"There" would be Sarajevo, "here" meaning Pristina and "you" is us - Americans. Buses run daily from Pristina to Sarajevo via Novi Pasar, Serbia all the way to Sarajevo but we weren't allowed on. Americans traveling from Kosovo, it seems, are persona non grata in Serbia, probably because of US involvement in the NATO air strikes and our immediate recognition of Kosovo as a nation. (Later we heard on BBC that Serbian and Kosovar border guards are even fighting each other. Maybe no one could get in!) So we took the long way round, seven hours to Podgorica and another seven to Sarajevo broken by a four-hour layover at 3 AM in the icebox they call a bus station.
Along the way we met fellow traveler Julian, a young graphic designer from Bogota, Columbia, returning from seeing his Albanian girlfriend. He is living in Sarajevo, working for a Swedish NGO restoring a Muslim mosque. He is a one-man United Nations. Together we endured cold, twisting roads, dirty restrooms, loud music videos and a fog of cigarette smoke from our driver, the only one aboard who ignored the "No Smoking" signs.
It was nice to see Montenegro again after the squalor of Kosovo and Albania, with its deep canyons and clean villages looking like something from a model railroad set. There were traces of snow and the leaves have fallen, leaving the birches standing like white skeletons along the road.
We shared a taxi with Julian to Pansion Lion in the old city (Stari Grad) where we will stay and near where Julian lives. Gina, the owner's daughter, gave us a spacious triple room - it was that or a bed in the dorm - for the price of a double. The bathroom block down the hall is nice and clean with plenty of hot water and we can cope.
Both of us have been fighting off a head cold for a few days but I'm afraid the frigid waiting room in Podgorica did me in, that and a dearth of sleep on the bus. A-Choo!
