After leaving Sarajevo, we opted to explore eastern Bosnia, primarily to check out a national park that sounded mildly intriguing (& stock up on a little nature time, after spending four nights in the heart of the city). However, we were SO not prepared for the drive that was ahead of us! Although marked as a "major highway" on the national map (note that the roads aren't even necessarily named b/c there is typically only one connecting each city pair), the road between Sarajevo and our park destination was the most winding, elevation-changing, stomach-dropping road that either of us had encountered in our 30-something years in this world.
In fact, I have never in my life gotten car sick until this drive, but there were moments when I desperately wanted Will to stop the car, let me out & leave me for dead. :) Whoo. Between the extra time required to travel these crazy roads, the lack of lighting on the roads, and our lack of inner (read: stomach) strength to continue past a certain point, we opted to stop for the night at the one respectably sized town in-between our two end points. Unfortunately, that town appeared to only have one accommodation choice...which was SO disgusting that Will (who is much less prissy than I am), actually demanded that we leave upon first glance of our potential room! So, we opted to get our money's worth out of our rental car that day, find a deserted parking lot, and cozy up in the little hatchback! Outside of fearing that we would be arrested for squatting in Bosnia, we actually had a pretty restful night's sleep! We awoke with the sunrise (which was several hours before we had risen any other morning of the trip), and decided that our unshowered bodies were tough enough to brave the treacherous roads once again.
The roads were no more kind to us the next day, and I believe that I actually did vocalize my desire to be left roadside for the wolves at one point (thankfully that request wasn't taken seriously). We dashed through the park and enjoyed an early morning view of some mountaintop waterfalls...but mostly we just wanted to get out of that region of the country. Did I mention that the alphabet also changed once we entered this Serbian-influenced region, east of Sarajevo? Every sign was in Cyrillic, rather than the Roman alphabet that we take for granted...so not only were we contending with another language, but also another alphabet spelling the words in that language. :)
After a traffic ticket that we had to pay in cash on the spot (for not having our headlights on in the middle of the day) by some non-English speaking Bosnian police, we decided to push forward all the way into Montenegro, our third country of the trip. We had read that the Montenegrin coast would "burst our beauty meters," but that it was also super crowded and expensive in July; after weighing the main pro and con, we decided that we couldn't resist the opportunity to burst our beauty meters. We arrived in our destination town of Kotor just a few minutes before the tourist information office (which reportedly arranged accommodations) closed...only to be told that all accommodations in the city & surrounding area were completely booked for the night! I must have had a REALLY pitiful look on my face as the representative shared this news with me because she then offered that we could sleep in the spare bedroom of her grandmother's house, 2 km outside of town! Although Will was less than thrilled about this possibility, I was not going to give up the opportunity to have a bed that night. I said "OK" and we set up a plan to meet the kind elderly lady at a bus stop near her apartment. We got a little turned around, and were late enough that we completely missed her; the only information that we had about her was her name (no addy or phone number)...
TO BE CONTINUED... :)
The roads were no more kind to us the next day, and I believe that I actually did vocalize my desire to be left roadside for the wolves at one point (thankfully that request wasn't taken seriously). We dashed through the park and enjoyed an early morning view of some mountaintop waterfalls...but mostly we just wanted to get out of that region of the country. Did I mention that the alphabet also changed once we entered this Serbian-influenced region, east of Sarajevo? Every sign was in Cyrillic, rather than the Roman alphabet that we take for granted...so not only were we contending with another language, but also another alphabet spelling the words in that language. :)After a traffic ticket that we had to pay in cash on the spot (for not having our headlights on in the middle of the day) by some non-English speaking Bosnian police, we decided to push forward all the way into Montenegro, our third country of the trip. We had read that the Montenegrin coast would "burst our beauty meters," but that it was also super crowded and expensive in July; after weighing the main pro and con, we decided that we couldn't resist the opportunity to burst our beauty meters. We arrived in our destination town of Kotor just a few minutes before the tourist information office (which reportedly arranged accommodations) closed...only to be told that all accommodations in the city & surrounding area were completely booked for the night! I must have had a REALLY pitiful look on my face as the representative shared this news with me because she then offered that we could sleep in the spare bedroom of her grandmother's house, 2 km outside of town! Although Will was less than thrilled about this possibility, I was not going to give up the opportunity to have a bed that night. I said "OK" and we set up a plan to meet the kind elderly lady at a bus stop near her apartment. We got a little turned around, and were late enough that we completely missed her; the only information that we had about her was her name (no addy or phone number)...
TO BE CONTINUED... :)
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