7-12 October 2019.
Six Days of Adventure in the Country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
190 miles with 11330 feet of climbing.
Six Days of Adventure in the Country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
190 miles with 11330 feet of climbing.
Despite its significance as a crossroads in this part of Croatia, a major point of convergence for the regions east-west and north-south auto- and shipping-routes, the village of Vrgorac remains essentially unknown and unexplored, I suspect, by travelers and visitors to a country better known for its coastlines including the Dalmatian Coast and the Istrian Peninsula. By the way, each of those regions along with two others, their boundaries and politics, date to the Medieval Kingdom of Croatia, a monarchy that persisted from 925-1102 CE, nearly two centuries. Vrgorac could be described as a large village or middle-sized town. From its vantage at the top of a broad passage between hills in the Dinaric Alps, it's an ideal location to look down on its neighbors to the east, a few kilometers away, which these days consist of Bosnian farmers and farmland in typical checkerboard format on the plains above the Trebižat River. The Trebižat is a tributary of the Neretva River, which I'll return to later in this story, one of the largest river systems by drainage area in the Adriatic basin.
From the top of a steep hill, just outside of a palatial apartment that I paid just twenty euro to stay in (about 22$), I said farewell to my generous hosts at about 10:30 am, gripped my bars with respect for what was coming, and plummeted down the slope I'd climbed the night before. Through watery eyes, moments later, I mistakenly turned left on a one-way through the center of town, but fortunately traffic was light and no one, otherwise, seemed to care or notice. A few more turns led to a left and a much longer descent that concluded on a valley floor above small streams that flow into the nearby (to the east) Trebižat. From this juncture to the Croatia-Bosnia border, not quite two miles, I reflected on the journey behind as I contemplated, for the last time in ignorance, what Bosnia would deliver ahead.
The border crossing consisted of single story, wooden structures built close to the road under a forest grove dominated by deciduous trees. Their limbs hung over the road, each branch a matrix of green, orange, and yellow leaves that were a significant reminder, for a man wearing Lycra and about to cross the main axis of the Dinaric Alps, that autumn and its unpredictable weather had arrived. I don't recall a Croatian agent but based on experiences elsewhere I must have passed through a Croatian station before arriving to a lone gentleman standing in the road that briefly checked my passport and then welcomed me to Bosnia and Herzegovina with an obvious smile. He was professionally dressed, lightly armed, friendly, and unconcerned; he never even stamped my passport, preferring instead to conclude our entire meeting from the perspective of the middle of a sleepy, paved, village road. This was the setting and greeting at the Orah-Orehovlje border crossing station, about six miles east of Vrgorac, perhaps the most unassuming and friendly station that I've had the pleasure to visit including some horrible experiences along the US-Canada border, especially but not exclusively dealing with American border agents. My transect from apartment to border took less than thirty minutes.
From Croatia to Bosnia, I transitioned from the 6209 to the R858. The latter meandered through small villages and farmland on essentially flat ground. This was what I would define as a secondary road, paved, opposing lanes, well marked. I followed the route, for the most part in peaceful solitude, through Grab and then into Lošče where the R858 continued south and the route I'd built using Ride With GPS, now loaded onto my Garmin 1030 head unit and staring up at me, proceeded east.
As anyone can see if they zoom in on my route captured by the Strava app, I wandered in search of something in the village of Lošče for several minutes before committing to an eastward trajectory. Despite the red line looking up at me, I wasn't confident that "the way" I had mapped was actually a road. This was my first clue, in hindsight, of what lay ahead but for the moment I assumed the experience would be temporary as I turned off the primary route (R858), by now noisy and trafficked, onto a dirt and gravel road between commercial buildings and empty lots.
Beyond the busy R858, my route quickly degraded, from hard-packed dirt and gravel to loose sections of mixed stones and dirt, as well as exposed bedrock. On either side of the dirt track, the landscape was reminiscent of a revegetated strip mine. Most of the ground appeared to have been recently disturbed, likely from farming not mining, and the vegetation that grew on the surface gave the impression of a composition dominated by problematic, invasive, plants, sometimes referred to as "weeds" in the US.
However, beyond those proximate boundaries and observations, a vast, unobstructed, and beautiful landscape of gently rolling hills, covered for the most part in stunted, dry-land forests, extended in all directions eventually to the foot of isolated ridges or more significant ranges, part of the Dinarides. The forests were dominated by mostly deciduous trees, a middle-canopy with no upper and sparse ground cover below. Here and there I passed homes built in isolation relative to their neighbors; the area was lightly settled and locals relied on a dirt road of some form to access their properties which were typically well kept with hints of modern conveniences. Those distractions withstanding and the rough roads as well, I found it very easy to drift into the depths of my own mind, a flow state, as I explored this opening scene in the Country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For convenience, below I'll shorten the country name to just Bosnia.
When viewed using the route building software provided by Ride With GPS, an account that I pay $10 dollars per month to access, the roads I was on now, beyond the R858, appeared to be secondary in character. On the ground, however, that designation certainly didn't apply, what I was expecting to be "secondary" were far less and certainly not recommendable for loaded bicycle travel. In contrast, ORVs of any form would flourish in this environment, just beware unresolved, unexploded, and unmarked mine fields from the fairly recent Bosnia War, a complicated, international conflict and part of the dissolution of former-Yugoslavia that persisted from 1992 to 1995.
Further along on this section of my tour and elsewhere in Bosnia, I encountered more advanced road degradation especially on hills with grades above about 4% where deep ruts were filled with loose, mixed stone in channels between exposures of bedrock. All of my skills as a mountain biker were necessary to stay on the saddle and avoid smacking a rock that might annihilate a tire, an aluminum rim, or both in a single, tragic, fraction of a second on the downhill side of those climbs. Certainly, there was no bike shop in sight. With this in mind, I did my best to preclude gravity and in general prioritized caution over pace.
East of Brig, I crossed-over the M230 and by now I was definitely contemplating a change of course but nonetheless proceeded onto the next rough track. The M230, by the way, was busy with high speed, truck traffic, And I suspect, based on observations I made later in the day and on subsequent days in Bosnia, that the "cycle lane" consisted of no more than three inches of terra firma, the extent of the white line if there was one. Compounding this narrow, tentative purchase, I also noticed that the edges of these heavily used primary roads tended to be significantly degraded. So the M230 and other primary routes had their disadvantages too and these were no less serious, in my view, than those that I encountered in the countryside on a variety of dirt tracks.
After crossing over the M230, I immediately began climbing a steepening grade, eventually across several, tight contour lines that ultimately brought me to an enviable vantage to view the area from which I'd come. Spread-out towards Croatia, to the west, I could see a broad valley dominated by farm parcels, drained by the Trebižat River. Above and behind me, towards the east, Mount Sitomir observed my progress, likely grinning from outcrop to outcrop as the mountain awaited my arrival to further degradation of the "road" that culminated in a very rough single-track; an adjacent stone wall on the upslope; and close to the end of this trail glass shards spread everywhere including under my tires. By now, I was sharing my experience, as I rode east along the ridge, with a series of widely spaced, microscopic villages, each comprised of just a handful of buildings, built on a shelf below Mount Sitomir. Many of the buildings appeared abandoned and showed signs of artillery and bullet scars, reminders of the recent Bosnian War.
As much as I was concerned about slicing a tire or rolling over a land mine, my biggest concern here and elsewhere on Bosnia's rough tracks was encountering unchained dogs that were prone and possibly even encouraged to violence. On the ridge above the valley, I encountered guard-variety dogs, including German Shepherds, but fortunately they were chained or indoors in all cases. My worst dog encounter to date was on my 2018 bicycle tour in Nova Scotia, Canada. As this anecdote suggests, there is nothing special about remote settings in Bosnia versus those in Canada or anywhere else, all of these can and sometimes do contain unrestrained dogs that can be a liability to a cyclist.
As on other bicycle tours, I wasn't carrying anything, such as mace, that I could use in my defense. Instead, my tactic, fine-tuned over many years, is to ride directly at the attacking dog(s) as I simultaneously use my deepest, angriest, man-voice to try to overwhelm their aggression with my own. This technique recently turned a female pit-bull or her heals and sent her running back into her unfenced yard during a training ride outside of Durango, Colorado.
Above Jurjevica, I descended back down to eye-level with most of this regions two-leggeds and with that descent I suspect my heart came down a few beats as well. East of Jurjevica, I missed a turn, then recovered and settled onto a series of comfortable (smooth) dirt and sometimes single-lane, paved tracks that meandered between villages and farmland and paralleled the M120 to the south. Just beyond Dugandžići, I turned north, onto more, often rough, dirt tracks that paralleled the R801 to the east. At that juncture, the left, I recall a group of kids and their parents standing at what I assume was a bus stop. They clearly saw me as I approached, fairly close, and then turned left onto roads that they no doubt knew were unfit for a loaded bicycle. One would assume that stories followed, around the dinner table and coffee shops, which involved an uninformed, Lycra-clad westerner that must have had a hell of day and his own story to tell.
