… First to Croatia and then back to Bosnia!!!! When we drove towards the coast in Croatia, the first thing we noticed were the well maintained roads. Arriving at the cost, we were overwhelmed by the many tourists, quite different to Bosnia. The first days we spent in Starigrad, on the entrance to the national park Paklenica. During the next two weeks we had three friends from Stuttgart with us. The first week we spent climbing in Paklenica and had some relaxing days on the beach.
Then we drove further south to Omiš, close to where we spent another week on a camping ground. After sleeping in and having a big breakfast, we went either climbing, snorkelling, looking for sunken boats or just relaxing on the beach.
Then the time came when we had to say good bye to Oli and Markus. With Hannes we drove back to Bosnia.
During those two weeks we were homesick to Dona Farm, so we decided to go there again for a visit.
On friday evening we passed the boarder to Bosnia in Aržano and drove further on trough a rural area on a plateau towards Mrkonjić Grad. Not many people seemed to live here, and some signs told to pay attention to the landmines around, we saw big craters and a part of the road has been used once as a landing pist for airplains. Pretty impressive, but nevertheless the landscape was beautiful. In between we found a place for the night.
The next morning, we got up early to drive to Dona Farm, where we made a surprising visit. We stayed there for another 3 nights and planned to go climbing around Banja Luka afterwards. As we went to Kameni Most (Stone bridge), we met other germans who told us, that there was a climbing and highline festival close to there. We were thinking and discussing, if we should try it because of a narrow road and the lack of parking space. Then we decided to try it on top of the canyon and we even found a parking space.
The festival is called Drill an Chill Festival and takes place in a canyon, through which runs the main road from Banja Luka to Sarajevo. On the link:
you can find further information about this amazing festival.
The camping ground there was cosy, the local organisation team was typically bosnian very welcoming, after the inscription we first got a glass of Rakija. Every evening the dinner was included and they cooked good, local food. For the highliners there were around 6 different highlines in the canyon, the longest one went from one side to the other of the canyon and was 430 m long. For the climbers there were different routes and it was as well possible to set new routes.
After three nights we left the canyon, went climbing in Kameni Most and then drove through the impressive canyon from the river Vrbas to Sarajevo.
8 pm, when it was already dark, we arrived in Pale, a village 15 km out of Sarajevo. Here we stood in the front yard of friends from the Dona Farm. The next day we went exploring Sarajevo, walking around in town and drinking coffee. The evening started with a nice dinner. Then we went to a Jazz concert and afterwards to the Underground Club, where a band played covers from ex-yugoslavian rock songs. As the concert was over, we went finishing our night in a small technoclub in Sarajevos underground.
Saturday we spent sleeping in and saying good bye to Hannes, who flew back to Germany. The rest of the evening we spent with an awesome bosnian dinner and some drinks in the Pale downtown with Alexandra, the daughter of our hosts.
The following day we went again to Sarajevo, this time with Alexandra and her boyfriend Jovan. We had a fantastic time together.
On monday afternoon we went with Alexandra and her dad to the parental home of him on the countryside. It was completely in the nature, nice landscape with different animals. Awesome.
Then once again we had to say good bye, we drank the last coffee with Alexandra and had our last chat.
We took the road to the east, and because of a sign for the maximum height of 3.40 m, we had to take a small, local road. On top of the hills, on a viewpoint, we spent the night in thick fog.
The next day we started early for our journey to the montenegrinian boarder, spent our last Bosnian marks and passed the boarder without any problems.
We really loved it in Bosnia. We hope for this land and the whole Balkan region, that the conflicts will calm down and the people can live peacefully together.