It has been a great trip from Sarajevo. I passed Mostar where I saw the old town and realized I had a some back problems. Camping that night proved extremely painful and after talking to my friend the doctor i decided to take a break at a hostel in Dubrovnik. Two nights there hanging out with some real fun Irish lads.

I continued along the coast to Kotor in Montenegro where i met a beautiful french family that treated me to a great dinner.

kotor

The Weather has been somewhat frustrating. I always knew that i would have some heavy rain and Maybe thunder. Everyday there has been some precipitaion clearing the muggy air.

Yesterday was a bit dodgy as the thunder blew in right over me as i climb up to a thousand meters. I helt quite small as the roaring sky was hanging on top of me. trying to calculate the risk of getting hit by a flash kept my mind busy and soon i was over and safe. Puh.

prsidents house

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Svenska: RES and Outside

lady

I was walking up the hill just west of central Sarajevo when I saw this old lady fighting the hill with two big bags of water. I gave her a hand and she talked to me in about six languages, including a few words in Swedish. She had some relatives in Sweden, named Mattias and Mats that is about all i could gather. She had the air of a well educated but seemingly she lived quite poorly. As we climbed the hill she talked to the locals kids who were playing football and pinched one or two in the cheek to check for age (?). After helping her up the hill, you can see a man in the background of the photo of her, i was invited for a tea.

man who invited me for tea and cherries

The man did not speak a single word of any language I know and out conversation again was more a matter of pointing and smiling, which he was good at! It really made my day, filled with this spirit I kept looking around town a while before heading home with a smiling face.

I plan to go south, Mostar, to the coast and down to Montenegro and then on to Albania and northern Greece over to Turkey. This seems like the best route at the moment, I hope for a bit of sun!

I saw this girl walking down the street, I like the way she runs the umbrella!

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io

I left bihac with a tear in my eye. The people there was among the worlds finest. On the way out the police stopped me, I thought they would give me a hard time but they were really interested in my trip and one of them invited me to his home in case I would Need a place to stay.
I met some swedish people in the evening when I stopped I Kljuc. I was really surprised when the clerk at the supermarket answered me in swedish. I was Tired and I looked at her a moment before my brain registered. It is not that strange I guess, in this part of Bosnia there is a lot of people who have spent some time in sweden. I found a campsite just by a river and I slept like a log.

From kljuc I went via Jajce to Turbe. This part of europe is really up and down. I was Tired when I reached Turbe after climbing up to over 900m, I was going to stay I Vlasic and I knew that there was a bit more uphill, though I did not expect 21km uphill and I really miscalculated my motivation and with 2km left to go I had to walk with the bike. I had left my bags to my friend to bring to the house but I was just knackered, I was dizzy and irritated and there was now energy left. if a dog would have attacked me in This state I probably would have eaten the poor bastard.

I spent a day in the mountains in great company and then I headed east in the rain and the fog. I felt a flu coming on, sneezing all the way to sarajevo. Here I stay first class with the dad of my friend from Zagreb. I Need a bit of time to recover from the cold and too make up my mind on where to go. Mostar is a must and then?

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evening

nya på svenska: Outside och RES

I was a bit interupted on the last occation I wrote so in order to sort this out I will continue now my finish my first love song to Balkan.

It has been some intense days here in Zagreb, the people I have met, friends of Dube (my friends wifes cousin) and fiends of Filip, her boyfriend were all warm hearted and brilliant. And very generous. They have been treating me like royalty here in the city and I will linger on these memories when the rain pours down on me (the forecast is not too bright for the next few days). I feel I did not thank all of them enough so I would like to do that now, thank you! Hope you read it!

I ended up staying an extra night since we had an evening/night in town. Starting at a lounge in Lake city we soon moved into town and the Sokol club, dancing to balkan pop. I think I was smiling pretty much all of the time and though I might have been the only guy dancing in the place, no not quite, but it is quite different the way the Guys tend to stand in a ring around the dancing girls most of the night.

There is something about the smiles and the mentality that makes this place wonderful. I was doing some shopping for the trip, getting some food, stocking up on things for the road. In the line for the register an old lady was ahead of me and behind me a man, quite tall with a bottle of expensive oliveoil in his hand a a couple of itams in the basket. Ths old lady packed her things slowely, not really in a hurry and when she was going to pay she wanted to pay some of the amount in coins. This caused a wave of smiles throughout the line as the old lady was digging trough her purse, handing up one coin after the other. Enormously slow. Finally, the girl behind the register, after seeing the sort of smile the tall guy next to me gave her, just nicked one bill from the old lady and paid with this. The old lady did not object, I guess she thought it was worth trying to get rid of the coins but she could not be bothered to fight for it.

Now I’m heading south to Plitvička for the night and then further to the east to enter Bosnia and in some three or four days I think I should have conqured the hills and entered Sarajevo. Until then – bok!

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kalinka + balkan from erik ekedahl on Vimeo.

Entering the Balkans did it for me, I was happy, now I’m even happier, it is as easy as that. The warm people, the sun, the music, it is brilliant. I arrived a couple of days ago over the mountains from Italy into a small town plunged down in a valley. The back drop of the green hills makes life, the kids playing in the field, the people walking thier dog, running, biking set in an almost surreal scene.

Meeting the people here, the two other long distance bikers is as surreal as the setting itself. Climbing in the mountains north of Ljubljana I think we found some similarities, all drawn towards the steep part of the hills and with the smile on the face as the adrenalin pumped in the veins (?). The constant topic for the last few days has been bikes, routes, stories from down the road and food, not bad in any way and as I’m sure I will be a completely unbearable with my stories when I get home I might just enjoy this.

As I just bought myself some more time in this part of the world I’m hitting the Russian language, this is something. I imagine being able not to just listen to the russian song but to understand them, sheeeeesy, and it will be easier to travel in central asia for sure! Just found a website with the 100 most common words in Russian.

On sunday it is time to move on, over the plains and the hills in the North East to Maribor and then down to Zagreb. I find that Couch Surfing in the Balkans is fantastic, really a way to meet good people and see life in the Balkans.

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