People on the road

Days pass, and so do landscapes and borders (YES! We hopped on in Bosnia). Although… it are the people that slip in our minds. Today we share the stories of people met on the road.

On the Croatian road, while resting in the shadow of a bus shelter, a tanned woman sticks her head around corner and asks if we need anything. We are a little surprised, but as we need to go to the toilet, she is happy we ask her and she further invites us home.

Danica is a 68 year old woman and lives alone in a small, very simple wooden house (we have passed tens of this houses by then). She has a beautiful garden with lots of different flowers (so much work, she sighs). She shows us pictures of all her family members, who seem to live far away, from Zagreb to Australia.

As she thinks I’m way too thin to carry all this luggage on a bike all the way from Antwerp to Croatia (I agree with her), she offers us a typical Croatian cheese with bread and some soft drinks. Note that this is made clear only in Croatian with firm gestures, nods and google translate (not to forget).

Although I feel she doesn’t want to let us go, we say goodbye with a big hug. After an hour she already feels familiar.

2 days later, deep in the Bosnian hills, we meet Trivo who see us passing by in the rain that day. He offers us a Bosnian shot (as all do! We saw this one coming) to help us endure the cold rain. When he hears we don’t have accommodation yet for the night and as it is raining cats and dogs, he offers the solution in his cute German (which will be the same quality of ours): ‘why don’t you sleep in the Petrol station?’

Laughing at our surprised , he explains that there is a cheap motel next to it. We pay that night 19 euros for a very comfy room, the best and biggest dinner ever and breakfast tomorrow we’re already looking forward to!

Trivo is glad with our happy smiles. He offers us 2 teas and 3 beers (‘Pivo is good for sleep’!) at the restaurant of the Petrol Station, and we meet a friend of him that speaks perfectly French and lived for a while in Antwerp!

Both Trivo and his friend, and with them lots of others, lived or live in Europe and come back for summer time to Bosnia (because of the weather, the nature, the people, …).

We talk for 3 hours with Trivo: about his wife who died a year ago of corona, about how everything was better in communism (second time I hear this and we’re only 1.5 day in Bosnia), about this Ukranian war that no one wants except for Putin, about his fear his house is damaged again, ... The clouds of the Bosnian war seem to darken his gaze for a moment.

I feel a certain loneliness has taken over Trivo, and maybe a bit the same as I felt with Dragica. I feel pity we don’t speak the same language, as I had wanted to talk for much longer with them – they seem to carry so much history with them.