The dirt on living in Costa Rica and backpacking Europe. If you want pretty descriptions of beaches, green tree frogs, and 'pura vida' reflections this is the wrong place.
Additional irreverent travel advice includes hitchhiking disasters, getting drunk with locals, four-hour border crossings and other fun topics.
Wake up. Go to work. Realize that your low-paying job will take you nowhere. Realize it pays enough money for alcohol. Buy alcohol. Drink it. Pass out. Repeat.
It's another day in Belgrade, Serbia. As a tourist my typical day went something like what you see in the video above. The only difference was that at some point I could leave. Every time I go to Serbia I fall more in love with the place and think how nice it'd be like to live there... Hold on, dreamer. As one Serbian asked, "American, if you make the same wages as I, will you love the place??" ...
Still the party goes on. Despite nights at the Belgrade Beer Festival watching great music (including those from the video, S.A.R.S.), the best times came from hours of wasting time on the winding streets of Belgrade. Nothing important ever happens and at the end of the day you ask yourself, "Where did the time go?"
The next thing you ask yourself, "Who gives a damn?"
We sit at a cafe drinking. We're relaxing after spending the day wandering the ruins of Kalamegdan fortress. Some of us have beer or strong coffee while others are content with water. I don't recall the names or nationalities of all of those sitting with us. Some are Serbian and others are from as far away as Australia. We arrived with a group of four, but that changed rapidly. New people keep arriving at our table. As soon as they arrive others leave. But some of them return. Others don't. We order another round of coffee and beer.
Belgrade Cafe Gatherings
Our little cafe table is a revolving door of new faces and conversations. Every conversation starts as an epic plan with someone to travel to some new location in Serbia; Sabac is nice by the river; no, the fortress in Novi Sad; no, no let's go back and party in Nis... As soon as the plans are set in stone, they crumble and fall apart like the old buildings of the White City. Someone leaves and another comes to replace them. New plans begin ever more elaborate than the first; a train to Sarajevo, Bosnia; no let's hitchhike to the Hungarian border; Timosoara, Romania's not so far away; we can go all the way to Latvia if we leave now...
We order another round of coffee and beer. And another.
I have seen this a million times when traveling. Plans, plans and more plans that are thrown about like so many darts at a board. Very few actually make it to the target, but the game was fun regardless of the time spent. We spend all afternoon on plans for traveling to the ends of Europe and back. At the end of day we stay at a Couchsurfer's house in Belgrade for the night, completely exhausted from all the dreaming we've done.
That's what every beer geek back in the USA would say. Out of the 20 or so beers available at the festival, there's nothing that would excite any major beer tourist. Unfortunately, once you go east of Germany and the Czech Republic all the European beers start tasting the same. If you want to be the first to say you've drank Jelen, Laskov, Niksicko, and some Irish-Style Serbian Craft Beer, then go for bragging rights. They're still better than your average Central American beer, but nothing that will make beer geeks have beergasms.
Maps Are Irrelevant When You're This Drunk
You don't go to Belgrade for beer tasting...you go there to party. The Belgrade Beer Festival is certainly a great place to party. There's one massive stage that has live bands playing until the early hours of the morning. Beer, alcohol and Serbian barbeque flow freely. Beautiful Balkan girls will dance with you and crazy Balkans guys will challenge your foreign ass to out-drink them (good luck.)
Unlike Serbia's far more popular Exit Festival, the Belgrade Beer Festival still feels authentically Serbian. Most of the bands are national or former Yugoslavian rock acts that don't play outside of the Balkans. Meanwhile the Exit Festival attracts Europeans from all over to see international bands and DJs such as Guns N' Roses, Snoop Dogg, Eric Prydz, Artic Monkeys and David Guetta.
During 2 days at the Beer Festival, I didn't run into a single 'foreigner.' Note the contrast.
Good Balkan Company
The big headliners for the 2011 Belgrade Beer Festivals were Riblja Čorba, Atomsko Sklonište, Kiki Lesendrić i Piloti and Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg (yes, from The Ramones.) And if anyone remembers the 1980s, Simple Minds also headlined. One group which has never headlined, but which has played every festival dating back to the first in 2003 is the Orthodox Celts. They are actually a national group, but true to their name they play traditional Irish folk music. They fucking rock.
