Trans Dinarica Sarajevo – Risovac – Livno

What has been done before on a bicycle is no parameter for new cycling tours. The truth is that age does play a role. My fitness level has plummeted, that, or my need for touring is too big. Come to think of it, to get fit I would need to built up cycling time, and I haven’t. By the time I am well in the mountains I am not much of a cyclist yet. Or am I?

When Geo has left for Split I continue on towards Igman: a mountain plateau south-west of Sarajevo, part of the Dinaric Alps, known for its forests, very cold winters, the 1984 Winter Olympics and the Bosnian War.

Doubtful whether to add this photo of my leg I decided to do so because it shows so clearly how cycling transform the legs. Often hitting parts when pushing in combination with a Rohloff hub that keeps spinning round the pedals.

The young fox was hurt on it’s paw, he demanded ‘food’: sugary crap that people leave behind. Tempted to give him some boiled eggs, I decided not to.

Sarajevo to Babin Do – Tusila

Starting the long climb is tough in the beginning: 735 meters in 14 kilometers. The heat starts to built up by now and my front panniers are full with food. I am tackling this hill, whether I want it or not, together with a group of youngsters on hired bicycles. They all look fresh and tight from the fitness club, drinking chemically bright sport drinks. They come to a halt after having pushed their bicycles for a while, just when I am eating my surplus of food. Attractive looking guys with sun tanned muscles, no gram of fat on their shiny bodies smoke and ponder, talk loudly and huff and puff away the exertion. When all the 12 sporty types have come hiking up in one group I soon see them whizzing down back to Sarajevo. The climb hardly started and they gave up, understandably so. Is it me or my low number of teeth on the chain ring?

In trying a new approach to food preparation, only a few basics need to be brought along: olive oil and herbs.

My legs stay under load for a long time, my heart rate is raised for hours, at times seeking shade to bring it down. I keep pacing, not using brute force, instead the climb becomes a mental endurance effort. The weight of luggage comes around 25 kilogram though I never weighted it. I am working near my aerobic ceiling for long stretches. It’s endurance layered on endurance and this is only the beginning.

Sometimes I put a lot of effort into reaching a certain spot. Hardly visible is the road below me: a rest to me means no traffic nearby and low possibility of being seen.

The route is not prodding my interest too much. Climbing, covered by woods I see not much of a view. There’s too much traffic and the sun seems to shine exactly on the road. The going gets tough with short, continuous up and downs without gaining nor loosing height. When I see a wooden signboard to get onto a gravel road to Ljuta. I am back on the official Trans Dinaric route. I am elated!

Having found an idyllic camp spot, very close to mine fields according the app, I am fully in view. I do manage to wash myself in a tiny creek, again in open view. To go to sleep with a moist body caked in sweat and dirt is not pleasant. I feel I am lucky that I was not spot by this chubby young guy who stops in his noisy 4 x 4 Volkswagen Golf to ask me an unusual question: ‘Did you see a red cow?’ I tell him I did see cows further down the road but whether they were red, I am not sure. ‘If you see, tell the restaurant,’ the not-yet-man doing man’s work, asks me. Stupefied, I nod.

And here she is: ‘Balkan Dawn’, entirely made on this route. There’s a lot to say about this one: hand dyed cotton linen from Nepal colored with dandelion flowers, tiny mirrors from India are attached, padded and lined with a piece of fabric from a dress I wore in India and strings made from thread bought in Spain, which I knotted.

Climbing further on gravel I realize to have forgotten a detail: I am not strong enough. With this one detail overlooked, I forgot another important feature: food. I am of the opinion that cycling with panniers fits a lot of food. Well, that only is true when they’re shops to buy it. The restaurants mentioned on Maps.Me are not existing.

As usual, too heavy packed I had a very hard time climbing the hills. With stuffy weather coming in I seemed to have neglected some more: I can’t handle heat any longer. When in post menopause the body’s climate changes so much that it even surprises me in a sometimes disappointing way. Summer heat has simply become unbearable. Emotional steadiness is another effect and luckily this is peaked: the scale of beauty reaches my desired point and I often stand still to watch. In fact, I am pushing the bicycle most of the time so standing still is what I do almost automatically.

Ljuta to Kalinovik but failed/Glavaticevo instead

In Islam, water is considered a sacred gift and providing water is one of the most rewarded charitable acts. Water supply constructions in different sizes are built along the route. They are called hajr‑česme and are seen as a form of sadaqa, charity that continues benefiting the deceased long after their death. It is a way to honour the dead and to send ongoing spiritual benefit to their soul. It certainly helps me, but I also need food to keep going. I have no options but one: to cycle to the nearest shop. So, I must call it the end of the Dinaric Alps trail and get out of this close knit maze of mountain trails as soon as I can. In Bosnia and Hercegovina this means: more mountains to cross. And beautiful they are.

