Bullet-Scarred Croatian Corner of Bosnia 🇭🇷 Balkan Bike Tour

Day 210. 67km (90,965kms 8yrs)

I used every last minute in the cosy little room with breakfast in bed, and drying my laundry with the hair dryer. When I finally emerged the sun was shining; there was a little more rain forecast for the afternoon, but I’d definitely dodged the worst of it.

Today’s objective was to get as as close to Travnik as possible. Climbing steadily interspersed with some lovely sweeping descents the landscape was broad here. Occasional houses still bore bullet holes, some abandoned, some with lovingly tended flower boxes.

At a supermarket stop one of a few boys on bicycles asked what made me decide to visit Croatia. I was stunned and questioned for a moment where I was. For sure I realised this was a very Croat region; there’s Croatian flags everywhere and it’s all churches, no mosques, but to call the place we were in (40km by road from the border) Croatia was very strange to me.

After finally cresting the pass at Kupres I whooshed down 20km of narrow valley, the scenery now limited to just the wall of trees immediately ahead of me. At the bottom in Bugojno I bought my dinner and left town looking for a camp.

Climbing once more, the valley seemed to be tightening so I was lucky to find a discreet track down to a long narrow meadow. A field of cabbages and a tiny unoccupied cottage indicated that I was trespassing, but I was low on daylight, so I found my way to the end of the meadow and tucked myself behind some trees as the last of the golden sunlight rested on the tops of the hills behind me.

This region is known for cheese; I’d passed a few roadside vendors but the dinner plate-sized discs were too big for me. Instead I’d found some interesting stuff in the supermarket. For a cheese it was very floury and exceptionally smoky; a real umami quality. So it was dry but nicely washed down with a tepid beer left over from my guest room stay.

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morning. Lovely dry, warm sleep last night. Everything’s charged. My laundry is done. My hair is clean. It’s stopped raining for now. There might be a little bit more this afternoon, but I think it’s basically done. Um, I’m going to try and go most of the way to Travnik today so I can spend the day there tomorrow. Um, it’s uphill again, but hopefully in nicer conditions. [Applause] Okay, I’ve spent every possible minute in the nice, dry, warm, clean, cozy room, but the sun’s come out, so I should probably go for a bike ride. Well, it wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. I don’t have a wet tent. Everything’s dry. Everything’s clean. Everything’s charged. I just can’t make a habit of it. No shoulder to speak of on this road, but fortunately it’s not that busy. And the drivers are pretty courteous for the most part. Perfect case in point. He waited till it was safe to overtake. Gave me a friendly beef to say what he was doing. I definitely approve of Bosnian drivers. Even yesterday’s supermarket burk isn’t bad in the absence of a bakery. One more question. Uh, why you chose this destination? Why you chose Croatia? Oh, um, Croatia. Yeah, Bosnia. Yeah. Why you chose this destination? This area. I think it’s very beautiful. I’ve been in Croatia before, but I’ve never been in Bosnia before. Do you know like language? No. No, but you guys all speak English, so no problem. How strange. That boy had a few questions for me, including why I chose to visit Croatia. But here we are, 30 km from Croatia, very much inside Bosnia. There are a lot of Croatian flags around here, and it’s all churches, no mosques. But how strange. It’s Yeah, it’s small. Yeah, it’s it’s too big. Small. So small. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Okay, no problem. Okay, thank you. Good day. I think I need a little break before I climb the pass. That’s very good. The Jesus part is just from one piece of wood, I think. All right, a couple of kilometers at 9. I know the last bit is more than that. This looks like a wall in front of me. How am I going to get up that? Oh, it’s a tunnel. Okay. Sun’s set in a bit over an hour, so I’m looking for a camp. Just need to get far enough out of town, find a nice flat bit of forest, and call it a day. There’s the last of the light on the hill. So, I’m pitched up in this meadow. You can just glimpse the road, but it’s going to be dark very soon. Didn’t manage to get any cheese beside the road because it was all too big. But I’ve picked up this weird cheese which is really smoky and pungent. It’s quite flowery, almost quite mushroomy. And I like mushrooms. I like cheese. I think I like it.