That left turn was also the moment when I resumed climbing, from about 700 to 1400 feet, over roughly seven miles. Sounds easy until you factor in the road conditions and my heavy bike, which elevated the challenge significantly. Very close to the top of the climb, I intersected with the M120 and followed this primary road all the way to Mostar. Fortunately, the traffic was light throughout this stretch. And even better, the ten miles from the intersection to Mostar were all downhill and often quite steep so I was able to keep pace with the traffic, effectively minimizing how many cars and trucks actually caught and passed me.
A few miles ahead, a few miles remaining to Mostar, I stopped at a pull-out to behold an impressive valley, surrounded by high mountains on three sides, it seemed anyway. In truth, the valley actually cut through, on my left, what appeared from my vantage to be continuous mountains. Above that cut was the fifth largest town in Bosnia, Mostar, on the same valley floor, a town with roots dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond. Below my vantage, I could see the big town of Ortiješ and running through the middle, the region’s largest river which flowed south without concern for its neighbors, their dams, and other temporary obstructions.
The River, known today as Neretva or Narenta, carved this valley and those above and below it with impenetrable patience, and in doing so transported an enormous mass of substrate, from valley floors and material constantly tumbling down from the mountains, to the Adriatic Sea; enough material to easily fill every house in Bosnia to the roof with dirt, sand, and stone. A river like that doesn't need to be humble, or have any other concern for human priorities. It will and we will not persist. It's always been that way, for species on Planet Earth, each one persisting for about a million years, cheated by only a few, such as the horseshoe crab which has labored up beaches, most of those long-ago annihilated by geologic time and processes, for at least 445 million years. From my vantage overlooking this gorgeous valley, I was humbled by these and other thoughts as I contemplated geologic time, processes that play-out on this exceedingly slow but yet grand scale, and our place in the even grandeur universe where exploding stars (supernovae) and colliding universes are the norm.
The final descent down into Mostar was exhilarating, so much so that much of my labors form earlier in the day were nearly forgotten by the time I reached the familiar sounds and smells of a major urban center. My next challenge would be to acquire some Bosnian currency, known as the Bosnian Convertible Mark, and hopefully in exchange for the Kuna that remained in my inventory. I lined-up in a bank adjacent to a pizza shop but my patience didn't last that long. I abandoned this option and walked next door, asking questions, getting directions, and establishing my initial impression of Bosniaks. A group of college-aged ladies spoke little English, but smiled and tried to help regardless. Then a young man walked over with an outstretched hand, translated and then proceeded to provide me with all the direction I needed in perfect English.
In particular, I wanted to visit the old part of town, bank transactions temporarily on hold. His directions were excellent but I was still quite far away, across the city, from my goal. Soon after parting, his directions began to blend into incomprehension and so I had to stop a second time to seek additional clarification. I spotted a Bosnian couple sipping espresso at a cafe and rolled-up on them; a moment later I was amongst friends. Igor shared so much about Bosnia, places to go, to eat, history, and more that I asked him to sketch all those thoughts into an email and send it to me, which he did and I checked off every piece of his advice especially in the restaurants of Sarajevo. Ivana was also generous with her kindness, smile, and advice. A few blocks from this lovely couple, I spotted a currency exchange shop, leaned the bike nearby, unlocked, and this time waited patiently in the queue. Croatian currency and a bit of Euro went over the counter and I departed with a comfortable reserve of Bosnian Marks.
Curiously, Mostar is named after the mostari, the name given to men that guarded the Stari Most (English, "Old Bridge"), a bridge in the heart of the old quarter of the city built by the Ottoman Empire in 1557 following the commission of Suleiman the Magnificent. The original bridge spanned the River Neretva and time for 427 years before it was destroyed during and later rebuilt following the Bosnian War. I eventually found that bridge, by this point literally trapped in a sea of slowly moving tourists that gently dragged me up and over the famous bridge. Proximity to so many strangers, all of them smiling by the way, was nonetheless a risk that Igor warned could attract the city's expert pick-pockets so I took care with my wallet, cell phone, etc until I was unhinged from the masses.
It wasn’t possible, given all the people, to ride over the bridge, which was also far steeper than I anticipated. And coming down the back-side in my cycling shoes fitted with mountain bike clips was a tap dance on polished stone that I wasn't eager to repeat. Beyond the bridge, the aggregate of slowly moving legs and bodies kept my pace to a crawl for a few more minutes before I took advantage of a right exit, ascended two sets of stairs, and then settled into an outdoor cafe where I ordered a cappuccino. The whole transect from approach, over the bridge, through a tunnel of shops otherwise open to the sky and then up the stairs took about 20 minutes but it felt much longer which compelled me to conclude my old city tour much sooner than I might otherwise have done.
As far as old cities go, what I could see from the cafe suggested I'd actually seen it all, just one road, filled shoulder to shoulder with tourists. That's a stark contrast to the myriad streets and quiet, inspired spaces that I discovered in places including even tiny Trogir and old Rovinj (Croatia); and there was much more in spacious Zadar and Split (Croatia). The shoulder-to-shoulder ordeal also left me feeling a bit claustrophobic. The open air cafe on a high step comfortably overlooking the milieu with my favorite beverage within reaching distance therefore felt even better than usual, and I took advantage of the relative solitude by eventually making my final decision about how I would proceed towards a very significant goal for my tour, Sarajevo.
There were two options to make my way to Sarajevo from Mostar that didn't involve significant detours, directions other than east. Detours are sometimes desirable, but this late on a cross-(sub)continent tour my preference was a more direct route. It's worth noting, that even my two "direct" routes were nowhere near straight lines between Mostar and Sarajevo; and in both cases, a cyclist had to contend with a perpendicular transect through the main axis and ranges of the Dinarides.
The first option, ill advised according to my waiter that spoke some English, was a series of rough tracks fit for goats and other horticultural traffic not loaded bicycles! But the alternative also had problems, those that I was aware of, Donald Rumsfeld's "known knowns"; and those that I was not, "unknown unknowns." So it was a difficult choice, one or the other, hence the time that it took me to make a decision. With the morning and afternoon's experiences in mind, I decided to try the primary route, despite the traffic that I would no doubt have to contend with and narrow or absent road shoulders. At this point, equally satisfied with my choice as I was ignorant of what lay ahead, I paid my bill and exited onto the street above the cafe and the old city which no doubt had much more on offer than I was willing to go in search of on this particular day; Mostar at-large as well. Judgement withstanding, jumping ahead, my haste turned-out to be advantageous, a gift from the quantum physics that influence all that we are and do,
If one experience from this tour remains persistently lodged in my neurons and no other because of illness or normal, age-related decline, I'm fairly certain it will be the collective memories of what I experienced on my ride from Mostar to Konjic on the M115, the primary and most direct route between Mostar and Sarajevo. Konjic is about 40 miles from the larger town and from Mostar I was about 45 miles from Konjic via the M115. My roll-out from Mostar was uneventful, other than a brief encounter with a bicycle-touring couple I'd first spoken with in old Mostar. We enjoyed what would be our last bit of more or less civilized road conditions, together, before I unexpectedly dashed ahead amidst a brief window of opportunity to take a left onto the M115 at a complicated intersection. By this point, the land was already beginning to rise.
Although the climb to the reservoir adjacent to Konjic would be gradual, it felt much more difficult given everything that I was experiencing. Imagine eating a food that you find unsatisfying under normal conditions, when someone is constantly shouting at you, would you enjoy it more or less? My guess is you'd be hating every mouth full with amplified disgust. The same was true for me as I climbed an otherwise very manageable grade and ascent, 250 feet above sea level in Mostar to about 1000 feet when I tipped onto the south bank of Jablaničko Lake, a massive reservoir formed behind an equally massive dam on the Neretva River. The reservoir flooded what was, for millenia, a steep-walled canyon cut by the river all the way to Konjic, a distance of about 13 miles from where I initially contacted the lake traveling north on the M115.
The primary issues that I experienced on this route, most of them "unknown unknowns", were the following: 1) often no road shoulder; 2) very few vehicles slowed down or gave me space; 3) the speed limit on this "M" road was highway speed and of course most drove faster including trucks; 4) tunnels were frequent and few of these were lighted; 5) the road edge, my 3-inch "cycle lane", was often heavily degraded, imagine cracked and fragmented pavement, pot holes, sharp edges and heaped on these detractions accumulations of sand, rock, and the usual road-side trash including plastic bottles; and the worst among them, 6) many of the service covers normally providing access to and protection for whatever was under the road were missing which left gaping, square holes directly along my path, a problem that seemed to be amplified (most were missing) in the tunnels. If that doesn't frighten a cyclist so much so that they seek another route, even if that means a hundred extra miles or more, then keep reading.
