of snow: the Alps, Siberia, the Arctic Circle…
Sweat trickled down my back. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, a fish out of water. At least in cold places you can put more clothes on, but even with no clothes I would have been too hot.
I smiled with relief as Sonja produced a fan and I felt the whisper of air cool against my skin.
Seven o’clock in the morning. We stepped off the overnight bus from Ljubljana to Sarajevo and immediately felt helplessly lost with no internet data, no common language and no local currency (we had tried – and failed – to take out Bosnian Mark before our arrival). Where was the hostel? How do we get there? The cold urban-grey morning was made all the more colourless by our lack of sleep.
We salvaged a fraction of mobile data, hastily memorized the route and stepped into the unknown in the direction of (we hoped) the hostel.
We found it, hidden behind an incongruous smoothie bar. The hostel owner was tall and lanky with a goatee and a gentle demeanour. He proudly told us that his two-month-old hostel had already received 10 out of 10 reviews. It was certainly very clean, but our host had another explanation:
‘It’s the Bosnian beer.’
Our guide jabbed the air at regular intervals, as if he was telling off a naughty child, and his speech was bizarrely punctuated with the heavily accented word ‘no’. But his demeanour was not that of Admonisher. He was very much Fact-Giver, Storyteller, bringing history to life for the large group of tourists.
‘I was a kid during the war, no,’ he says. ‘We didn’t have to go to school. Instead, we dragged water on sledges from the brewery, no,’ – he jabs his finger towards the building in question. ‘The brewery was the only place where water was still running.’ He pauses, lets this sink in, and then adds more lightly: ‘The beer is very good, you should try it.’
He looks at us intently, serious again, and jabs the air. ‘For years after the war I didn’t want to go to school. Every morning I complained to Mama. I didn’t realise, no. Under siege in Sarajevo, at war. I didn’t understand.’
We walk on, behind him through the streets, through the history of the city. He waves his arms at us to keep up, it is hot and we are a big group, it takes longer with so many people.
‘Someone asks me last week, no, if there are still snipers,’ he says when we gather round him at the next stop. ‘There are no snipers. The war was over 20 years ago, no.’
Over 20 years ago, yes, but less than 30. How? How did this happen so recently, even after the horrors of the Second World War? How can humans be so inhuman?
Cigarette smoke follows us around the city. It fills the space usually occupied by law. In the hostel, in the street, in the bars and restaurants. There is no law against smoking indoors in Bosnia.
Equally as pervasive is the heat, thick and damp and uncomfortable. In the hostel, in the street, in the bars and restaurants. The city that straddles East and West is nestled in a valley and has a microclimate all its own. Our tempers begin to fray, and we are not alone. The heavens become hot and bothered too, and decide to do something about it.
It sounds like a gunshot – Bosnia’s war-torn past is not so very long ago, and there are still bullet-holes in the houses and shops we’d passed earlier that day.
Thunder. So close, you could almost reach out and touch it.
A man stands on the edge of the bridge. He stands high up above us, above the cold, flowing water. His arms are raised towards the sky, his face –
I can’t see from here. Does he smile at the expectant crowd around him? Or does he look down at the water a long, long way below him, his eyes full of fear?
The people stream forwards to watch, cameras held at the ready. The bridge dominates the skyline, dominates the town even: it is 20 metres high and the city of Mostar is named after it (the word for bridge in Slavic languages is ‘most’).
We watch and wait as the tension builds. People start to clap. A steady beat, an increasing tempo – clap, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap-clap – jump, jump, jump, one-two-three-four…
He jumps. Smoothly, barely a splash. He is a professional.
We are the miniature occupants of a mountainous bowl. Rock rises up majestically on all sides; the pinkish morning sunlight peers above the vast, sloping walls late in the day and the golden evening light goes to bed early.
I spend a day in bed, unwell. Then: hiking, biking, bathing, burning in the Bay of Kotor…
An older lady with a strong Slavic accent laughs at us when we suggest locking our bikes while we go for a swim: ‘To steal? Here? What a joke!’
She should know, she’s been coming here on holiday for 15 years – but it’s not been the same since the breakup of Yugoslavia and the death of Comrade Tito, she tells us mournfully.
Not everyone clings onto the good old days. A kid sees me standing on the edge of the jetty, poised to dive but still hesitant. ‘You need to keep your legs straight,’ he says. ‘Like this.’ It is a graceful arc from the present to the future.
And then Croatia: a few blissful summer days by the sea, learning to swim in new waters. Hot holidays aren’t so bad after all.