We headed off north along the coast and decided to turn inland towards the Bosnian city of Mostar. A fellow Canadian paragliding pilot that Garth and I know, Fedja, who is originally from the Balkans had mentioned that this was once a beautiful town but was decimated in 1993 and many scars from the war would still be prevalent. It was also a potential paragliding spot but that would just be a bonus. The drive inland along a river was fairly picturesque and we passed fairly easily through the border. Arriving in Mostar, we were all quite shocked at the number of bullet and shell ridden buildings in town. We followed signs to the Stari Most, meaning “old bridge”. As we approached, there were some local men controlling the street parking and we were surprised that they were asking for 5 Euros for parking. The national currency is the Converted Mark but Euros are happily accepted. Five Euros seemed quite steep as one could get a room for 17 Euros...so we said thanks but no thanks and found a free parking spot just 3 blocks away.
Still damage to be seen:
A bullet ridden building:
We found a tourist info place with a super friendly young woman working there and free access to the Internet where Garth and I tried to locate the local flying details. Garth asked about the parking situation and she explained that it was the local mafia milking the tourists. I slightly worried that Betty’s tires might be slashed on our return but that concern was not to be realized. We walked along a tourist shop lined cobble rocked (not stoned but round rocked) road to the bridge. Soon Garth and I dismissed the option of paragliding thanks to some dark clouds coupled with a northerly wind (which was bad for the supposed launch direction).
The pedestrian bridge was impressive but we soon learned that it had been blown to bits in the conflict so it hardly was an “old bridge”. There were stone, castle-like buildings on either side of the river and on our side it housed a war museum along with a “diver’s club”. We decided to check out the museum which was a small photographic display of the devastation of the area 17 years prior. It was amazing to see how much destruction had hit the area. I had a new appreciation that although there were still many buildings riddled with war damage, the majority had been rebuilt of fixed. The divers club turned out to be a bit of a misnomer. We sat on a nice patio about a hundred meters from the bridge and enjoyed an ethnic lunch while looking at the bridge. We noticed a few of the Speedo clad divers pacing up and down the bridge and at least ten minutes passed before finally one of them took the plunge. Now granted that it was probably about twenty meters down to the water which is pretty high, but all the dude did was jump straight in, feet first. We expected a somersault or dive at least...but no, just a straight jump. They should be the jumper’s club, not the diver’s club!
What the area looked like after the shelling:
The bridge area:
Garth at lunch near the bridge:
Me and yet another new beer:
One of the so called divers:
We hopped back in Betty and headed on a slightly different direction to the coast. We made a couple of stops on the way. The first was to Medurgorje (“gorje” meaning church). Holly explained that supposedly many people had had visions here and hence it had an incredible draw to many Christians. The church itself was not terribly impressive nor was it terribly old but it was amazing the number of cars lining the nearby streets and more incredibly the plethora of souvenir shops selling “Jesus gear”. Rosary beads galore, Mary emblazoned plates and necklaces and anything you could name of with some Christianity connection to it. We really wondered the validity to the “visions” claim and thought perhaps it was just a fantastic marketing scheme.
Our next stop to the coast was the Kravice waterfalls. We took a slightly wrong turn on the way there (actually we can blame the helpful lady back at the Mostar tourist info office but it was only a 10 minute detour). We parked the car at a 5 Euros cost but felt that this was unlikely a mafia run affair...but we could be wrong. There was still a fair procession of people heading down the gently sloping, paved switchbacks down to the river. Half of the road consisted of beautiful stone while the other half was asphalt painted an ugly pale green. We figure the paint kept the heat of the pavement down and the segregation was to delineate between pedestrians and the odd car, which we figured were maybe VIPs (mafia?) or just overpaying customers. The falls themselves were quite lovely and the cool cascading water moisturized the nearby air causing a relief from the late afternoon heat. There were a few people enjoying a swim while most were hanging out in a few casual watering holes on the shore. We enjoyed a beer and then decided to get back on the road as we hoped to return to the coast and find a campsite.
Kravice Waterfalls:
Garth and Holly at the waterfalls:
The campsite we found seemed promising at first but oh my, was it packed...like sardines! It turned out to be alright and after a lovely pizza dinner down on the waterfront we were off to bed and the busy place turned out to be quieter than we expected.
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