After a spending some thoughts on the subject, you realize how difficult it is to choose that universal car, capable of making a trip from one part of Europe to another part of Africa that could cope with every environment. For us, the first interesting experience was to drive with the steering wheel on the right, for it was a British vehicle we’d chosen. Driving itself was not a problem, but paying tolls and such was a bit more complicated, for everything was on the “wrong” side. But people get use to everything, for you always have an assistant with you, who handles such administrative things instead of you.
Driving through Europe was very colorful, for we set forth in the spring months. On the way we stopped on a small island of Mount Saint Michel, between Britain and France and the stunning town on this island, which is sometimes reachable even by land, depending on the tide. Walking the streets of the town takes you back into past and the adventure sparkles in your eyes. Small streets, many corners, narrow passages, and many small doors that hide who know what behind them. A playground for your imagination, no doubt. After excellend honey pancakes with cinnamon we were sure it was worth to take this detour on our way to Africa (we turned straight toward west, which was completely off of our course).
The noisy Land Rover took us along the coast, through villages and historical milestones of WWII, where the western offensive had started on “D-day.” After an emotional stop, we’ve reached French capital. Taking in a few of the sites (the Notre Dame cathedral and the beautiful mountains of Montmatre) we reached our friends, who showed us the capital’s nightlife. Laying under the Eiffel Tower concluded our experiencing the city and continued toward Germany. We went up the Jenner mountain (1874m), to enjoy the marvelous view of the surrounding snow covered peaks. "How different our final destination is going to e from this," I’ve thought to myself. Our experience so far certainly didn’t have much in common with Africa.
This contrast was even more emphasized, when we went over the Grossglockner pass and stopped for breakfast of ham, home jam, coffee, tea and fresh baked bread. Very homey for €7. Do they know of such things on the African continent?
For both my co-passengers this was the first visit to Slovenia, so I took them to see the unique sight of Ljubljana “Škisova tržnica.” The huge student party was, in my opinion, a more actual representation of our daily life than a visit of lakes Bled and Bohinj (which we also visited) could ever be. After Piran, Postojna cave, Lipica and doughnuts at Trojane, we came to good ol’Maribor. One of more important stops was at my neighbors’’ car repair shop Gardin, where he checked our fuel gasket, for it was still leaking a little bit. Seeing Maribor would not be complete without a hike up to Piramida, from where we looked southward, but with no snow-covered peak of Kilimanjaro in sight – meaning, it was still a very long drive away.
And not far from the Croatian-Bosnian border we were stopped by the police control. “Documents please.” After seeing the passports the naturally asked: “Which one’s Slovenian?” Thus I was authorized to tell them about us being tourists and how much we like Bosnia and that we want to see Sarajevo and naturally Mostar. It was more or less a friendly chat that ended with the officer telling us how my friend was driving a bit too fast, but that he doesn’t want to spoil our visit to Bosnia at the very beginning. We all thanked him and went forth. Courtesy is all you need in such cases.
Interesting enough, a warning that you were speeding in a Land Rover is actually a compliment, for I never thought this vehicle could reach over 60km/h.
Thus we came to the multi-cultural Sarajevo. We drove to the center on the world famous (sadly) "sniper valley". At the first glance the town seems to have nothing to do with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Everywhere something is being built and it’s quickly becoming a very modern European metropolis, but one, where you still find ancient buildings straight from the Roman times and middle ages. There are also some traces of its cruel and not-so-distant past visible. Abandoned buildings and bullet holes, which are clearly seen if you just take a better look.
The owner of a pension where we stayed in Sarajevo, complained somewhat about hard times in Sarajevo today. He was unhappy with business deteriorating in comparison to a few years back, when some 25,000 soldiers were placed next to his pension, which was 100% occupied all days of the year. Today there are only about 1,500 soldiers here.
We kept our thought about this to ourselves and went fort toward Mostar.
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