I take a break to eat. Three Polish motor bikers come to a halt to check out whether they are on the right route (as the asphalt continues into gravel), I am not even looked at, let alone greeted. It doesn’t bother me but I do think it is very strange. Locals would not show such unfriendly manners. Usually I greet every local with a wave or ‘dobar dan’.

When reaching the first shop I buy an odd supply of food, mainly because there is not much to choose from. Geo tells me over the phone to eat better and more. I do wonder why I bought 3 eggs and not 6? I do not wonder a second whether the heavy rain that falls that evening would function as a shower. I dive right into it, naked and unseen. Clean with a filled up tummy I fall into a deep and content sleep.

Konjic to Tomislavgrad via Jablanica

Konjic is where I book a room. Exhausted from pushing the bicycle up a slope of 10% in burning heat I arrive in a bad mood. I need to check my blood since 6 weeks ago I had an engorged Hungarian tick clenching on my scalp for at least 2 days.

Online booking and checking in and searching for the room is much to my dislike. Setting up a tent is way easier. It is here that I meet with two unfriendly ladies who are not willing to help me find the street I look for. This affects my mood more: Bosnia and Hercegovina folk are usually so kind! However, next day, the young woman who makes my latte macchiato makes up for it big time.

The M-road from Konjic to Jablanica runs along the Neretva river and is scarily busy. I never cycled so fast. Also because I wanted some freshly made burek from the Burek King.

Kindness and smiling goes a long way

‘You are too heavy packed! You even carry a camera that weighs a kilo,’ says a not young Swiss bike-packer man when I am making photos. It is not true: my camera, batteries and tripod weighs 345 grams more than a kilo, and it is an essential part of my life. I am pushing the bicycle often and on an incline of 10% it is hard work for me. After exchanging some information I come to understand the Swiss likes to make life very difficult on the Trans Dinaric route, whereas I do the same but our perspectives are in opposition. The heat is relentless and shadow is not formed, yet, after 17 kilometers uphill in 3 hours I am given a fantastic view. Clouds roll over and it is less humid and warm. I will sleep in my tent at a chosen spot where I’ll make chai and be conveniently close to a restaurant.

As Geo pointed out: while cycling the last few days I realized why you never wanted to cycle with another cyclist. Not only are tempo’s usually different between any given people, the goals are also often different. Your goal for instance is looking at beauty, stopping to make photographs, finding a nice place, enjoying camp, fires and chai. Sleep cosy in a tent. I am much more goal oriented. I wanted to do this 300 km stretch in a certain pace. I barely rested and followed my rhythm which is probably no one else’s rhythm. I think no one except subordinates in the military would want to follow that regime (Geo cycled a 100 km a day in rough, hilly terrain!). I wouldn’t want it myself if someone would demand that from me. It all only works from one’s own perspective and rhythm.

Risovac lies at the foot of Mount Čvrsnica. It captures my attention to the fullest. There would be no better way to be here than on a fully loaded bicycle. Once I am up the Blidinje plateau the going is easy. I am waved at by motor bikers who often give me thumbs-up and some people flashes their widest smiles at me. It does me good. Inevitably the Dinaric route has more cyclists but I am not the kind of person who stops, needing to chat. I wave and smile but certainly not go over to ask the ‘where, what, how’- repertoire. On the other hand, when a motorcyclist or camper-van stops near to me, I greet them, something that is often reacted to in ignorance, which strikes me as very strange.

Luckily, in Bosnia and Hercegovina, they don’t keep old-fashioned (or retarded) siesta’s like in Italy and Spain. The day I wanted to rest in the shadowy forest, I figure I need more food to do so. A long downhill into the Duvanjsko polje, a large, flat‑floored karst plain or basin awaits me, along with plenty of open supermarkets.

One of the biggest poljes in the region, historically important and visually very open and wide, I reckon I will have no problem finding a camp spot to stay for two nights. But who would expected a farmer with blaring Balkan music to come mow his field twice, much less so a car at night. Undoubtedly a 4 x 4 Volkswagen Golf drives onto an overgrown field that is without tracks and has a steep incline. A field I am a few meters away from, hiding in the bushes, after my tent that stood in the open, is moved into the shadow.

Staying in camp a full day I come to a conclusion: many areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina were formerly under water, especially in prehistoric and geological terms. The country’s landscape is shaped by ancient lakes, flooded karst fields, and vanished inland seas. This is one of the reasons the terrain feels so dramatic and varied. Only because I found a heap of shells (the perfect material to use in my embroidery).

