Godspeed to Olympos, Sun, 24 Sep 2023 | written by Simon
Simon at a City, River, Temple, Waterfall in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Europe

I crossed to Bosnia and Hercegovina early in the morning and was pleasantly surprised to see my Montenegran SIM card work here. Great, I don’t need to buy a new one!

After yesterday’s storm, it got a fair bit colder today. At least it’s sunny again though.

I started today from checking out the incredibly lush Kravica Waterfall. Somehow I managed to get in for free, too – not sure how…

I then drove straight to Međugorje to check out the whole miracle thing. I have to say I am shocked how potent the force of human belief is. Međugorje is literally the ass end of nowhere. It’s the most uninteresting place, a boring village amongst boring hills with nothing going for it. Yet it is full of people buying religious tat from hundreds of shops and stands. It’s got a pretty huge if utterly boring church. And the Aparition Hill itself is packed. And it’s not an easy hill to climb! Ragged rocks, extremely uneven path – most of the climb up Olympos was easier than that! Yet all the elderly people who come here do it. It is honestly inspiring to see their determination to get to the admittedly not too kitchy marble statue of Mary, stopping for fifty prayers on the way. In the end, I am in equal part impressed and saddened that so much human potential and energy gets wasted on this.

Already tired with all the Catholics, I had to find some counterbalance, so I went to visit the Tekke, or a Dervish Monastery in Blagaj. There couldn’t be a starker contrast with Međugorje. There, a massive, featureless church in the middle of completely nondescript landscape. Here, a small house full of character, underneath a sheer cliff with a spring floating out of a cave. The place is very quaint, though unfortunately also very colonised by tourism – restaurants over the river everywhere.

I need to stop here an rant a little. What the hell is it with all those restaurants all the time?! Do people literally go to all those fascinating places and then just want to spend half their time stuffing their faces? I mean, they do, I can see that, but why? I’m not saying everyone should be bringing packed lunch, but how the hell are ten different restaurants able to make a lifing out this one tiny Tekke? It’s incredible.

The main attraction of today was Mostar. Wedged in between steep hills with the famous bridge spanning the river Neretva, it has a beautiful old town entirely overtaken by tat shops and restaurants. OK, I admit. I did end up sitting in one, too. In my defense, it did have a stunning view which turned out to include watching a guy jump off the high bridge into theh river, to the cheers of the crowds.

On the way to Sarajewo, I stopped by Jablanica to see the collapsed rail bridge which was blown up during the war, and drove up to Tito’s secret bunker, but it’s closed until tomorrow. It sounds like a great thing to see, so I’m waiting for it now.