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.
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.
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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.