Here's the scenario that I had to overcome perhaps as many as twenty times as I passed through tunnels of varying length from Mostar to Konjic. Let's pretend you, the reader, are on the saddle with me, here comes the tunnel and often a sign describing its length, typically 300-800 meters, a fraction of a mile or a kilometer. The longest were dark on the opposite end; ca. 600 meters was enough for that to occur. A few were longer than a kilometer, an eternity for my senses. Once inside, my lights blazing, we can see the side of the road where the white line should have been but there's no line; it's been replaced by a pile of rubble that's fallen from the roof and ceiling and heaped by traffic turbulence into the "cycle lane". Above the rubble, to the right, a ledge of varying height was often present, the edge of a narrow walk-way for servicing the tunnel. That too was covered in debris and often heavily damaged. The tunnel roof curved and otherwise obstructed comfortable passage along that non-desirable surface so it certainly wasn't a friendly alternative. Additional covers were often missing from the surface of the sidewalk, more gaping holes that were often large enough to swallow my front wheel.
Inside the tunnel, I focused on breathing, relaxing my arms, shoulders, neck, etc, anything I didn't need to ride and power the bike, techniques I practice during yoga as well as cycling. And then I allocated every remaining iota I could spare from propulsion, pedaling the bike, to mental discipline, controlling my thoughts and where these might otherwise go given the appalling conditions. Okay, so here comes a tractor trailer, an "18-wheeler" as we say in America, it's going highway speeds and never touches the brakes. I need to stay perfectly on a roughly 3-inch strip of mangled road edge. I can't touch the curb to the right, that could cause me to lose my balance, and I can't swerve for any reason by more than a tiny fraction to the left. Ahead cars are approaching, seemingly no one cares or (likely) they are not aware of the compounded and inevitable physics generated by their vehicles in a tunnel. When they are adjacent to us, me with you riding virtually on my saddle, they'll simultaneously pass each other, the truck and the cars, as well.
As the cars ahead approach, I release the tension in my hands, more breath, by now I'm overwhelmed by a cacophony of noise generated by the approaching vehicles, greatly amplified by the acoustics of the tunnel. This is where I begin to lose consciousness, that's what I believe was happening anyway. The noise is so extreme that I can't tell how close the vehicle, the approaching truck, is behind me. I know it isn't slowing down, from experience, and I know it's close but I don't know when it will arrive and I can't risk looking over my shoulder; even my best effort to stay on my line could swerve a half death inch into the death zone.
Consciousness and fear: we all know that feeling of being frozen by fear as a youngster, and it’s a small step to imagine how fear at that level could cause a person to lose consciousness. At the peak of each approach, peak noise and internally generated fear despite my best effort to suppress it, I began to lose visibility, despite my lights, and then my position in space-time. As this implies, I lost a fraction of my ability to interpret my place in space, how far, how close, how big, in fact "where was I" began to blur and at that moment the truck explodes over our left shoulder, passing in an instant in one unbelievable expression of outward-pressing energy. On the worst encounters, inside the longest, darkest tunnels, involving the loudest machines, perhaps a line of three loaded trucks, I literally roared as loud as my voice would allow as a final, desperate effort to remain in control. Especially during these moments, my normal, physical space deteriorated before my eyes but the horror, it turned out, was marginally on the side of what I could survive if I applied every trick that I've learned through training, racing, and touring on bicycles to control my mind. I believe a fraction more would have concluded my tour, and possibly with tragic consequences.
That's my Bosnia, M115, tunnel story. I refused to turn-around or hitch-hike because I was fatigued from a long tour (adding more miles at this point seemed ill-advised) and my goal was to ride from Duncansby Head to Istanbul without assistance from any other machine except ferry boats. Many times on this 35 mile stretch, the climb without the reservoir section, I asked myself if it was worth it and each time I concluded that I wasn't going to quit. In hindsight, I have no regrets, but I wouldn't recommend this section to anyone that hasn't more or less committed to it as I had by first riding to Mostar. My advice is going a different way, even avoiding Mostar, wouldn't kill a tour by any means but the road to Sarajevo, from there, certainly could.
When I converged with Jablaničko Lake, the M115 turned right and paralleled the reservoir all the way to Konjic, about ten miles. By this point, understandably, I was deeply "shell-shocked", perhaps a temporary PTSD, but the transition from ascending a mountain through a series of dark tunnels to an elevated road overlooking a peaceful and scenic reservoir, where the traffic slowed down through many villages, was a massive change that allowed me to come way down. However, the predicted response, laughter following the most intense fear I've ever felt never came. To me that seems significant; literally I was too frightened to laugh even after the extreme danger had subsided. Instead, I settled into the cool, fresh atmosphere above the water, glided, at times, along a road edge that was excellent quality, and focused on being grateful about where I was and even what I had just experienced.
As I rode into Konjic, the last bit of light descended to the west behind a major range, in breadth and height, of the Dinaric Alps in Blidinje Nature Park. I'd cut through this formidable range and others during my ascent of the Neretva River, by all measures a canyon from Mostar to the reservoir. Here's an image that captures a sense of the mountains in this part of Bosnia, from a rare stop before I reached Konjic. As often occurs on my tours, locating the home that I'd booked into, using Airbnb in Mostar, turned-out to be difficult. Firstly, because my EU-centric SIM card, purchased in Wales, was no longer working now that I was in Bosnia. A lack of light and language challenges compounded this issue.
Outside a small shop on the outskirts of town two men were eating and enjoying a beer, one spoke a few English words, enough to understand. He led me inside where I was able to connect to the shops WiFi. That should have closed the deal but when I arrived to the neighborhood where I'd spend the night, I encountered a myriad of paths and driveways on a near vertical slope that descended to a tributary of the Neretva, I was nearly there but unable to close the gap to the exact doorstep. About this moment, when I was contemplating how to proceed in the absence of technology, a woman walking a child approached in my direction and I asked her for help. Working with as much English as the fellow outside the shop, she understood and offered to call my host. A few minutes later, Marko located me on the street, I was standing behind his house, and at that point a very difficult day, the sort that adds tremendous perspective to a short human life, began to wind down.
Among the personalities and characters from my tour that I would have enjoyed spending much more time with, I would certainly include Marko, owner and host of a cozy guest house adjacent to enviable, mountainous, Bosnian wilderness. Despite Konjic's proximity to the M115, it truly is an oasis within this wilderness, with ample resources including restaurants and more. Beyond the minor footprint of Konjic, light development or no development at all is the rule as one navigates, from here, into the heart of the impressive Dinaric Alps (as this image from my tour demonstrates). My ascent of the canyon cut by the Neretva River from Mostar to Jablaničko Lake was packed with this level of scenery. Sadly, the challenges, described above, of riding that section generally kept my smart phone camera tucked in my top-tube bag. If you could witness what I captured in my neurons you would be impressed and humbled by the potential for solitude and adventure in those mountains and so I encourage you, your friends, family, and strangers that you might influence to go there, to stay with Marko at his guest house for less than $15 per night and collect memories that will leave your audiences spellbound with curiosity and questions.
After studying maps and options into the evening in my own private apartment above Marko's home, I remained unconvinced that at least a portion of my day wouldn't be similar or as bad as the canyon portion the day before. And it likely did turn out to be that outrageous, but by this time I had slept well and I knew what was coming, each eased the intensity of my response and otherwise calmed my still vibrating central nervous system.
Less than a half-mile from Konjic, the road began to climb, tunnels inevitably followed, and this scenario persisted for a little more than an hour before I reached the summit at ca. 3000 feet, by now 2200 feet above Konjic and ten miles closer to Sarajevo. From here, I quickly descended the next five miles to the village of Tarčin, in the municipality of Hadžići, and an anticipated right turn off the M115. At this juncture, a man was standing on the side of the road and I called out to him in simple English, unable to suppress my joy of riding away from that dreadful highway, from the perspective of a cyclist, which nonetheless did bring me into the company of rugged, skyward-reaching mountain ranges, the most impressive that I'd seen so far in the Dinarides, and a fabulous host, Marko, among other treasures.
Not far beyond that right turn, I temporarily and intentionally departed from my planned route in search of quaint, Bosnian village life and found ample in the first valley that I visited off the M115. When I returned to my planned route, the road began to climb and degrade, eventually a muddy track with deep tractor ruts. Among the highlights of my ride from here to Hadžići, was the arrival of bike and rider to a section of single track, a road on Ride With GPS map layers, which concluded at a steep, forested hillside. From this vantage, I peered down a crumbling, deeply eroded bank, through a matrix of branches and leaves. At the bottom, I could see a road, likely single lane and dirt. Concerns for landmines apparently forgotten, because by this point and subsequently I'd cross even more questionable spaces, I used the bike as my anchor as I carefully stepped down through the forest and eventually out onto the road below. When I stood up, the last few steps being deeply mired in dense bushes and overhanging limbs, two ladies looked up at me from their garden, smiled, and waved but otherwise, to my shock, showed no concern for either my presentation, Lycra-clad on a touring bicycle, or method of entry, emerging from the forest.
Pastures, rough tracks, hike-a-bikes and everything between followed as I rode towards and eventually into Hadžići where the road surface reliably transitioned, with few exceptions, to asphalt all the way to the burbs of Sarajevo. Along the way, green pastures broken by tractor roads and villages that smelled of wood smoke filled the scene below hills and distant summits. This image and another provide a window into this bit of Bosnian wonderland, enviable scenes that filled my heart with gratitude as I approached possibly more "unknown unknowns" for my autumn bicycle tour, in Sarajevo.
