No one bus ride in Bosnia is the same as another but they are also all alike. This trip back from Banja Luka was on a different road, which was even more winding than the one from Sarajevo back to Mostar. At one point, we drove through a tunnel that was clearly carved the rock, and hadn’t been covered over as is usual. Some of the curves were so sharp, I held my breath. As usual, we passed trucks on blind curves. I noticed that the ticket taker had to help the driver hold down the windscreen to block the setting sun.
Returning to Mostar in the dusk and then dark presents a BiH that is terrible and beautiful in her beauty. As we passed through the center of the country, on a south eastern road, the vistas were incredible. Jajce was perched on a hill with a fort overlooking the houses crammed across the valley. This is a city I didn’t realize was so beautiful. Time flies here, and it is sometimes difficult to reserve the weekends for travel ( work, laundry, and so on calls.) There are few day trips here as the roads twist and wind so that a hour trip turns into three.) The train ride presented a different landscape, one of flat farms and snow covered greenhouses. As we passed through the interior on this bus, the snow came and disappeared.
The bus on the narrow road swayed and bounced. The atmosphere was quiet except for the ring of a cell phone, used despite the sign at the front of the bus. As usual, the bus driver took on numerous packages and picked up a policeman in one town for a short ride to the bus station. We picked up another person standing on the side of the road. We took a break at a small station, where the entire bus but two of us got off to smoke. By the time, we reached this station, just one hour outside of Mostar, the fog that covered Banja Luka had disappeared, and now the dusk covered the landscape.
Amy in Mostar 