Are any of these groups ringing a bell??
From a local perspective, Riblja Čorba is probably the most famous of all the groups. These old guys have managed to stay rocking since 1978 with most of the original band still intact. I'm told their lyrics are quite funny and often political....if only I understood Serbian.
In addition to solid rock 'n' roll groups, the festival offers more typical traditional Serbian groups for people who are into the Gypsy Balkan sound made popular by Goran Bregovic, Emir Kusterica and the like. As cool as that music is, some Serbians will tell you that Goran and Imir 'sold out.' Go to this festival if you want to hear some undiscovered sounds...
My personal recommendation: buy a few liters of Jelen Pivo outside the festival where it's a lot cheaper and get drunk before you go in. Most of the Serbians will be doing the same and -as with me- they might ask you, "Why the fuck you here, and not Exit Fest?!" Then they will hand you a beer and say, "Ziveli!" You'll be in good company. I certainly was.
A neglected city can be both depressing and exciting. When I look at Central American capitol cities like San Jose, Managua and San Salvador they leave me feeling empty and sad. The unchecked grim and litter, poor city planning, poverty and high crime in these places makes me want to lock my door and stay inside.
Belgrade has the opposite effect. Despite its dirt, crumbling buildings, disorderly streets and Mafia presence the city beckons me to play and drink and dance outside in the dark. Perhaps its because the winding, random streets often yield surprises: secret bars, discos and 'kafanas' that stay packed all night. Perhaps it's because the crime isn't so random; as long as you don't cross the wrong people or places you're pretty safe. Perhaps its because the poverty doesn't scream in your face; people with very little invite you to drink and dine with them without expecting a handout.
Tijuana: unmarked Mexican-owned bar. Ask around.
Perhaps I'm wrong about all of this and I've just meet the right people. Either way it came as no surprise to me that the year I first visited Belgrade (2010), it was selected as Lonely Planet's 'Best Party City in The World.' As much as I hate Lonely Planet, they were right this time. In Belgrade, the word 'weekend' is irrelevant, and any night of the week is fair game.
A 'Party City' is not determined by the number of bars or discos present, but by the desire of the people to party. Serbians have a party spirit whether it be with Moet champagne in a posh, high-fashion disco on Kneza Mihalova Street, or with homemade rakia on a park bench in Kalemegdan. It may not seem that way on the first visit, but look harder. Even if the city streets look quiet, just ask enough people and they can direct you to one of a dozen secret bars hidden in the floors of the large buildings.
So of course I partied. I had timed my trip to Belgrade so that I could go to the Belgrade Beer Festival. The festival doesn't have the best beer in the world, but with around 3 million people attending over 3 days it probably has the most people of any beer festival and some of the most music. Did I mention the whole damn thing is free??
That party will have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight I'm not going out since I have to catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a while. I don't remember exactly how we caught up, but it involved lots of alcohol, coffee, dancing and funny hats. Indeed a country's party spirit is determined by its people, not by its places.
I need a cold shower. Quite frankly this is sexier than all that American booty dancing.
Selma Bajrami, my fantasy Turbo-Folk girlfriend
The Balkans were formerly part of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire and still has a lot of Turkish and Middle-Eastern influence. I had a Serbian friend tell me that Bosnian and Albanian girls are the best dancers in the former Yugoslavia because of their Arabic origins. If that is true then Turbo-Folk singer, Selma Bajrami, is a fine example of that kind of dancing. By chance I met her in a club in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 2010. I'm still smacking myself for not asking for her phone number that night.
My current Bosnian baby wasn't mad anymore. She lay on top of me, moving her hips against mine and touching me under my shirt. I likewise ran my hands under her clothes and quietly whispered in her ear. She caught my eye from time to time as we moved together to some psychedelic hippie funk she had put on Youtube. I lay down in anticipation while she continued her Arabic grinding. My hands moved lower.
"Hey you American fucker. Get a room...but not here."