Weeks before, whilst rolling-out of Tullamore, Ireland, I sliced my rear tire badly but was able to assemble a temporary repair. Farther along on my tour, in Wales, thanks to the assistance of a kind friend, Ian Bright, I found a bike shop and they replaced the tire and subsequently overhauled the bike, a much needed service by this point. The middle price-point, Mavic tire that they installed survived all the way to the burbs of Sarajevo without a single puncture. A feat that rendered me reluctant, despite nearly losing the rear wheel a few times on steep, wet, paved descents, to change it. A nonsensical conclusion that nevertheless any touring cyclist would understand I suspect.
On a road in Ilidža, a municipality located in Sarajevo Canton and one of its chief suburbs, I chanced upon a cyclist on a mountain bike and decided to ask him, spontaneously, if he knew a bike shop nearby that might have a tire and other resources. This kind fellow not only knew of one but he patiently led me there through the busy streets of Ilidža and then informed the guys at the shop who I was and what I needed! I don't recall the name of the two gentlemen that expertly fixed-up my bicycle, including advice on which tire to mount on the rear (my front tire lasted the whole tour, Panaracer Gravelking, 32 mm), but the shop name is and remains Ciklo Centar. The shop and its employees excel in knowledge, ingenuity, and inspiration to ride bicycles. Definitely reach out to them, they have two shops in the area by the way, if you're in the need in that part of the World.
About 90 minutes later I was on my way (here's the route), hungry as usual and for this reason I nearly crossed a trolley track as the trolley was approaching. City infrastructure, navigation, related challenges and distractions are always a liability. At this near disastrous moment, I took note and subsequently slowed any haste that might have remained as I proceeded through more and more infrastructure, past mounting taxi cabs and buses, eventually over the Miljacka River (sadly heavily polluted by partially treated city waste water). On the other side of the river, Sarajevo awaited, and she had much in store for me including an extended, and much needed, 3-day rest that I wasn't anticipating.
I was feeling very good, despite fatigue, when I rolled in grinning ear to ear as the accomplishment, Duncansby Head to Sarajevo, settled in. A very ambitious goal, like Lake Garda, Innsbruck, and Lake Geneva before, was officially in the adventure bag. I celebrated with a search that concluded at a Bosnian bakery and a very friendly server. Before I departed one hardy pastry, known as börak or burak in the Balkans, was already filtering into my body’s mitochondrial furnaces and two more were awaiting delivery in my pockets. Over the next few days, I probably ate far too many of these savory pastries as well as several plates of ćevapi ("chewapee") in the famous Ottoman bazaar or market known throughout its history as Baščaršija ("bash-charsheeya").
Somewhere above sites that I would visit the next day, I went searching, up a steep climb, into the cities neighborhoods until I found the apartment that I'd booked for a night, for about 33$, using Airbnb's app. Getting inside took a little time and some local assistance but once there I descended into my evening routine plus laundry before the need for sleep overwhelmed. For reasons that I would argue were generated mostly by the oddness and (striking contrast) inevitability of quantum physics, I was compelled to search for another option to spend a second night of rest in the city. By 10 am the following morning, I was checked in and already getting acquainted with my new hosts, Ibrahim, his father Ado and mum too. And by noon, I'd decided, in large part because of the welcome that I received and the comfort that I felt, to add a second night for just $22 per night at the Green Gate guest house. All together, a solid three-night block of rest and exploration, by foot, in Sarajevo.
The sounds of the calls for prayer, voices of men singing verse from the Koran, playing over dozens of mosque loud speakers filtered between hills and the neighborhoods that they supported, including the one where I was temporarily residing, my first morning in the city and several times throughout each day. I found those sounds as soothing as any bird song I'd ever heard and looked forward to each rewind and replay. A feeling that I continued to experience throughout what remained of my tour, beyond Sarajevo, especially in Bosnia and Turkey where the majority religion is overwhelmingly Islam. Underlying the call for prayer, witnessing a community (there are exceptions of course) pause to express gratitude several times every day was an inspiration that, despite my beliefs about the universe and its origins, I welcomed as a valuable contribution to former perspectives that I had already pushed far-outward on this tour.
In the company of Ado and Ibrahim, as well as one of Ado's son-in-laws, Sherif, other perspectives also changed as each one educated me on the history of not only the Bosnian War but conflicts and history that proceeded and followed the dissolution of former-Yugoslavia. Forward or back, their generosity, expressed in time and willingness to share their knowledge and experiences, surpassed in breadth and depth any other opportunity that I encountered on this or former tours for on-the-ground education.
Ado was a soldier and officer in the Bosnian Army stationed in Sarajevo during the Serbian-led siege of the city that lasted four years. Ibrahim was born in the city part-way through that conflict where he remained with his parents. When I was given a tour of Sarajevo by Ibrahim I was truly given a gift of great value, history spoken by a voice that was stitched into the story that he told. Lessons provided by Ado, in an open, airy space just outside my apartment at the Green Gate guest house, delved into armies, governments, and also soldiers carrying food and weapons through a tunnel under the Sarajevo airport that played a pivotol part in the Bosnian Army's success propelling the Serbians for so long.
With Sherif, I found a kindred spirit that was about my age, a man that resonates on a frequency similar to my own despite our differences in birth, faith, and history. Sherif and I easily dipped into philosophical exploration and personal reflection and I enjoyed every moment of those journeys. In all three cases, Ibrahim, Ado, and Sherif, I discovered a mutually respectful and curious friendship and each added valuable perspective to my life. Their kindness is a reminder that, in fact, this is the way it is, on all continents, across all cultures: people have only love in their hearts and they want to share that with others. It's the primary reason why I'm compelled to ask people, especially fellow Americans, to push-out their comfort zones so they too can discover that men and women are the same everywhere and that sameness is beautiful.
By the third morning, I had wandered through the old and new downtown quarters for hours, eating and capturing a few images, but mostly processing my hear and now in the presence of old and new perspectives. Along the way, physical rest, in small part, and something very special about Sarajevo, in large part, helped to renourish my body at an impressive pace in this city of graveyards and hope. I was, therefore, far from ready, mentally, to depart my new friendships and the comfort and opportunity that they represented. But time was undetachable from my post-tour obligations and so my next roll-out could not be avoided. On 11 October 2019, I headed east from town on cobblestone-surfaced roads before transitioning to the modern M5 following directions suggested to me by Ado the day before.
After what had happened between Mostar and Konjic in particular, I was concerned there could be far more of this from Sarajevo to Serbia, and perhaps in Serbia as well. In an attempt to avoid that nightmare, each evening, in Sarajevo, I studied possible routes and built several with Ride With GPS that I never used. Each morning that followed, I discussed my latest route preference with Ado. Eventually, we worked together, side-by-side, he tapped my laptop screen and I pressed the keys. At the conclusion, he was convinced and I was nearly too that all would be well on a route, all on primary roads, that transected Bosnia from Sarajevo to Rudo, an outpost not far from the Serbian border.
From Sarajevo, on the M5, the road inevitably began to climb, back into the impressive and skyward Dinaric Alps; my brief sojourn along the relatively flat banks of the River Miljacka had officially concluded. The route was difficult throughout, mountainous with occasional tunnels, all told I'd climb 8000 vertical feet and ride 115 miles over the next 10 hours and conclude well inside of Serbia, in Nova Varos, and well after dark. Along the way, I enjoyed a serendipitous lunch in Rudo provided by strangers that quickly became friends.
As far as my worst fears, there was none of what I had experienced riding from Mostar. It's true, I was on the primary roads the whole way, but traffic was light, speeds were often moderated in my presence, and the road edge was in excellent condition; a sensible conclusion given heavy traffic between Mostar and Sarajevo versus light traffic headed to the modest village of Rudo and nearby Serbia where no cities of significance are located. At the conclusion of the day, in Nova Varos, I finished wasted but nonetheless smiling. At a store front, I inquired with locals and quickly found a place to stay, so I thought anyway, but was subsequently denied a room for no obvious reason. Not far away, following another local tip, I was welcomed without hesitation at a guest house.
Among my evening tasks, I headed to the nearest currency exchange office, typically open late, to convert my remaining Bosnian Convertible Marks plus a few Euro to Serbian Dinars. With local cash in hand, I visited a handul of small grocery shops before returning to my room at the guest house to absorb an hour or two of mental and physical downtime away from the frenetic energy, a source of gradual but no less real central nervous system fatigue, that is often present when cycling on roads and made worse by any wind or inclement weather that might also be experienced along the way. Satified and feeling good about the road ahead, I drifted into sleep with all of the anticipation you might imagine for the next morning, a chance to explore a new part of Planet Earth and a new community of people and all by bicycle.
