Romanija, many meetings

With pictures this time, thanks to Alex who made all the photos featured in this article.

I leave Sarajevo on Thursday, 27th of October. The weather is gray, and so is the mood as I already miss its shops and streets and… But I am meeting another traveller in Višegrad in a couple of days, and this is a good 120 kilometers walk. Actually, I am a bit scared that after those three weeks in the same place I might not be able to walk all that in time. Also, the weather is getting quite cold, and I have to cross Romanija, a very impressive patchwork of mountains and gorges and small, narrow valleys swept by icy winds. It is said to be really beautiful though, the most dramatic gorge being almost 1000m-high, with the Drina river winding in its depths. I am thinking about all this when someone calls me as I am about to get round a closed tunel.

Right behind me, Benoît and Alex saw me a few minutes ago already. Travellers, on foot too, using but a small budget too, they left Paris 6 months ago to walk around the world. Talking about coincidences! They just went through Sarajevo, and are now heading towards Montenegro. A quick glance at our maps show we will be walking together for about 100km, something like 5 days worth of walking.

First day: broom

The first day comes and goes without anything special happening. Walking, talking, we get to Pale and make a mandatory stop in caffe "Le Voyageur". I point at the name and ask the waitress:

“Razumijete li to?
— Putnik, u Francuski.
— Mi smo francuski putnici!”

We then go look for a place for the night. The local church looks good, so we eat there, next to some kind of a religious shop, selling candles and pictures of saints or something. We are quite surprised to see that a lot of people cross themselves before entering the church's garden. I guess it's not the right place to make fun of religion. That's what we were talking about when an old woman pops up, drops a broom at our feet and disappears without a word. I like the practical way of thinking.

Bad news tonight, my Visa card I finally got back came with no code. Great, still no money without resorting to Western Union. Fortunately, Benoît and Alex would help me for a few days, and I shall get even someday. In the meantime, after a night under the terasse of a coffee shop for me, and behind the church for them, it's time to get moving again.

Second day

Low clouds crawl the hills under a gray, boring sky. Kilometers come, kilometers go as we go deeper and depper into the Romanija massif. The M5 winds from edge to edge, then from dale to dale, but the mist blurs everything into a washed-out set of grayish shapes. Through cold and moisture, we finally get to something new: the road enters a dark hole in the mountain. We just discovered the first in a long serie of tunnels that were digged under the reigh of François Ferdinand, a century ago, to connect Sarajevo to Višegrad.

Unlighted, too narrow to let cars go both ways, bearing nothing but raw rocks on the floor, the tunnel is regulated by two traffic lights. We turn our headlights on, and dive into the mountain, between two sets of cars. In a few seconds, the whole universe collapses to three meters of shadows in the middle of a pitch-black darkness, and the roar of engines somewhere in the passage. We feel like the huge rocks are crushing us, and without any kind of spatial or temporal fixed point, it seems we have already been walking for ages when a light appears in front of us.

No end though, only cars coming the other way. The tunnel is so narrow we cannot cross trucks, we have to take refuge in on of the sheters carved in the walls every 100 meters or so every time cars come either way. This slows us even more, and the whole tunnel crossing is exhausting. The end eventually comes, with great relief. We will learn later that this tunnel was almost 1km long.

Suns finally decides to come and sweep all those annoying mists out of our way as we go down, into the gorges, after the tunnel. Morale gets better, and it is three happy traveller who surprise a group of lumberjacks around noon, coming out of the blue at this time of the year in this remote place. They have us taste some Rakija, some local plum brandy. Here, one drinks it straight from the bottle. We manage to explain them our projects and trips, using Alex's demontrative gestures and my basic knowledge of the Bosnian language. Meanwhile, Benoît makes a display of Rakija drinking. The, Alex grabs her camera:

After half an hour or so, we hit the road again. This is a hard, twisting road, but Rakija evaporated any tiredness, so we walk quite fast. Until Alex sees a man working on some kind of a still. I am still unsure of how the whole thing happened, but a few minutes after, we are drinking Rakija again, and eating some hand-grilled ćevapćići. It is but a miracle that we managed to actually get back to the road two hours later.

Made for a happy twilight though, as we come by wonderful sceneries. We finally get to Prača an hour after twlight, exhausted, with no clue of where we will sleep whatsoever.

We are lucky. As we get a look at the map, someone calls us in English. A nice couple of Bosnians, born in a nearby village, invites us for dinner and to spend the night in their villa, a few kilometers away. Wonderful evening talking of this and that sitting by the fire. Not to mention we get a shower and a bed. Travellers rejoice!

Three days to go

The following days will have us go off the roads, along the river, walking on the disused railway through an impressive 28 tunnels and stunning scenery. Unfortunately, in shades of gray again, damn clouds. After those wonderful five days through Romanija, our paths will have us split up as they go south towards Montenegro, while I will head east to Višegrad and Serbia.

Did I mention we found a small cat?