16th November 2010

Traveling through this area, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, we are beginning to have a little understanding of the war of the early 1990's but it is very confusing and I am positive we will never understand even a fraction of it. What we can see is two countries trying to move on amongst constant reminders. We have yet to visit Serbia. Many buildings we have seen so far in Bosnia-Herzegovina are at best pockmarked from shrapnel and at worst virtually destroyed just a shell of a building left. There are many more buildings that have been repaired, re built and as in culturally significant buildings, faithfully restored. The most famous of all of course are the old town of Dubrovnik and the Stari Most (bridge) at Mostar. We had already seen Dubrovnik and on Sunday we left the lovely city of Split in Croatia and traveled to Mostar in Herzegovina.

On the bus we met a fellow Kiwi, well transplanted from England but after 20 years in NZ she calls herself a Kiwi ...at least in our presence! Janine had already booked a hostel and was met at the bus station, they had a spare room so that saved us a bit of time and energy it also meant we had some company to look around Mostar with. All three of us enjoyed having someone different to talk to for a change. We stayed two nights in Mostar so we could do a tour of some the villages and country side surrounding Mostar.

The bridge is an impressive sight, a lovely stone arch, over the River Neretva. In summer brave young men dive off the bridge into the icy river 21 metres below. Stari Most was completely destroyed in 1993 then rebuilt exactly how it was pre war and reopened in 2004. The bridge was rebuilt with stone from the original quarry. The place we stayed, Miron Hostel, has been the family home for generations but had been bombed and nearly destroyed. Miron and his wife rebuilt the home and now use part of it for a hostel. From Miron we learnt a little more about the war and the effects both economically and personally of it on him and his family. His father was killed fighting not far from the house. On the surface things are relatively normal but from talking to Miron we could see the psychological scars are just below the surface and will take a long time to heal. Today we see countries co-operating that were only 20 years ago killing each other and it all seems so senseless. When we crossed the Croatia/ Bosnia-Herzegovina border the border guards did not look at any passports or ID cards, they just wandered down the aisle looked at us and left. We must have all looked pretty honest.

We haven't met many fellow travelers, especially NZers but Kiwis do seem to pop up in the most
unexpected places. When we got the ferry to Hvar Is we arrived at the little village of Sucuraj (pop 250) only to find that the first and only bus to Hvar town 77kms away was not until the next morning at 5.50am. The man we asked said to go over to Tony's restaurant as there was a lady there who spoke English and she would know for sure when the buses went. So away we went and there we found Tania from Opononi speaking Kiwi. She runs the family business, Tony's Bistro. Tony lived in NZ for 34 years then 20 years ago decided to come back to his home village and start a business. As we sat enjoying a beer in the hot sun we listened to some of Tony's NZ memories, then along came Mario from the Waikato town of Te Kauwhata. Mario heard English being spoken so came to investigate. He plays rugby a short distance away on the mainland and was visiting his cousin for the day. We asked Tania could she recommend a place to stay, so she went off to make a phone call, and we found the place we were to stay belonged to the man who sent us her way. Some days turn to be far different than we imagine.

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed very early for the bus trip down the island. The bus took the long way through little villages picking up and dropping off school kids, we enjoyed gorgeous scenery all the way to Hvar town. It was still early in the day by the time we got to Hvar town so we had a quick look around and got the bus to the ferry for Split. On that bus we found another Kiwi, but she was staying on the island for a few more days so we only had a quick chat before we went our separate ways. By the time we got to Split and found our Hostel for the next couple of days, we were a little weary from a long but enjoyable day.