From the top of a steep hill, just outside of a palatial apartment that I paid just twenty euro to stay in (about 22$), I said farewell to my generous hosts at about 10:30 am, gripped my bars with respect for what was coming, and plummeted down the slope I'd climbed the night before. Through watery eyes, moments later, I mistakenly turned left on a one-way through the center of town, but fortunately traffic was light and no one, otherwise, seemed to care or notice. A few more turns led to a left and a much longer descent that concluded on a valley floor above small streams that flow into the nearby (to the east) Trebižat. From this juncture to the Croatia-Bosnia border, not quite two miles, I reflected on the journey behind as I contemplated, for the last time in ignorance, what Bosnia would deliver ahead.
The border crossing consisted of single story, wooden structures built close to the road under a forest grove dominated by deciduous trees. Their limbs hung over the road, each branch a matrix of green, orange, and yellow leaves that were a significant reminder, for a man wearing Lycra and about to cross the main axis of the Dinaric Alps, that autumn and its unpredictable weather had arrived. I don't recall a Croatian agent but based on experiences elsewhere I must have passed through a Croatian station before arriving to a lone gentleman standing in the road that briefly checked my passport and then welcomed me to Bosnia and Herzegovina with an obvious smile. He was professionally dressed, lightly armed, friendly, and unconcerned; he never even stamped my passport, preferring instead to conclude our entire meeting from the perspective of the middle of a sleepy, paved, village road. This was the setting and greeting at the Orah-Orehovlje border crossing station, about six miles east of Vrgorac, perhaps the most unassuming and friendly station that I've had the pleasure to visit including some horrible experiences along the US-Canada border, especially but not exclusively dealing with American border agents. My transect from apartment to border took less than thirty minutes.
From Croatia to Bosnia, I transitioned from the 6209 to the R858. The latter meandered through small villages and farmland on essentially flat ground. This was what I would define as a secondary road, paved, opposing lanes, well marked. I followed the route, for the most part in peaceful solitude, through Grab and then into Lošče where the R858 continued south and the route I'd built using Ride With GPS, now loaded onto my Garmin 1030 head unit and staring up at me, proceeded east.
As anyone can see if they zoom in on my route captured by the Strava app, I wandered in search of something in the village of Lošče for several minutes before committing to an eastward trajectory. Despite the red line looking up at me, I wasn't confident that "the way" I had mapped was actually a road. This was my first clue, in hindsight, of what lay ahead but for the moment I assumed the experience would be temporary as I turned off the primary route (R858), by now noisy and trafficked, onto a dirt and gravel road between commercial buildings and empty lots.
Beyond the busy R858, my route quickly degraded, from hard-packed dirt and gravel to loose sections of mixed stones and dirt, as well as exposed bedrock. On either side of the dirt track, the landscape was reminiscent of a revegetated strip mine. Most of the ground appeared to have been recently disturbed, likely from farming not mining, and the vegetation that grew on the surface gave the impression of a composition dominated by problematic, invasive, plants, sometimes referred to as "weeds" in the US.
However, beyond those proximate boundaries and observations, a vast, unobstructed, and beautiful landscape of gently rolling hills, covered for the most part in stunted, dry-land forests, extended in all directions eventually to the foot of isolated ridges or more significant ranges, part of the Dinarides. The forests were dominated by mostly deciduous trees, a middle-canopy with no upper and sparse ground cover below. Here and there I passed homes built in isolation relative to their neighbors; the area was lightly settled and locals relied on a dirt road of some form to access their properties which were typically well kept with hints of modern conveniences. Those distractions withstanding and the rough roads as well, I found it very easy to drift into the depths of my own mind, a flow state, as I explored this opening scene in the Country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For convenience, below I'll shorten the country name to just Bosnia.
When viewed using the route building software provided by Ride With GPS, an account that I pay $10 dollars per month to access, the roads I was on now, beyond the R858, appeared to be secondary in character. On the ground, however, that designation certainly didn't apply, what I was expecting to be "secondary" were far less and certainly not recommendable for loaded bicycle travel. In contrast, ORVs of any form would flourish in this environment, just beware unresolved, unexploded, and unmarked mine fields from the fairly recent Bosnia War, a complicated, international conflict and part of the dissolution of former-Yugoslavia that persisted from 1992 to 1995.
Further along on this section of my tour and elsewhere in Bosnia, I encountered more advanced road degradation especially on hills with grades above about 4% where deep ruts were filled with loose, mixed stone in channels between exposures of bedrock. All of my skills as a mountain biker were necessary to stay on the saddle and avoid smacking a rock that might annihilate a tire, an aluminum rim, or both in a single, tragic, fraction of a second on the downhill side of those climbs. Certainly, there was no bike shop in sight. With this in mind, I did my best to preclude gravity and in general prioritized caution over pace.
East of Brig, I crossed-over the M230 and by now I was definitely contemplating a change of course but nonetheless proceeded onto the next rough track. The M230, by the way, was busy with high speed, truck traffic, And I suspect, based on observations I made later in the day and on subsequent days in Bosnia, that the "cycle lane" consisted of no more than three inches of terra firma, the extent of the white line if there was one. Compounding this narrow, tentative purchase, I also noticed that the edges of these heavily used primary roads tended to be significantly degraded. So the M230 and other primary routes had their disadvantages too and these were no less serious, in my view, than those that I encountered in the countryside on a variety of dirt tracks.
After crossing over the M230, I immediately began climbing a steepening grade, eventually across several, tight contour lines that ultimately brought me to an enviable vantage to view the area from which I'd come. Spread-out towards Croatia, to the west, I could see a broad valley dominated by farm parcels, drained by the Trebižat River. Above and behind me, towards the east, Mount Sitomir observed my progress, likely grinning from outcrop to outcrop as the mountain awaited my arrival to further degradation of the "road" that culminated in a very rough single-track; an adjacent stone wall on the upslope; and close to the end of this trail glass shards spread everywhere including under my tires. By now, I was sharing my experience, as I rode east along the ridge, with a series of widely spaced, microscopic villages, each comprised of just a handful of buildings, built on a shelf below Mount Sitomir. Many of the buildings appeared abandoned and showed signs of artillery and bullet scars, reminders of the recent Bosnian War.
As much as I was concerned about slicing a tire or rolling over a land mine, my biggest concern here and elsewhere on Bosnia's rough tracks was encountering unchained dogs that were prone and possibly even encouraged to violence. On the ridge above the valley, I encountered guard-variety dogs, including German Shepherds, but fortunately they were chained or indoors in all cases. My worst dog encounter to date was on my 2018 bicycle tour in Nova Scotia, Canada. As this anecdote suggests, there is nothing special about remote settings in Bosnia versus those in Canada or anywhere else, all of these can and sometimes do contain unrestrained dogs that can be a liability to a cyclist.
As on other bicycle tours, I wasn't carrying anything, such as mace, that I could use in my defense. Instead, my tactic, fine-tuned over many years, is to ride directly at the attacking dog(s) as I simultaneously use my deepest, angriest, man-voice to try to overwhelm their aggression with my own. This technique recently turned a female pit-bull or her heals and sent her running back into her unfenced yard during a training ride outside of Durango, Colorado.
Above Jurjevica, I descended back down to eye-level with most of this regions two-leggeds and with that descent I suspect my heart came down a few beats as well. East of Jurjevica, I missed a turn, then recovered and settled onto a series of comfortable (smooth) dirt and sometimes single-lane, paved tracks that meandered between villages and farmland and paralleled the M120 to the south. Just beyond Dugandžići, I turned north, onto more, often rough, dirt tracks that paralleled the R801 to the east. At that juncture, the left, I recall a group of kids and their parents standing at what I assume was a bus stop. They clearly saw me as I approached, fairly close, and then turned left onto roads that they no doubt knew were unfit for a loaded bicycle. One would assume that stories followed, around the dinner table and coffee shops, which involved an uninformed, Lycra-clad westerner that must have had a hell of day and his own story to tell.
That left turn was also the moment when I resumed climbing, from about 700 to 1400 feet, over roughly seven miles. Sounds easy until you factor in the road conditions and my heavy bike, which elevated the challenge significantly. Very close to the top of the climb, I intersected with the M120 and followed this primary road all the way to Mostar. Fortunately, the traffic was light throughout this stretch. And even better, the ten miles from the intersection to Mostar were all downhill and often quite steep so I was able to keep pace with the traffic, effectively minimizing how many cars and trucks actually caught and passed me.
A few miles ahead, a few miles remaining to Mostar, I stopped at a pull-out to behold an impressive valley, surrounded by high mountains on three sides, it seemed anyway. In truth, the valley actually cut through, on my left, what appeared from my vantage to be continuous mountains. Above that cut was the fifth largest town in Bosnia, Mostar, on the same valley floor, a town with roots dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond. Below my vantage, I could see the big town of Ortiješ and running through the middle, the region’s largest river which flowed south without concern for its neighbors, their dams, and other temporary obstructions.