I have some great Serbian friends. My friend told me there was Russian Couchsurfing couple in Nis who had a car and were heading for Belgrade within an hour. I vaguely remembered meeting a Russian couple during the last 2 days of insanity in Nis. Nis is always a blur. My friend explained the deal succinctly, "Ride with them and pay only gas, or wait and pay more for a bus...Fucker."
I had friends I could stay with in Belgrade, and now I had a quick way to get there.
After my friend gave me a travel update, he left me alone again with my Bosnian baby. We continued moving and grinding together for as long as time allowed. I wanted her and - as with many others I had meet - I knew it wouldn't happen. At the moment I needed to see her naked and bare and dancing in front of me. We were kissing and touching out of urgency and raw emotion. The chaos of the moment inappropriately made my mind conjure up images of NATO planes flying over Sarajevo. This girl needs a rescue mission.
Those dreams evaporated in the incredible heat of the Southern Serbian summer. Before I could reflect further, I was in the back seat of the Russian couples' little car, staring out the window and cursing myself for desiring a wild life of women, drink and dance over a simple life with just one woman who I truly desired. I am still thinking about this.
To avoid highway tolls, the Russians drove on the service roads that followed the main highway to Belgrade. We were in no hurry and stopped in several small towns for sightseeing. We took pictures in front of historical monuments and they recalled their previous visits to Serbia. They were a happy couple...one of many Russian ex-pats who lived on the Southern Adriatic beaches of Montenegro so that they could escape the bitter cold of the country they were from. Serbia was just a brief vacation for them to arrange their paperwork to continue their ex-pat life.
View Larger Map
The Russian and I spoke in English of our countries long love-hate relationship with each other while his girlfriend periodically snapped at him in Russian. She couldn't speak English but was able to understand everything. As we approached Belgrade, they checked the map frequently to make sure we were taking the right way to my friend's apartment in the city center. They wanted to continue sightseeing so we choose a hilly backroad that followed the Sava River. Although I could see the urban mess in the distance, the winding road we were driving on felt very provincial. One side of the road dropped off into the glistening river below while the other side meandered away into several green farm plots. The houses were small, quaint, terracotta constructions that looked of the era before Communism took hold.
The tranquil beauty disappeared as we entered the city limits. Small rustic houses gave way to the typical clunky, multicolored Communist blocs I have seen in so many parts of Slavic Europe. The hilly topography of the land contributes to Belgrade's disorder as it makes the city appear to be falling into itself. Apartments awkwardly pile up and start to tumble head-over-heels into each other. Trash collects in corners of the streets while the smell of cigarettes and coffee seeps from the cracks in the buildings. The single road we were driving on ceased to meander in one direction and splintered into a million little spiderwebs that got swallowed up in the urban decay.
It's all so wonderfully, beautifully, ridiculously chaotic. The 'White City' is falling apart all around me. I want to fall apart with it.
A day exploring Crveni Krst concentration camp and climbing Bubanj Hill to see a mass execution site can depress the average tourist. Serbia has a simple, powerful solution to cure this depression: coffee. Or if that's not strong enough: rakia. The Balkans can easily convert a sworn coffee-hater into a coffee addict (and potential rakia addict.)
He's sad because the Mafia made him into a disco
Coffee and rakia are two likely reason you will visit Nis Fortress in Serbia. Nis Fortress is not so much a historical site as it is an organic extension of the city center. There is no charge to enter and it has been left open to the public to function as a decadent city park. Local Mafia took advantage of the lenient rules and built a large disco-cafe, Klinika, directly on the fortress stones.
Some people would say it's a tacky, tasteless way to deface a historical monument, but it sure is a fun place to party. If you don't care to join the beautiful people dancing in the open-air disco, just buy a few liters of Jelen beer at the nearby kiosk, grab your friends and dance on the fortress walls overlooking the disco until sunrise. You can still hear the pounding music and watch the sun rise from the fortress walls.
