Bosnia part 2 - The mountains, a metaphor for life
From northern Bosnia, I wish to go south to Sarajevo. I am currently using the Cycle Maps application since Google Maps no longer offers me the cycle route function. Route R440, sounds like a regional road, right? Well finally, no.
Easy decision I tell myself, looking at my options. I have the road in a straight line on the Regional 440, or the long option via highways, which would add a hundred kilometers to me. I'm a gamer, go for the straight. After the snow-capped Alps, what's the worst that can happen?
After having forked onto the 440, things are going well. Go up, down, up, down, beautiful little sun, other abandoned buildings, a primary school that looks abandoned but isn't, and animals roaming free. The path follows a small river and I decide to wash myself there.
On the road, other abandoned houses.
My elementary school wasn't that bad after all.
Then, the bitumen stops and becomes gravel. Surely construction, I told myself naively. Then it starts to go up so much that I have to walk and push my bike with all my might just to keep going. All the sweat I had cleaned up is back to power ten! I am thinking of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984. The idea had obviously not occurred to me before for the Winter Olympics, it takes mountains.
Reached almost at the top, my mere presence frightens a flock of sheep which run away by the same path as I go up. I don't really have any other option, so I continue behind the herd, which continues to be afraid and to flee the same path that I am walking. After a few hundred meters of “chase” like this, I hear high-pitched whistles. The owner of the herd has just realized the disappearance of his animals and calls them. I see the shepherd in the distance who goes directly up the field. The sheep do not move and continue to look at me. Go away !, I said to myself, your father is going to be mad at me! This is where the dogs get involved. I had not seen them arrive but when one of them starts barking two feet from me, I let out a superb cry of surprise and fear. When I got there, I might as well say hello to the farmer, I think he spotted me.
I continue to climb. I soon see a hump near a fairly modern house. As the house looks quite new, I wonder if the hump is still in use. Because at the same time, the only way to have water at this altitude and being so isolated is to get it from the water source nearby. Asking myself these questions, I pass in front of the humpback which has the door open ... and an old lady is just using it. We look at each other for two seconds and she quickly closes her door. I don't think they have a lot of visitors here. I don't have a photo of this anecdote.
I camp higher in the mountain. Looking at my map for the next day, I calculate that I probably only have a few kilometers of climb left and then I dream of the sublime descent to which I will be entitled. It was underestimating my friend there Regional 440.
2 Day
Shortly after I left, the rock soon gave way to what I call a farm road, dirt with water holes everywhere. What do I say about beaten earth, it's mud in which my shoes completely disappear. At this point, I don't feel like I'm moving forward geographically, I feel like I'm going back in time. I turn and see a local arriving in a horse-drawn carriage ... He explains to me in 2000 Bosnian words that I will not be able to do this route by bike and that I should retrace my steps.
"Listen my boy, I have already made the rise of death to come here, I will not come back down and then go and hit myself a hundred kilometers more", which I explain to him with the three words I know and a lot of onomatopoeia by pointing my map. He looks dubious. I ask him what the problem is exactly. I point the water, I point the mud, I point the rock. The answer is yes.
So I continue my journey pushing my hundred pound bike through the mud. Eventually it starts to go downhill, but the road is so bad it's like mountain biking ... with a bike without suspension and loaded with saddlebags. I then arrive at the highlight of the show ... the river has overflowed so much that the road has become the river!
Yes, I went to place my tripod for this photo and I came back to do the same pose as the original!
Most of this new river isn't too deep and wouldn't be a problem if I was just on foot. But the current is very strong, the rocks unstable, and I do not want to venture there with my bike so that all my electronics and my clothes end up in the fleet. I see that the best way to go is to put on my flip flops and carry on my bike. After this river, the path improves. It took me six hours to do twelve kilometers. Eternal optimist, I tell myself that at least it is not raining.
What do you think happened four minutes later? Well yes you, the total deluge for the rest of the day.
I finally had the right to my magical descent, which could also have been done by kayak because there was so much water on the asphalt! And since the temperature has also dropped a lot, even my yellow dishwashing gloves stuffed with other gloves are not up to par and my hands are frozen, like my whole body for that matter.
I who thought of going to Sarajevo that day, I still have 77 km left. It will be for the next day, I decide to abandon my tent for one night and sleep at the first hotel I meet.
I no longer use the Cycle Maps app.
Metaphor of life
The whole time that I was in this little adventure, I took it laughing. And I started to think that my choice to take this path was like a lot of decisions that we make in life. Maybe not the best, maybe not the worst, but once the decision is made, you just have to go on and see what is on the other side. Certain passages seem more difficult to us but these tests make us stronger and more resourceful. And that makes much better stories.