The River, known today as Neretva or Narenta, carved this valley and those above and below it with impenetrable patience, and in doing so transported an enormous mass of substrate, from valley floors and material constantly tumbling down from the mountains, to the Adriatic Sea; enough material to easily fill every house in Bosnia to the roof with dirt, sand, and stone. A river like that doesn't need to be humble, or have any other concern for human priorities. It will and we will not persist. It's always been that way, for species on Planet Earth, each one persisting for about a million years, cheated by only a few, such as the horseshoe crab which has labored up beaches, most of those long-ago annihilated by geologic time and processes, for at least 445 million years. From my vantage overlooking this gorgeous valley, I was humbled by these and other thoughts as I contemplated geologic time, processes that play-out on this exceedingly slow but yet grand scale, and our place in the even grandeur universe where exploding stars (supernovae) and colliding universes are the norm.
The final descent down into Mostar was exhilarating, so much so that much of my labors form earlier in the day were nearly forgotten by the time I reached the familiar sounds and smells of a major urban center. My next challenge would be to acquire some Bosnian currency, known as the Bosnian Convertible Mark, and hopefully in exchange for the Kuna that remained in my inventory. I lined-up in a bank adjacent to a pizza shop but my patience didn't last that long. I abandoned this option and walked next door, asking questions, getting directions, and establishing my initial impression of Bosniaks. A group of college-aged ladies spoke little English, but smiled and tried to help regardless. Then a young man walked over with an outstretched hand, translated and then proceeded to provide me with all the direction I needed in perfect English.
In particular, I wanted to visit the old part of town, bank transactions temporarily on hold. His directions were excellent but I was still quite far away, across the city, from my goal. Soon after parting, his directions began to blend into incomprehension and so I had to stop a second time to seek additional clarification. I spotted a Bosnian couple sipping espresso at a cafe and rolled-up on them; a moment later I was amongst friends. Igor shared so much about Bosnia, places to go, to eat, history, and more that I asked him to sketch all those thoughts into an email and send it to me, which he did and I checked off every piece of his advice especially in the restaurants of Sarajevo. Ivana was also generous with her kindness, smile, and advice. A few blocks from this lovely couple, I spotted a currency exchange shop, leaned the bike nearby, unlocked, and this time waited patiently in the queue. Croatian currency and a bit of Euro went over the counter and I departed with a comfortable reserve of Bosnian Marks.
Curiously, Mostar is named after the mostari, the name given to men that guarded the Stari Most (English, "Old Bridge"), a bridge in the heart of the old quarter of the city built by the Ottoman Empire in 1557 following the commission of Suleiman the Magnificent. The original bridge spanned the River Neretva and time for 427 years before it was destroyed during and later rebuilt following the Bosnian War. I eventually found that bridge, by this point literally trapped in a sea of slowly moving tourists that gently dragged me up and over the famous bridge. Proximity to so many strangers, all of them smiling by the way, was nonetheless a risk that Igor warned could attract the city's expert pick-pockets so I took care with my wallet, cell phone, etc until I was unhinged from the masses.
It wasn’t possible, given all the people, to ride over the bridge, which was also far steeper than I anticipated. And coming down the back-side in my cycling shoes fitted with mountain bike clips was a tap dance on polished stone that I wasn't eager to repeat. Beyond the bridge, the aggregate of slowly moving legs and bodies kept my pace to a crawl for a few more minutes before I took advantage of a right exit, ascended two sets of stairs, and then settled into an outdoor cafe where I ordered a cappuccino. The whole transect from approach, over the bridge, through a tunnel of shops otherwise open to the sky and then up the stairs took about 20 minutes but it felt much longer which compelled me to conclude my old city tour much sooner than I might otherwise have done.
As far as old cities go, what I could see from the cafe suggested I'd actually seen it all, just one road, filled shoulder to shoulder with tourists. That's a stark contrast to the myriad streets and quiet, inspired spaces that I discovered in places including even tiny Trogir and old Rovinj (Croatia); and there was much more in spacious Zadar and Split (Croatia). The shoulder-to-shoulder ordeal also left me feeling a bit claustrophobic. The open air cafe on a high step comfortably overlooking the milieu with my favorite beverage within reaching distance therefore felt even better than usual, and I took advantage of the relative solitude by eventually making my final decision about how I would proceed towards a very significant goal for my tour, Sarajevo.
There were two options to make my way to Sarajevo from Mostar that didn't involve significant detours, directions other than east. Detours are sometimes desirable, but this late on a cross-(sub)continent tour my preference was a more direct route. It's worth noting, that even my two "direct" routes were nowhere near straight lines between Mostar and Sarajevo; and in both cases, a cyclist had to contend with a perpendicular transect through the main axis and ranges of the Dinarides.
The first option, ill advised according to my waiter that spoke some English, was a series of rough tracks fit for goats and other horticultural traffic not loaded bicycles! But the alternative also had problems, those that I was aware of, Donald Rumsfeld's "known knowns"; and those that I was not, "unknown unknowns." So it was a difficult choice, one or the other, hence the time that it took me to make a decision. With the morning and afternoon's experiences in mind, I decided to try the primary route, despite the traffic that I would no doubt have to contend with and narrow or absent road shoulders. At this point, equally satisfied with my choice as I was ignorant of what lay ahead, I paid my bill and exited onto the street above the cafe and the old city which no doubt had much more on offer than I was willing to go in search of on this particular day; Mostar at-large as well. Judgement withstanding, jumping ahead, my haste turned-out to be advantageous, a gift from the quantum physics that influence all that we are and do,
If one experience from this tour remains persistently lodged in my neurons and no other because of illness or normal, age-related decline, I'm fairly certain it will be the collective memories of what I experienced on my ride from Mostar to Konjic on the M115, the primary and most direct route between Mostar and Sarajevo. Konjic is about 40 miles from the larger town and from Mostar I was about 45 miles from Konjic via the M115. My roll-out from Mostar was uneventful, other than a brief encounter with a bicycle-touring couple I'd first spoken with in old Mostar. We enjoyed what would be our last bit of more or less civilized road conditions, together, before I unexpectedly dashed ahead amidst a brief window of opportunity to take a left onto the M115 at a complicated intersection. By this point, the land was already beginning to rise.
Although the climb to the reservoir adjacent to Konjic would be gradual, it felt much more difficult given everything that I was experiencing. Imagine eating a food that you find unsatisfying under normal conditions, when someone is constantly shouting at you, would you enjoy it more or less? My guess is you'd be hating every mouth full with amplified disgust. The same was true for me as I climbed an otherwise very manageable grade and ascent, 250 feet above sea level in Mostar to about 1000 feet when I tipped onto the south bank of Jablaničko Lake, a massive reservoir formed behind an equally massive dam on the Neretva River. The reservoir flooded what was, for millenia, a steep-walled canyon cut by the river all the way to Konjic, a distance of about 13 miles from where I initially contacted the lake traveling north on the M115.
The primary issues that I experienced on this route, most of them "unknown unknowns", were the following: 1) often no road shoulder; 2) very few vehicles slowed down or gave me space; 3) the speed limit on this "M" road was highway speed and of course most drove faster including trucks; 4) tunnels were frequent and few of these were lighted; 5) the road edge, my 3-inch "cycle lane", was often heavily degraded, imagine cracked and fragmented pavement, pot holes, sharp edges and heaped on these detractions accumulations of sand, rock, and the usual road-side trash including plastic bottles; and the worst among them, 6) many of the service covers normally providing access to and protection for whatever was under the road were missing which left gaping, square holes directly along my path, a problem that seemed to be amplified (most were missing) in the tunnels. If that doesn't frighten a cyclist so much so that they seek another route, even if that means a hundred extra miles or more, then keep reading.
Here's the scenario that I had to overcome perhaps as many as twenty times as I passed through tunnels of varying length from Mostar to Konjic. Let's pretend you, the reader, are on the saddle with me, here comes the tunnel and often a sign describing its length, typically 300-800 meters, a fraction of a mile or a kilometer. The longest were dark on the opposite end; ca. 600 meters was enough for that to occur. A few were longer than a kilometer, an eternity for my senses. Once inside, my lights blazing, we can see the side of the road where the white line should have been but there's no line; it's been replaced by a pile of rubble that's fallen from the roof and ceiling and heaped by traffic turbulence into the "cycle lane". Above the rubble, to the right, a ledge of varying height was often present, the edge of a narrow walk-way for servicing the tunnel. That too was covered in debris and often heavily damaged. The tunnel roof curved and otherwise obstructed comfortable passage along that non-desirable surface so it certainly wasn't a friendly alternative. Additional covers were often missing from the surface of the sidewalk, more gaping holes that were often large enough to swallow my front wheel.
Inside the tunnel, I focused on breathing, relaxing my arms, shoulders, neck, etc, anything I didn't need to ride and power the bike, techniques I practice during yoga as well as cycling. And then I allocated every remaining iota I could spare from propulsion, pedaling the bike, to mental discipline, controlling my thoughts and where these might otherwise go given the appalling conditions. Okay, so here comes a tractor trailer, an "18-wheeler" as we say in America, it's going highway speeds and never touches the brakes. I need to stay perfectly on a roughly 3-inch strip of mangled road edge. I can't touch the curb to the right, that could cause me to lose my balance, and I can't swerve for any reason by more than a tiny fraction to the left. Ahead cars are approaching, seemingly no one cares or (likely) they are not aware of the compounded and inevitable physics generated by their vehicles in a tunnel. When they are adjacent to us, me with you riding virtually on my saddle, they'll simultaneously pass each other, the truck and the cars, as well.
