Montenegro and Sarajevo

My travels continue to take me to beautiful places, as well as places that have been ripe with chaos and violence in the past 15 years. My most recent travels have taken me to Bosnia, to the cities of Mostar and Sarajevo, both of which were nearly physically destroyed during the clashes with the Serbs of the early 1990's. When you arrive into Sarajevo on the bus, you pass through Yugoslav era apartment complexes that have bullet holes and mortar shells covering the outer walls. And as you drive further into town you will see it on nearly every building, house, hotel, apartment. Many of the nicest, historical buildings have been remodeled, but homes and apartment buildings still bare the scars of the recent war that killed 11000 Bosnians. I visited a museum a little bit out of town, called the Tunnel museum. It sits on the sight of where the Bosnians built an 800 meter tunnel under the airport as a way of supplying food, medicine oil and other supplies to their people. This helped hold of the Serbs, who had control of nearly all the surrounding hills, until NATO stepped in.
It is a very confusing mess of religions and cultures on the Balkans, but basically I think Serbia was trying to claim land in Bosnia because much of the land was populated with Bosnian Serbs. They ended up with many of the Yugoslav weapons after the break up. But to claim such land they had to slaughter a lot of innocent people and a lot of Muslims as well. As for Serbia and Kosovo I did a little reading to figure out that issue, and it basically goes like this. During ww2 the US and Serbia weer Allies. When the war ended Albania turned into a communist dictatorship, so many of the people fled to nearby Kosovo, which is in southern Serbia. The Albanian way is to reproduce young and reproduce often, so with in 40 years they made up 90% of the population in Kosovo. They must of drove out a bunch of Serbs too. So soon Kosovo was claiming Independence since they were ethnically so Albanian. But Serbia was against that because Kosovo was the heart of Orthodox Serbia for the past 1500 years. The conflict seemed to get bigger and bigger, I'm sure with both sides doing some terrible things to each other. It is easy to look up online and read about some of the atrocities the Serbs did to the Albanians.
Presently Kosovo is recognized by some states as Independent and not by others. From my visit there I was curious about where everyone gets their income. since I read there is 50% unemployment and most people drive very nice cars and all seem young. I discovered that the US alone gives Kosovo, which is the size of Los Angeles, 350 million dollars in 2008. I can understand Serbia's opinion of the US and other foreign countries. They would like them to stay out of their business and let them fight for what they think is theirs. they want to preserve their culture and strengthen their peoples, but it seems they go about doing so in a very violent way. OK enough for today's history lesson.


Tunnel Museum.

The recent violence and scarred buildings hasn't seemed to put a damper on the spirit of Sarajevo though. The cafes and cobblestone streets are full of tourists in the day, and as evening approaches the locals appear and fill up every seat of every cafe sipping strong coffee's in preparation for the summer nights festivities.

Before Bosnia, I was in the mountains of Montenegor, in the stunning Durmitor National Park. I stayed in a small mountain town at a campsite costing 3 euros a night and an owner who enjoyed drinking beer and listening to American rap music, especially the Wu Tang clan, pretty unique for a middle aged MonteNegran.
I did some trekking their, climbing up to the highest point in the park, 2523 meters. But this was no nature walk through the woods. The trail winds it way through the trees, to the tree line at 1600 meters, then up through green valleys full of wildflowers of virtually every size and color. Blues, reds, yellows, etc. Beyond the valleys the trail starts to climb through a couple snowfields and up step limestone rock, which is usually pretty strong, but when its loose and crumbly it can be a little slippery. I would rate this trail on the Pakistan scale. it was not easy. It would have been nice to have a pair of boots, but all I have are my Chacos.
The hike took 8 hours on a hot day, but the views and scenery were amazing. I hiked with some Check guys who I bumped into again in Sarajevo who offered me a place to stay in Prauge, so that was a bonus too.


Durmitor National Park, Montenegro.

Tomorrow I am going to the Croatian coast. it is a place that has been on my must see travel list for some time. But I have my doubts about visiting at this time. It is peak-peak, the prices will be high, the beaches busy, the campgrounds full. I have coming up with a strategy of visiting the islands in the Adriatic and trying to stay at nudist camps. i figure they will have fun people, be secluded and hopefully have a place to pitch a tent( pun intended, no pun intended, I'm not sure.)