We spend five days at Srdan’s campsite ‘Lužani’ in Klokotnica near Doboj. Srdjan does the right thing and left for Switzerland in good time before the weather broke. We take over the house instead of him.
It is a test for us to just sit there and wait for the rain to stop. The road conditions here in Bosnia are not conducive to ride on.
Srdjan’s buddies come and go from time to time. Drinking and smoking – self-service. Breakfast with schnapps and two cigarettes. Some campers also stop off. They pay, sit in their car and leave again the next morning before we notice it. Jessy and Alexander, the Chinese-Norwegian couple, stay with us on ‘Lužani’ for the second half. Their biggest project is traveling around the world together which means crossing borders with a Norwegian and a Chinese passport, with Schengen visas for ninety days and hopefully soon with a marriage certificate. There are things you cannot imagine. It is so easy for us to cycle across the EU borders and also across the EU’s external borders.
Finally, the journey continues. In Zepce, Bosnia, we take a break to visit the Norwegian company Eagle Technology. It has developed containers that convert plastic waste into oil. Here is a production facility with 150 employees. Bizarre: in Bosnia-Herzegovina there is no waste separation, no deposit system. Garbage lies in the ditches, picnic areas are littered. There are plastic bags for every small purchase and drinking straws for fast drinks. The old diesel cars imported from Germany pollute the air with their exhaust fumes. And a Norwegian company is investing and creating jobs here to recycle waste in their country. Alexander, the traveling project engineer, has arranged to meet us. We left in the same direction and meet up again here in Zepce.
In the industrial city of Zenica, we get an idea of the former socialist Yugoslavia: Bosnia-Herzegovina’s fourth-largest city with 115,000 inhabitants is predominantly inhabited by Bosniaks (Muslims).
We continue to Bugojno. A lively town with 33,000 inhabitants and a transportation hub. Clothing and furniture are manufactured here. There are leather factories and a number of small cobbler’s stores. Bosniaks and Croats predominate here too. The bells of the Catholic church chime first thing in the morning and the muezzin calls at midday.
It is Champions League week and the games are being broadcast in every bar. The rights and fees must be different here in Bosnia than at home. The people are extremely friendly. Everyone says ‘hello’. Young and old wave at the side of the road and the odd car drives past honking its horn. There are no other cyclists. There are delicious pekaras (baker’s stores) with filled bureks and restaurants. We are invited into bars and cafés more than once.
We stay in ‘Mike’s’ beautiful apartment in Bugojno. The former professional footballer with a still burning football heart invites us for coffee and tells us about his sporting and entrepreneurial life, still knows Jupp Derwal and Rüdiger Abramczik from his time at Galatasaray Istanbul, did business with Ion Tiriac and, after living in America and elsewhere for over thirty years, has now been back in his home country for four years. We are happy to accept his restaurant and route recommendations.
We follow the route of our role models Hana and Peter https://www.love2.bike/ who rode their gravel bikes in Bosnia-Herzegovina last fall. So we find wonderful paths and places in the Balkan Mountains.
When planning the route, we look for side roads with little heavy traffic. We look for gradients that we can manage with our loaded touring bikes in the mountainous Balkans. We also take gravel roads which are usually easy to ride.
The weather has normalized. It is a full 17 degrees with an upward trend and the sun is peeking out between the clouds from time to time. Today we spend the night in a tent for the first time in eight days, at Ramsko Jezero (=lake), together with a Breton couple who, like us, have been cycling for three months.
The limited coverage has become extensive, but we did not know that at the beginning of the week. 🙂