As the cars ahead approach, I release the tension in my hands, more breath, by now I'm overwhelmed by a cacophony of noise generated by the approaching vehicles, greatly amplified by the acoustics of the tunnel. This is where I begin to lose consciousness, that's what I believe was happening anyway. The noise is so extreme that I can't tell how close the vehicle, the approaching truck, is behind me. I know it isn't slowing down, from experience, and I know it's close but I don't know when it will arrive and I can't risk looking over my shoulder; even my best effort to stay on my line could swerve a half death inch into the death zone.
Consciousness and fear: we all know that feeling of being frozen by fear as a youngster, and it’s a small step to imagine how fear at that level could cause a person to lose consciousness. At the peak of each approach, peak noise and internally generated fear despite my best effort to suppress it, I began to lose visibility, despite my lights, and then my position in space-time. As this implies, I lost a fraction of my ability to interpret my place in space, how far, how close, how big, in fact "where was I" began to blur and at that moment the truck explodes over our left shoulder, passing in an instant in one unbelievable expression of outward-pressing energy. On the worst encounters, inside the longest, darkest tunnels, involving the loudest machines, perhaps a line of three loaded trucks, I literally roared as loud as my voice would allow as a final, desperate effort to remain in control. Especially during these moments, my normal, physical space deteriorated before my eyes but the horror, it turned out, was marginally on the side of what I could survive if I applied every trick that I've learned through training, racing, and touring on bicycles to control my mind. I believe a fraction more would have concluded my tour, and possibly with tragic consequences.
That's my Bosnia, M115, tunnel story. I refused to turn-around or hitch-hike because I was fatigued from a long tour (adding more miles at this point seemed ill-advised) and my goal was to ride from Duncansby Head to Istanbul without assistance from any other machine except ferry boats. Many times on this 35 mile stretch, the climb without the reservoir section, I asked myself if it was worth it and each time I concluded that I wasn't going to quit. In hindsight, I have no regrets, but I wouldn't recommend this section to anyone that hasn't more or less committed to it as I had by first riding to Mostar. My advice is going a different way, even avoiding Mostar, wouldn't kill a tour by any means but the road to Sarajevo, from there, certainly could.
When I converged with Jablaničko Lake, the M115 turned right and paralleled the reservoir all the way to Konjic, about ten miles. By this point, understandably, I was deeply "shell-shocked", perhaps a temporary PTSD, but the transition from ascending a mountain through a series of dark tunnels to an elevated road overlooking a peaceful and scenic reservoir, where the traffic slowed down through many villages, was a massive change that allowed me to come way down. However, the predicted response, laughter following the most intense fear I've ever felt never came. To me that seems significant; literally I was too frightened to laugh even after the extreme danger had subsided. Instead, I settled into the cool, fresh atmosphere above the water, glided, at times, along a road edge that was excellent quality, and focused on being grateful about where I was and even what I had just experienced.
As I rode into Konjic, the last bit of light descended to the west behind a major range, in breadth and height, of the Dinaric Alps in Blidinje Nature Park. I'd cut through this formidable range and others during my ascent of the Neretva River, by all measures a canyon from Mostar to the reservoir. Here's an image that captures a sense of the mountains in this part of Bosnia, from a rare stop before I reached Konjic. As often occurs on my tours, locating the home that I'd booked into, using Airbnb in Mostar, turned-out to be difficult. Firstly, because my EU-centric SIM card, purchased in Wales, was no longer working now that I was in Bosnia. A lack of light and language challenges compounded this issue.
Outside a small shop on the outskirts of town two men were eating and enjoying a beer, one spoke a few English words, enough to understand. He led me inside where I was able to connect to the shops WiFi. That should have closed the deal but when I arrived to the neighborhood where I'd spend the night, I encountered a myriad of paths and driveways on a near vertical slope that descended to a tributary of the Neretva, I was nearly there but unable to close the gap to the exact doorstep. About this moment, when I was contemplating how to proceed in the absence of technology, a woman walking a child approached in my direction and I asked her for help. Working with as much English as the fellow outside the shop, she understood and offered to call my host. A few minutes later, Marko located me on the street, I was standing behind his house, and at that point a very difficult day, the sort that adds tremendous perspective to a short human life, began to wind down.
Among the personalities and characters from my tour that I would have enjoyed spending much more time with, I would certainly include Marko, owner and host of a cozy guest house adjacent to enviable, mountainous, Bosnian wilderness. Despite Konjic's proximity to the M115, it truly is an oasis within this wilderness, with ample resources including restaurants and more. Beyond the minor footprint of Konjic, light development or no development at all is the rule as one navigates, from here, into the heart of the impressive Dinaric Alps (as this image from my tour demonstrates). My ascent of the canyon cut by the Neretva River from Mostar to Jablaničko Lake was packed with this level of scenery. Sadly, the challenges, described above, of riding that section generally kept my smart phone camera tucked in my top-tube bag. If you could witness what I captured in my neurons you would be impressed and humbled by the potential for solitude and adventure in those mountains and so I encourage you, your friends, family, and strangers that you might influence to go there, to stay with Marko at his guest house for less than $15 per night and collect memories that will leave your audiences spellbound with curiosity and questions.
After studying maps and options into the evening in my own private apartment above Marko's home, I remained unconvinced that at least a portion of my day wouldn't be similar or as bad as the canyon portion the day before. And it likely did turn out to be that outrageous, but by this time I had slept well and I knew what was coming, each eased the intensity of my response and otherwise calmed my still vibrating central nervous system.
Less than a half-mile from Konjic, the road began to climb, tunnels inevitably followed, and this scenario persisted for a little more than an hour before I reached the summit at ca. 3000 feet, by now 2200 feet above Konjic and ten miles closer to Sarajevo. From here, I quickly descended the next five miles to the village of Tarčin, in the municipality of Hadžići, and an anticipated right turn off the M115. At this juncture, a man was standing on the side of the road and I called out to him in simple English, unable to suppress my joy of riding away from that dreadful highway, from the perspective of a cyclist, which nonetheless did bring me into the company of rugged, skyward-reaching mountain ranges, the most impressive that I'd seen so far in the Dinarides, and a fabulous host, Marko, among other treasures.
Not far beyond that right turn, I temporarily and intentionally departed from my planned route in search of quaint, Bosnian village life and found ample in the first valley that I visited off the M115. When I returned to my planned route, the road began to climb and degrade, eventually a muddy track with deep tractor ruts. Among the highlights of my ride from here to Hadžići, was the arrival of bike and rider to a section of single track, a road on Ride With GPS map layers, which concluded at a steep, forested hillside. From this vantage, I peered down a crumbling, deeply eroded bank, through a matrix of branches and leaves. At the bottom, I could see a road, likely single lane and dirt. Concerns for landmines apparently forgotten, because by this point and subsequently I'd cross even more questionable spaces, I used the bike as my anchor as I carefully stepped down through the forest and eventually out onto the road below. When I stood up, the last few steps being deeply mired in dense bushes and overhanging limbs, two ladies looked up at me from their garden, smiled, and waved but otherwise, to my shock, showed no concern for either my presentation, Lycra-clad on a touring bicycle, or method of entry, emerging from the forest.
Pastures, rough tracks, hike-a-bikes and everything between followed as I rode towards and eventually into Hadžići where the road surface reliably transitioned, with few exceptions, to asphalt all the way to the burbs of Sarajevo. Along the way, green pastures broken by tractor roads and villages that smelled of wood smoke filled the scene below hills and distant summits. This image and another provide a window into this bit of Bosnian wonderland, enviable scenes that filled my heart with gratitude as I approached possibly more "unknown unknowns" for my autumn bicycle tour, in Sarajevo.
Weeks before, whilst rolling-out of Tullamore, Ireland, I sliced my rear tire badly but was able to assemble a temporary repair. Farther along on my tour, in Wales, thanks to the assistance of a kind friend, Ian Bright, I found a bike shop and they replaced the tire and subsequently overhauled the bike, a much needed service by this point. The middle price-point, Mavic tire that they installed survived all the way to the burbs of Sarajevo without a single puncture. A feat that rendered me reluctant, despite nearly losing the rear wheel a few times on steep, wet, paved descents, to change it. A nonsensical conclusion that nevertheless any touring cyclist would understand I suspect.
On a road in Ilidža, a municipality located in Sarajevo Canton and one of its chief suburbs, I chanced upon a cyclist on a mountain bike and decided to ask him, spontaneously, if he knew a bike shop nearby that might have a tire and other resources. This kind fellow not only knew of one but he patiently led me there through the busy streets of Ilidža and then informed the guys at the shop who I was and what I needed! I don't recall the name of the two gentlemen that expertly fixed-up my bicycle, including advice on which tire to mount on the rear (my front tire lasted the whole tour, Panaracer Gravelking, 32 mm), but the shop name is and remains Ciklo Centar. The shop and its employees excel in knowledge, ingenuity, and inspiration to ride bicycles. Definitely reach out to them, they have two shops in the area by the way, if you're in the need in that part of the World.