I experienced Nis' nightlife for the first time in 2010 and loved it so much that I had to return in 2011 to do it again. If it were possible I would return to Southern Serbia every summer for partying. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Balkan people's flair for living rivals any typical Latino's "vida loca" attitude. Perhaps due to the Balkans proximity to Asia, there's also a magical Eastern mysticism there that Latin America lacks. While the world changes, The Balkans seems trapped in a time bubble that remains the same every year. This night I experienced could have been in 2010, 2011, 2012 or any year...you decide...
I was Couchsurfing with some friends I had met from the previous summer. I had the good fortune that summer to surf with my friend when he had 2 nice Bosnian girls surfing with him at the same time. When I meet the girls, they told me (teasingly) that they hated Americans. Yeah right... What started as teasing hate over dinner and drinks ended up as love (?) by the time we had arrived at Nis Fortress later that night.
My Serbian friend and I are sensitive modern men, so we cooked a lovely dinner for the Bosnian girls. After much debate of USA-Balkan politics, foreign food, counterculture (and beer) one of the girls and I ended up kissing in the moonlight in Nis Fortress on that hot summer night. She fascinated me for being what I wasn't. She was a wild, dancing, free-spirited hippie who was an expert fire-thrower. I had my guitar and watched her mesmerizing fire-dance as I sang on the top of the Nis Fortress walls. The music from Klinika disco below us provided an odd trance accompaniment.
Unfortunately, there were many people partying in the park, including several other beautiful Balkan girls. I became very distracted. Dare I say Balkan girls are one of my weaknesses, and a Serbian medical student caught me that at that moment. While the Bosnian girl was showing off her fire-throwing skills on the fortress stones, I began chatting with the student. Many Southern Serbian girls get pretty excited when an American guy with a guitar shows up in their town. I'm a complete liar if I said I don't take full advantage of the situation, and I love my Serbian friends for telling me this. They are some of the few people I know who will tell me to my face what a complete 'American asshole/fucker/sonofabitch' I am sometimes.
...America, Fuck Yeah!
An "American Fucker" in Nis, Serbia
Rakia and beer flowed freely in the fortress park, and people drifted in and out of my memory. We danced, drank, sang, reveled and eventually the Serbian and I left for a quieter place. I didn't notice until the sun was rising what had happened. The Bosnian girl wasn't happy to find out I had changed allegiances and was in a rage. When I'm traveling, I can be the naughtiest American asshole.
The Bosnian and I returned to our shared Couchsurfer place in the early hours of the morning. She was angry and refused to even touch me even though we had to share a bed that night. Now what do I do?
(Part Two of a more detailed account of my time in Nis, Serbia)
Welcome to the dark side of the moon.
The three stone fists of the Bubanj Memorial Park stretch defiantly skyward. They jut unnaturally out of the featureless, flat grassy field like alien-made monoliths on the surface of a far away planet. Or as one of my friends so eloquently put it, "Dude, it looks like the cover of a Pink Floyd album."
It was still scorching hot. I sat in the shade of the largest fist in deep, melancholy thought. My thought process was a depressing continuation of that from Crvni Krist Concentration Camp where I had just came from. Although Bubanj Memorial Park is located several kilometers from Nis and requires a 30 minute walk uphill, it is intimately connected to the camp. The prisoners of Crveni Krst were executed at Bubanj Hill.
The three fists are different sizes to show that men, women and children were all killed and buried here. Since bodies were buried with bulldozers and many were burned to cover up evidence, the number of dead can only be vaguely placed at somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. At one point between February 16th and 17th, 1942 over 1,400 prisoners were executed on the hill.
Bubanj Memorial was as lonely that day as Crveni Krst. I sat under the largest fist for nearly an hour and not a soul came to interrupt my peace. Once again there were no signs to explain the history nor tourist-friendly lights to illuminate the stones. The only signs of human interaction with the monuments were squiggles of blue graffiti. The wide, grassy field was overgrown and unkempt. Amazingly the loneliness here felt more crushing than in the camp. Dying in a concentration camp is horrifying enough, but being brought to die on an extremely isolated, unidentified hill in the middle of a forest seems far more frightening.