I named this pouch, meant to hang against a wall, ‘Shells of the Vanished Water‘. The many shells fit well with the unusual choice of embroidery on a with sumac flowers hand-dyed silk-cotton.

Camp spots become infested with mosquitoes. I am removing ticks on a regular base and the sweaty, sticky dirtiness on my body becomes a burden. Yet the feelings are magnificent, all related to what I do instead of what I would like to do. The every day mission is clear and always different. I never know what the day will bring, nor where I will sleep and this is rejuvenating.

As if smelling mimosa, the route downhill gives me a Mediterranean feeling. Exchanged by fresh spray-painted white on the faded stripes on the road. It is scorching hot for my post menopausal state, the swirling elderflower pollen reaches me too, and then, the long awaited plateau of Livno.

The lower road between Livno and Drvar runs through a long corridor between two mountain ranges, which is why that stretch feels enclosed and dramatic. It’s a natural depression between the two highlands, so the road stays relatively flat while the mountains rise on both sides. It is exactly my kind of cycling and only now do I reach a high that overshadows the rest! The balance between beauty and my ability is just right. To the south is the Cincar massif, to the north comes the Grmeč massif and in between is me and my happiness.

Being above Drvar is dramatic in beauty and in land mines. I have to move 6 different times until I have found a place that the landmine-app ought safe enough to wander. Karst landscape makes demining more difficult and this area was a frontline zone with several operating armies. Each side laid mines, often without maps or records. When control changed, new mines were added on top of old ones. Many villages around Drvar were abandoned or sparsely populated after the war. Mines remain in forests, meadows, and old paths simply because no one is living there to demand urgent clearing.

I meet quite a few locals who talk English or Dutch. When I praise their country they are visibly proud, especially the men who fought in the war or came back after their parents fled. Bosnia and Hercegovina is in a state where the modernity can not easily function because of the lay out of the land. It’s a country where a man is grounded in traditional responsibilities and a woman who balances his settled masculinity. A partnership where each keeps to their own shape and I like it.

Often, dogs were running towards me, which scared me a bit but when I realised that there was nothing I could do to prevent them from whatever they were planning, I decided not to be scared. My approach is to come to a standstill. Their approach was demanding to be cuddled!

Less likeable is the fact that another climb presents itself: nearly 600 meters in altitude over 16 kilometers. The grade is doable with 7% but I do hope for an overcast sky. A climb in itself is enough exercise, a sun beating down on me makes it double the effort. My hopes worked: it becomes a day where the rain leaves me soaked up to my underwear (so much for a rain jacket of nearly €300). My hands turn into painful claws but the climb goes well and without much effort. When reaching abandoned village Oštrelj I choose one of the homes to stay in. Okay, a garage, but without toilet evidence, which makes the dry space worth a lot.

The feeling of some hardship met by coffees and food in the restaurant of supermarket Bingo the next morning feels sweet and victorious. Such little adventurous makes the trip more of a success: arriving in cold to getting warm from the sleeping bag, running on an empty stomach to overeating and wondering how all that food fits in. From a feeling of automatism to a glorious one.

Than the forest spews me out and I arrive in a mellow farmer style Bosnia and Hercegovina. One where I see Hungarian style churches, smell wild strawberries and ask an older man who draws pictures with chalk on the bus-stand timetable-board where I can find water. Flowers colour the meadows and wild ferns seem to overtake the rolling slopes around me. The route has become macadam and cars are no longer to be seen. Happily surprised I cycle into a forgotten farmers paradise, only a few functional left and a lot of abandoned structures. The route becomes tight, overgrown and darkened out. Sometimes I try to see myself through someone else’s eye and no, I am never afraid.

Another long downhill awaits me. One where Bosanska Krupa leads me to the river Una that I will follow until I have found a spot where I can wash myself. That seems easy but the riverside is full with restaurants and holiday homes, all occupied by splashing youth and fisherman, boats and motorbikers.

‘Good morning, did you sleep well?’ asks Elvis. An overweight young man of 26 that has start fishing at the spot I sleep. I am on his wife’s property and it is not at all a problem. ‘My mom told me that what I have I should share,’ he tells me when we have a long talk on the cool banks of the Una. Exactly as Elvis explained, 7 kilometers further is a restaurant, where I’ll have breakfast. My appetite is wild and luckily in this country a lot is possible. I’ll have steak, eggs and potatoes at 9.00 AM.

The end is in sight, not willing to endure more climbing hills, however short, in an unbearable heat in another country where prices have doubled since the euro made it’s entry, and where people are by far not as nice, I opt for a train. From Zagreb to the last station in Croatia and another 80 kilometer in a day through Hungary and I am back home.

---

Here’s the result of what came forth from this journey. Click the photo to go to the relevant page.