About 90 minutes later I was on my way (here's the route), hungry as usual and for this reason I nearly crossed a trolley track as the trolley was approaching. City infrastructure, navigation, related challenges and distractions are always a liability. At this near disastrous moment, I took note and subsequently slowed any haste that might have remained as I proceeded through more and more infrastructure, past mounting taxi cabs and buses, eventually over the Miljacka River (sadly heavily polluted by partially treated city waste water). On the other side of the river, Sarajevo awaited, and she had much in store for me including an extended, and much needed, 3-day rest that I wasn't anticipating.
I was feeling very good, despite fatigue, when I rolled in grinning ear to ear as the accomplishment, Duncansby Head to Sarajevo, settled in. A very ambitious goal, like Lake Garda, Innsbruck, and Lake Geneva before, was officially in the adventure bag. I celebrated with a search that concluded at a Bosnian bakery and a very friendly server. Before I departed one hardy pastry, known as börak or burak in the Balkans, was already filtering into my body’s mitochondrial furnaces and two more were awaiting delivery in my pockets. Over the next few days, I probably ate far too many of these savory pastries as well as several plates of ćevapi ("chewapee") in the famous Ottoman bazaar or market known throughout its history as Baščaršija ("bash-charsheeya").
Somewhere above sites that I would visit the next day, I went searching, up a steep climb, into the cities neighborhoods until I found the apartment that I'd booked for a night, for about 33$, using Airbnb's app. Getting inside took a little time and some local assistance but once there I descended into my evening routine plus laundry before the need for sleep overwhelmed. For reasons that I would argue were generated mostly by the oddness and (striking contrast) inevitability of quantum physics, I was compelled to search for another option to spend a second night of rest in the city. By 10 am the following morning, I was checked in and already getting acquainted with my new hosts, Ibrahim, his father Ado and mum too. And by noon, I'd decided, in large part because of the welcome that I received and the comfort that I felt, to add a second night for just $22 per night at the Green Gate guest house. All together, a solid three-night block of rest and exploration, by foot, in Sarajevo.
The sounds of the calls for prayer, voices of men singing verse from the Koran, playing over dozens of mosque loud speakers filtered between hills and the neighborhoods that they supported, including the one where I was temporarily residing, my first morning in the city and several times throughout each day. I found those sounds as soothing as any bird song I'd ever heard and looked forward to each rewind and replay. A feeling that I continued to experience throughout what remained of my tour, beyond Sarajevo, especially in Bosnia and Turkey where the majority religion is overwhelmingly Islam. Underlying the call for prayer, witnessing a community (there are exceptions of course) pause to express gratitude several times every day was an inspiration that, despite my beliefs about the universe and its origins, I welcomed as a valuable contribution to former perspectives that I had already pushed far-outward on this tour.
In the company of Ado and Ibrahim, as well as one of Ado's son-in-laws, Sherif, other perspectives also changed as each one educated me on the history of not only the Bosnian War but conflicts and history that proceeded and followed the dissolution of former-Yugoslavia. Forward or back, their generosity, expressed in time and willingness to share their knowledge and experiences, surpassed in breadth and depth any other opportunity that I encountered on this or former tours for on-the-ground education.
Ado was a soldier and officer in the Bosnian Army stationed in Sarajevo during the Serbian-led siege of the city that lasted four years. Ibrahim was born in the city part-way through that conflict where he remained with his parents. When I was given a tour of Sarajevo by Ibrahim I was truly given a gift of great value, history spoken by a voice that was stitched into the story that he told. Lessons provided by Ado, in an open, airy space just outside my apartment at the Green Gate guest house, delved into armies, governments, and also soldiers carrying food and weapons through a tunnel under the Sarajevo airport that played a pivotol part in the Bosnian Army's success propelling the Serbians for so long.
With Sherif, I found a kindred spirit that was about my age, a man that resonates on a frequency similar to my own despite our differences in birth, faith, and history. Sherif and I easily dipped into philosophical exploration and personal reflection and I enjoyed every moment of those journeys. In all three cases, Ibrahim, Ado, and Sherif, I discovered a mutually respectful and curious friendship and each added valuable perspective to my life. Their kindness is a reminder that, in fact, this is the way it is, on all continents, across all cultures: people have only love in their hearts and they want to share that with others. It's the primary reason why I'm compelled to ask people, especially fellow Americans, to push-out their comfort zones so they too can discover that men and women are the same everywhere and that sameness is beautiful.
By the third morning, I had wandered through the old and new downtown quarters for hours, eating and capturing a few images, but mostly processing my hear and now in the presence of old and new perspectives. Along the way, physical rest, in small part, and something very special about Sarajevo, in large part, helped to renourish my body at an impressive pace in this city of graveyards and hope. I was, therefore, far from ready, mentally, to depart my new friendships and the comfort and opportunity that they represented. But time was undetachable from my post-tour obligations and so my next roll-out could not be avoided. On 11 October 2019, I headed east from town on cobblestone-surfaced roads before transitioning to the modern M5 following directions suggested to me by Ado the day before.
After what had happened between Mostar and Konjic in particular, I was concerned there could be far more of this from Sarajevo to Serbia, and perhaps in Serbia as well. In an attempt to avoid that nightmare, each evening, in Sarajevo, I studied possible routes and built several with Ride With GPS that I never used. Each morning that followed, I discussed my latest route preference with Ado. Eventually, we worked together, side-by-side, he tapped my laptop screen and I pressed the keys. At the conclusion, he was convinced and I was nearly too that all would be well on a route, all on primary roads, that transected Bosnia from Sarajevo to Rudo, an outpost not far from the Serbian border.
From Sarajevo, on the M5, the road inevitably began to climb, back into the impressive and skyward Dinaric Alps; my brief sojourn along the relatively flat banks of the River Miljacka had officially concluded. The route was difficult throughout, mountainous with occasional tunnels, all told I'd climb 8000 vertical feet and ride 115 miles over the next 10 hours and conclude well inside of Serbia, in Nova Varos, and well after dark. Along the way, I enjoyed a serendipitous lunch in Rudo provided by strangers that quickly became friends.
As far as my worst fears, there was none of what I had experienced riding from Mostar. It's true, I was on the primary roads the whole way, but traffic was light, speeds were often moderated in my presence, and the road edge was in excellent condition; a sensible conclusion given heavy traffic between Mostar and Sarajevo versus light traffic headed to the modest village of Rudo and nearby Serbia where no cities of significance are located. At the conclusion of the day, in Nova Varos, I finished wasted but nonetheless smiling. At a store front, I inquired with locals and quickly found a place to stay, so I thought anyway, but was subsequently denied a room for no obvious reason. Not far away, following another local tip, I was welcomed without hesitation at a guest house.
Among my evening tasks, I headed to the nearest currency exchange office, typically open late, to convert my remaining Bosnian Convertible Marks plus a few Euro to Serbian Dinars. With local cash in hand, I visited a handul of small grocery shops before returning to my room at the guest house to absorb an hour or two of mental and physical downtime away from the frenetic energy, a source of gradual but no less real central nervous system fatigue, that is often present when cycling on roads and made worse by any wind or inclement weather that might also be experienced along the way. Satified and feeling good about the road ahead, I drifted into sleep with all of the anticipation you might imagine for the next morning, a chance to explore a new part of Planet Earth and a new community of people and all by bicycle.
Left, my wonderful host Marko from Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Right, a brief stop on a side road as I ascended the canyon from Mostar to Konjic; Above, images that capture some of the road conditions that I experienced from the border with Croatia to Mostar.
Four images, above, that capture some of the rough ("goat") tracks that I encountered after I exited the M115 between Tarčin and Hadžići.
Ciklo Centar bike shop in Ilidža. The shop and its employees excel in knowledge, ingenuity, and inspiration to ride bicycles.
I want to thank Igor and Ivana, friends that were strangers until the moment I said hello to them in Mostar. Igor provided all the info I needed to be a successful eater in Sarajevo! Including ćevapi ("chewapee"), a local Bosnian dish made from combination of minced beef and sheep meat, best sampled from a branded Željo restaurant in Sarajevo's Ottoman-era market, Baščaršija ("bash-charsheeya").
Ibrahim, son of Ado, gentleman of exceptional character and humanitarian ambitions grown from a heart that was born in the city of hope during the Bosnian War. Above the portrait, a collection of images from Sarajevo's 15th-century market, Baščaršija ("bash-charsheeya").
Below the portrait of Ibrahim and I, images taken en route to Serbia on exceptional, for cycling, primary roads. Bottom-right, a stranger that became a friend in the village of Rudo and without hesitation insisted that I finish his lunch whilst he bought me a coffee and a coke!
Dugo možda vatra gori i san koji vatra predstavlja u Sarajevu.