This sculpture has no explanation
The sun was setting and the moment was over. I am not some heroic backpacker who independently desires to learn of the history and suffering of the Serbian people by visiting such an unfamiliar place. The reality is that a Serbian friend told me about it and I thought, "That sounds like a good idea." She was kind enough to let me explore the field and monoliths on my own as she slept by the path that lead to the desolate area. If not for her, perhaps I never would have translated the Cyrillic message on a stone I saw at the memorial before we descended the long hill back to Nis:
“From the blood of communists and patriots fists were born: fists of revolt and warning, fists of the revolution, fists of liberty. We were shot, but never killed, never subdued. We crushed the darkness and paved the way for the Sun.” --Ivan Vuckovic
(Part One of a more detailed account of my time in Nis, Serbia.)
I've been to Auschwitz in Poland.
It hit me in the gut. I felt sad at the mass atrocities that had happened. I felt relieved that my great-grandparents from Poland had left in the 1890s so they had avoided the horrors of the war. I felt angry and felt like punching some asshole tourist when I saw him filming and taking pictures of the interior of the prisons and cells in direct violations of the rules. I generally hate rules, but...don't you have any respect? Asshole.
I had many strong feelings. But they were stronger at Crveni Krst Concentration Camp in Nis, Serbia.
Why? At Auschwitz I stood in a line for a ticket, followed a tour guide around in a line, watched other tour groups walking through various parts of the camp and finished the tour at a souvenir shop. All the exhibits were clean and shiny and well-kept. The whole thing felt like a creepy, well-maintained ride at The Walt Disneyland of Death.
Crveni Krst looks like it hasn't been touched since it closed in 1944. The one employee simply collected the $1 entry fee, let me in and went back to sleep. He offered no tour, no advice and no explanation. Not a single other tourist came during the hour I spent there. All the signs were in Serbian Cyrillic so I could only make vague assumptions of what happened. I was alone with my own private concentration camp.
I did not feel a cold chill as I walked into the camp; rather I felt extremely hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. My American brain has problems with metric conversions, but that scalding Serbian summer cemented in my mind what 40 Celsius feels like: really fucking hot (or 104 Fahrenheit.) Any prisoner who had been there during the summer between 1941 and 1944 would be sweating bullets for more reasons than one. Ironically, stepping inside the prison building was relieving.
The lack of any English in the building confounded my attempts to learn the history. I squinted at the exhibit signs and desperately hoped to understand them, but I did not magically gain the ability to read Cyrillic. One wall had pictures of various prisoners, so I started counting them until I lost track. Human skulls were in a display case and I could only assume they were from dead prisoners. The entire experience left me feeling more lost and alone, until finally I found a room full of artwork that put the camp in perspective.
Kids draw the damnest things
The artwork was graphic, disturbing and was clearly drawn by children. In the United States these drawings would get a child sent to the school psychologist for counseling and a call to the parents. Here they appeared to be a project approved by the school itself. I was able to discern that there had been various acts of torture against Jews, Gypsies and Communist prisoners. Several pictures depicted a large unarmed revolt. Many prisoners were escaping over the walls, but many others were shot dead while tangled in the barbwire.
I wish more history was told this way. If I could have read the adults' Cyrillic signs, I'm sure they would have tried to impress me with elaborate stories involving phrases like "astounding heroism," "incredible atrocities," and "never again in our lives." These fancy words are always accompanied by various facts, figures, graphs and numbers. Do we need numbers to prove that war is bad? The childrens' drawings get to the point. Some people live. Some people die.
The first floor was a museum. The second floor was just a large attic with prison cells; nothing more. The cell doors were open, so I went inside one and sat down. I didn't think. I didn't want to think, because I would start coming up with all those florid, elaborate, "adult" phrases that I hate. I stared at the door. Then I stared at a wall. Then I picked another wall and stared at it. I stared at different walls until I found myself staring out the shutter window that was in the roof.
I started thinking. What if I couldn't leave?
(Of course I'm an adult, so I had many thoughts, and later I fact-checked everything with my Serbian friends and the Internet. But I'm not some douchebag who works for Lonely Planet, so I won't write it here.)
