Mostar, Bosnia

Rode from Sarajevo to Mostar today, about 120KM, but could only got about 60KM an hour so took a while. Plenty of police catching speeders. I would just chuckle to myself when people overtook me and then 2KM down the road you would see the police had pulled them over and they were getting a fine. Left earlier than usual this morning so we arrived before lunch time and had the afternoon to explore. We stopped in Mostar old town for about 10 minutes but decided to explore it fully tomorrow and headed out again to search out a campsite. The garmin and google dont even have maps here so we just winged it. We found a great place 7KM out of the main town down by the river. It is tiny but the guy here is super friendly and speaks good English. The road into Mostar is shell shocked and you can see the damage from the war even more than Sarajevo. Most buildings have mortar scars and are covered in bullet holes, unemployed seems rife but otherwise life goes on.
We are camping in Blagaj where there is a choice of 3 or 4 camp sites, ours is super cool. www.camping-blagaj.com and can highly recommend it.
We set up tent and then after a short briefing from our host we headed up to the 15th century fortress Herceg Stjepan Kosaca but the original town was built by Illyrian settlers from the 1st and 2nd century BC, it took about 40 mins walk from our campsite.

It started pissing down with rain as we left, but it was warm so we headed off anyways. We were warned not to stray from the path as the the two villages nearby had been shelling each other in the war and there were still unexploded mines and mortars in the no mans inbetween. Also watch out for snakes. Well we saw 2 tortoises, and a big black snake. They call them vipers here and they have 2 horns on their face. Luckily I heard it before we saw it 2 feet us. I made a small poo and quickly headed away from it after warning Jennifer. Filled with adrenaline the rest of the hike was easy and the fort awesome. We could just walk around and climb on the crumbling walls with 15 meter drops, no health and safety clowns here. We also found some old bullet shells which I assume are from the war.

Been on the road for 6 weeks now and you start to realise you dont need all the crap they advertise on TV (brings to mind the lyric
No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in
Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya
Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya
They say jump and ya say how high
Ya brain-dead
Ya gotta fuckin' bullet in ya head) .
Just having a warm dry sleeping bag or a simple meal is good enough. And nature has its own surprises like watching an ant colony for an hour seeing where they go and what they take back to their nest is entertainment enough. Life is simpler like this and I like it ;-)

We then headed down the mountain towards the source of the Buna river which we are sleeping next to. It comes out of a spring which flows out of a cave at the bottom of a cliff. Quite dramatic! You can take a boat inside the cave as well. Also there is a Dervish house from the 15th century situated at the cave entrance. Also they found evidence of man above the cave from 2800 BC so all very exciting.

We had a local meal of cerpacici and then waited for the rain to stop. It didnt so we walked back to our camp past some old houses and graveyards, mosques and a blown up church.
Once back at the campsite I had a swim around 8pm in the 8 degree water, refreshing! Then warmed up with some apple Rakija.
tomorrow we explore Mostar

This is the view from our intimate campsite now. the guy at the bar across the river proudly brought his motorbike out and gave it a rev when he saw I was a biker too, very cool to be made welcome like that.