As Korelica is a really small place, I only walked for some minutes until I reached a gas station. There two excited girls who were there to wash the very few cars that passed wanted to see my cardboard sign. I had written "BH" on one side, and "SARAJ" on the other, but they insisted on adding the "i" in between Bosnia and Hercegowina.
There were really few cars passing, and even fewer were stopping at the gas station, but I still got lucky on second try: a couple from Czech Republic was driving to Plitvice and would drop me at the junction leading to BiH.
Here I walked around the corner and a few hundred meters further until I reached a street sign. And then I waited. Literally no cars were passing. I started doing stretching my aching body, occasionally looking up because I thought I had heard a car entering the street, which mostly turned out to be wishful thinking. At least there was a bit of shadow!
Most surprisingly, the third car or so that passed, actually pulled over. Jelena and her (grand?)father Zdenko were going to Bihač, the first Bosnian city just behind the border - perfect. To my surprise, they took me across the border just like that instead of letting me out of the car before and picking me up afterwards; probably I just have really nice face.
While driving, I couldn't keep my eyes off Mount Plješivica, which I was now seeing from the other side. I was up there!!!
But the most exciting thing was how the scenery changed after crossing the border: mosques everywhere. Also one could recognize a typical Bosniak style of building houses - I felt like half of them was missing the fassade, while everything else seemed to be all polished.
They dropped me at the main bus station of Behač, which was on the border of the city though, so I just walked another few hundred meters and stood on the road towards Sarajevo (among others). After some time I moved for another few hundred meters, because people gave me signs that they would turn left soon. So after had passed this left-turn, I waited for another 30 minutes until an elderly man stopped and told me in German that he'd drive to a place 7km from here. Better than nothing I thought, so I got in, and immediately doubted my decision when he offered me some Cognac from a bottle half empty.
Luckily 7km are not that long, so after a short while he dropped me at a gas station in a small village called Ripač. He tried to explain something to me, but I didn't really get it, and the guys at the station were not really helpful with translating either, so a bit frustrated I had to walk another kilometer in order to pass a street going to the right in another direction.
After ten minutes (I want to emphasize again that there was almost NO cars around) a van with a license plate from Berlin stopped. Ernes didn't happen to speak German, instead he was working in a restaurant run by a German who had married a Bosnian woman and kept his car from Berlin.
I didn't know where exactly he was going, but everything was better than standing in the sun. He dropped me only a few kilometers later, where he had to take a right, and I was pretty much standing in the middle of nowhere, with the owner (?) of the only building around watching me from his shady bench.
Sun. No cars.
I started using my cardboard as a sun protection.
The goal was to balance it on my head while standing one leg, and also keeping it there when a car passed and the wind would try to bring it down. Exciting, I can assure you!
To my big surprise, I only ended up standing in this no man's land for a few minutes. Amir, who likes to drive fast, against which I really didn't have anything to say, offered to take me until Travnik, a town about which I would learn more later on. Amir was more or less newly wed and visiting his parents-in-law in their immer house up in the mountains, while his "genius" wife was working in Germany. Of course I had to ask him how they met and wasn't disappointed: she had looked at his profile on LinkedIn, he had dropped her a message, they met, and 7 months later he asked her to marry him. AWWWWWWW.
Thanks to Amir's driving skills we reached Kraljevice, a small town before Travnik, only 2 hours later. Here he would take a right and drive up to the huge mountain one could see at the horizon, while I had to stay on the main road.
About 30 meters from where Amir had dropped me was a bus station, but it seemed like there was people trying to hitchhike already. It is an unwritten rule that if you come to a place already occupied by other hitchhikers, you go for another spot behind them, in order not to "steal" their lift. But I felt like they had chosen such a bad spot - in the shadow and at the beginning of a curve, so the were barely visible - and also didn't have sign, so I just stayed were I was, put down my backpack and held up the sign.
30 seconds later, a car with a license plate from Zagreb stopped. Inside were Vjetko and Nikolaus, and they were going to Sarajevo, yay!
When the two guys standing at the bus station came into view, I made fun of their bad choice, and we actually stopped and offered them my sign with "SARAJ" on it - they didn't want to go there though, haha.
It turned out that Nikolaus was from Tyrol, and Vjetko was showing him around (they know each other through Vjetko's sister, who lives in Munich). That's why I got to enjoy a short trip through the beautiful town of Travnik, where Vjetko's grandfather is from and where he grew up. We enjoyed the view over the city from an old castle/bastion, which we had entered for free, because Vjetko seemed to know everyone, and everyone seemed to know Vjetko.
Then we continued to Sarajevo. On the way I learned that Vjetko is quite a famous TV chef in Bosnia, which kind if explained the excitement he was met with. (Not that he's not exciting himself :D That's probably one if the reasons for his success.)
In Novo Sarajevo, the newer part of town, we had a quick stop at their hotel until we continued to the old city. I noticed when we passed my hostel, but I really didn't want to leave those awesome guys, so I just kept my mouth shut :P Vjetko had already announced which places he wanted to show to Nikolaus, and I really didn't want to miss them.
So I tagged along, still with no Bosnian money on me, and we passed the Pigeon Square on the way to the Yellow Fortress. Because I had mentioned that I was quite hungry, we entered a shop that sold all kinds of Lokum, and they fed us with pure deliciousness while excitedly chatting with Vjetko.
Energized we continued or way uphill to the fortress, and enjoyed the breathtaking view.
Afterwards he showed us his favourite restaurant for Bureks, where we got to try the whole variety of fillings: beef, chicken, spinach and cheese, pumpkin and potato (which unexpectedly was my favourite). All of it came with a joghurt sauce and kefir, and was spectacularly satisfying. And it cost 3€ per person. Which Vjetko paid, once again. Thanks <3
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