There's actually plenty to do in Nis, but the best way to enjoy this slow southern Serbian town is by doing absolutely nothing. Find an outdoor cafe, order a black, Turkish coffee and waste the afternoon away. After you're done with that grab a cold Jelen beer, sit by the river and waste the night away. You'll learn a lot...especially if you're with the right people.
This is how I spent my last trip to Nis in 2011 so there's not much to say. For those ambitious tourists who like to plan ambitious scheduled itineraries (boring), I'll share my big accidental Nis trip from summer 2010. As follows...
Downtown Nis. What's the antonym for 'bustling'?
Nis seems to specialize in morbid, depressing tourism. Here's a list of the uplifting, happy locations you can visit when you aren't discussing the uplifting politics of Serbia over coffee:
1. Nazi Concentration Camp which was ironically a Red Cross building
2. Bubanj Memorial where many of the camp prisoners were executed
3. Nis Fortress where Turks and Serbs killed each other
4. Skull Tower which is composed of the skulls of Serbs who were killed by Turks
Sounds like a lot of fun, right? I only visited the Concentration Camp, Bubanj Memorial and partied at the Fortress. Perhaps the most depressing item is that Nis Fortress has been left in neglect, thereby allowing local Mafia to build - you guessed it - a disco on the fortress. Serbians accept this as Mafia doing what Mafia does, and in fact the 'historical' disco is a great place to go out in town.
I will describe the places I've visited in more detail in the next few blogs...when I get around to it. People in Nis are never in a hurry, so I will honor them by not hurrying this writing. When I'm in Nis I simply go with the flow and do what the locals tell me. They mainly tell me to slow down, relax and drink more. I'm happy to say that I'm doing that as I write.
So before we take a tour of Nis, here's a big Jelen Pivo toast to all of my wild Serbs:
I hitched a ride from the Serbian-Bulgarian border. I planned to be in Nis, Serbia before the sunset, but it's already nightfall and I'm in a small town called Pirot, still 75 kilometers from Nis.
I'm dining on a traditional 'gurmanska pljeskavica' (Serbian cheeseburger) and a not-so-traditional Coca-Cola. The old man who picked me up, Dusan, just paid for my meal with one of the fattest rolls of Serbian Dinars I have ever seen. I estimate its worth at at least 100 American dollars. He's waving the money around to let the world to know he has just paid for the Amerikan's dinner. I remember I'm not in Latin America where such an act might get you robbed.
"Ciefing" in Mostar, Bosnia
Southern Serbia (and the Balkans in general) operates on a different wavelength from the rest of the world. Only in Nis do I see people spend a 12 hour day drinking the same cup of coffee while talking about all the things they have to do, need to do, should do, could do...without ever actually doing them. In neighboring Bosnia this has a name, 'cief,' which loosely translates as 'doing nothing and loving it.' This sounds more like the laid-back 'mañana' attitude of Latin American countries such as my current home of Costa Rica. However the Balkans has managed to create an equally laid-back, but more sophisticated culture, around something which is not supposed to relax you - a cup of coffee.
I blame the evil tourism industry. Since I live in Costa Rica, I use it as the obvious example. Costa Rica has marketed and sold the expression 'Pura Vida' as THE way of encompassing the people's friendly, relaxed attitude towards life. This place is sold as a peaceful, military-free country with gorgeous beaches and perfect sunny weather where nothing goes wrong. They don't mention the criminals who prey on tourists, the tourists who prey on prostitutes, the trash and piss-smells in the streets and the fact that it rains 11 months out of the year.
While it is true that Costa Ricans are happy and friendly, that's only true if you talk about happy, touristy things. If you take the conversation beyond the weather, they turn out to be as conservative, deeply religious and closed-minded as your average American Southern Baptist Republican. Despite me tolerating criticism daily about 'gringos' and capitalist USA, if I criticize Costa Rica I'm usually told to, "go back to your own country if you don't like it. (see Youtube comments.) Sound familiar? Yeehaw! The Balkan countries of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, (and Kosovo depending on who you talk too) have stunning mountains and beaches, nice weather and friendly people who will often invite you into their homes like family. Unfortunately tourists still see this region as a war-torn, poverty-stricken place full of violent, genocidal war criminals.
Horrible, war-torn former Yugoslavia
When my nice Serbian friends travel through Europe, they hear supposedly intelligent people call them 'war-criminals' and 'racists' because of the actions of a few powerful people with evil ideas. Oh well...such is history. Germans still have to apologize when they get 'too patriotic' at international football games because some politically sensitive, whiny pricks start throwing out the word 'Nazi.' I don't care. I was cheering for Deutschland at the Eurocup 2012. But I digress... I watched the elderly Dusan wandering around the gas station parking lot and wonder how he could be a war criminal. He was beyond laid-back, and the fact that he couldn't speak English didn't stop him from sharing his whole life with me. We had already stopped by his house to move furniture, finished a Serbian dinner on his tab and had coffee at a local cafe that was owned by his son who had lived in Chicago for some years. His son was 'Americanized' and had explained to his father that although I appreciated the hospitality, it was 8 o'clock at night and I had somewhere else to go. Dusan was now soliciting rides for me from truck drivers in the gas station. His son said I was in a hurry; but Dusan couldn't be hurried. He strolled from truck to truck seemingly without purpose, and yet somehow managed to find a ride for me within 10 minutes. He passed me his number and told me to call him when I arrived in Nis...and that I always had a home with his family if I was ever in Pirot. The same crushing, sad feeling I had had with Maria in the Ukraine - knowing I would never see someone again - came over me. An hour later I was at the riverside amphitheater in Nis, singing Gogol Bordello, drinking heavily and partying with my friends as if we had never missed the past year together.
The bus left me on a lonely dirt road that supposedly went to the Serbian border. The road drifted away and disappeared around a distant corner. All I could see were haystacks, cows and miles of rolling hills.
Hills. I wasn't ready for hills. After 3 hours of sleep, a wild night with a Brazilian backpacker girl, a city tour of Sofia and several hours lost in the Bulgarian countryside I was ready to collapse. The Red Bulls had worn off much faster than expected and my guitar had suddenly grown a lot heavier when I stepped off the bus.
I shook myself out of my exhausted haze and started walking down the snaking road towards the corner. The corner soon gave way to a large descending plain of rolling hills on my right and a farm that meandered off into the horizon on my left. In the distance I saw a farmer with a scythe hacking at hay as several cows lulled around him. Chirping birds and evening crickets gave the surroundings a tranquil, pastoral feel that I was completely unable to enjoy since I had no idea where I would sleep that night. I had the vague feeling of a trespasser as the dirt road slowly brought me in the farmer's direction.
Maybe he would offer a wayward traveler a place to stay? Sunset was evident now and long shadows played over hills which refused to show a large sign or line that said in big letters, "SERBIA." This was not the kind of road I expected to find any hitchhiking cars on...maybe tractors or donkeys.
Among the tranquil bird and cricket chirps I detected sounds of civilization: cars!! The large hill descended to a highway - the same highway I had lost when I got on the bus. The Serbian border would be there somewhere.
The farmer became a distant concern of mine as I scanned the highway for signs of a border crossing. I saw it; cars were forming lines in front of highway border checkpoints and two large gas stations. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked through the trees that lined the road. Although my route was not the obvious border choice, clearly others had taken it since there was a worn path that lead down the hill to the gas station.
Well...even though I magically appeared out of the middle of nowhere like an illegal immigrant, I wasn't doing anything wrong, was I? The hill was clear and I felt completely exposed as I walked towards the gas station. Once I walked through the trees, the police saw me instantly and pointed as I descended the hill.
They stared me down as I advanced on them with my guitar case and black backpack. There was nothing I could do so I continued walking casually as if it was perfectly normal to be wandering around alone on a international border at nightfall. They stopped me. They had guns.
They didn't speak English, but "passport?" is an international word. I stood there tensely as they flipped through my blue passport. "Amerikan??" I nodded, and fortunately they liked Americans. Smiles broke across their faces as they pointed at my guitar.
Did I mention "guitar" is another international word? I celebrated my first Bulgarian-Serbian border crossing by performing "Hotel California" for a quartet of armed border police.
