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The Una River - The fifth day, Part One
You can come back on the previous part of this travelogue here.
The fifth day
If you don't want to read, skip the text and see the images of this day of journey here.
You can see the map of the this day of the journey here.
I woke up in the early morning and heard a soft rain. So, it didn’t all rain out yesterday. I shrugged conciliatory, trying to make sure myself it would stop later, and closed my eyes again.
When I opened them again, it was the day. Gloomy grey, foggy, but no rain. Well, it stopped after all.
But now the fog bothered me. I travelled this journey to see and experience as much as possible, and I won't do much if I rode in fog. I hoped that the heat of the sun, as the day comes, will dispel the fog (Question from school: Where does the fog go when the sun shines?). I stretched out breakfast and preparation and just after 8 AM I continued my journey.
I crossed that bridge over the Una and turned right behind it, glancing like a greeting at the road on the left that I had come to this place the day before yesterday. This place for me will never again be just an impersonal notion of a small Bosnian town as it was until my arrival in it.
A hundred yards after I left the last houses of the place. On the left, down by the river was a campground.
The camp where I should have spent the night in a tent two years ago if it hadn't happened in the Bihać town, which has already happened. Riding the bike lazily, from foot to foot, I concluded that, from this current perspective, it is still better than it was because I am more than happy to spend the night in a comfortable bed, and delighted with the time spent in this place.
It's time to introduce you to today's route. So, first in front of me, I have about 12 km of plain along the Una River to Martin Brod. Then a zig-zag climb of at least 4 km, as my host told me yesterday, and then a slight uphill, to finally descend to the Drvar town.
The above-mentioned host of mine made me happy by telling me that I have only 3-4 km unpaved road to the Martin Brod place. He made me happy, I said because I was expecting macadam for the whole 12 km. So, something similar to the turn out from the day before yesterday towards Štrbački Buk falls. Nothing more beautiful in life than a pleasant surprise.
However, a very unpleasant surprise was prepared for me by a board with the inscription "End of the asphalt", only 2-3 km after Kulen Vakuf.
Hope was given to me by the scene of the road right after the notice given in the image above
The road works!
The road works were so advanced that was needed only to lay the asphalt layer. But, contrary to the information, there was no one on the "construction site", no people (workers), no machinery, no one! So I simply ignored the traffic ban sign and slowly continued to turn the pedals.
In this wasteland, where I came across a few modest houses, I found the huge building on the left very unusual. This feeling was reinforced by the fact that the "object" was unfinished, and it even seemed abandoned. It was as if the enthusiasm of the budding builder had waned, so he finally gave up before the construction was completed.
After a few hundred meters of riding on a wide road prepared for asphalt laying, I went out on the asphalt again, this time new, cannot be newer.
On the right, across the Una river, somewhere in the greenery, an abandoned railway was shyly hiding. Only in one place, it dared to show itself to me in the form of a beautiful, masonry bridge.
Not far from the bridge, a heron was waking up on the bank of a calm, blue Una river.
I admit, technically, the above image is not very high quality, so it is questionable whether I should have shown it at all. But I was so impressed by the scene of the morning far from people (I have long since passed any kind of the sign of the menkind) that I can't stand it, but I can show you this image.
The feeling of greater distance from people and entering a completely different world gave me the transition from asphalt to a narrow macadam road. It is as if I have moved back in time by a century or two to a time where nature has its own pace, much lighter and slower, but calmer and more harmonious than we who call ourselves the most perfect beings in the world.
Cloudy weather, and therefore the absence of the sun, but also the absence of the slightest breath of wind, with the morning freshness, all this gave me a sense of surrealism, a sense of another, different world. The feeling that my time has stopped, while at the same time floating here, vibrates in the air a completely different form of time that flows and yet does not pass, the feeling that life around me lives at full speed, but somehow at its own pace, incomprehensible to my understanding of life.
Due to the above impression, I was almost sorry that the macadam was finished, so I went out on the asphalt again. My host yesterday was right, this old, centuries-old untouched macadam was just 3 km.
But with the asphalt came the uphill. It was not big, neither in slope nor in length, just enough to climb a little and observe the environment from a height. So, a few kilometres before the Martin Brod place, I filmed a meadow near the Una river, which had the role of a picnic area, and maybe even a camp.
Shortly after that camp, or "camp", the first houses of the Martin Brod place began to appear.
Maybe it would be best to say something about the place itself because I will talk about interesting things and impressions later, so I could forget about it.
According to Wikipedia, today's name is associated with a legend. The legend is about a beautiful girl Marta, who fell in love with a guy on the other side of the Una river. Her parents did not agree to this relationship, so Marta decided to cross over to Una river and go to the guy she fell in love with. Crossing the Una, she slipped while she was crossing the travertine barriers and fell into the river. That part of the river that could be crossed on foot (the ancient name "Brod") was named after Marta, and thus Martin Brod (Marta's crossing) was formed.
So the place was named after Marta, not after Martin.
On the website nationalpark-una.ba I found that the settlement originated from a medieval town built in the late 14th or early 15th century at the confluence of the Unac river in the Una river, and there are historians' opinions that this old place dates back to the 13th century. According to records from 1396. this place was called Konuba. It is first mentioned in sources in 1431 when King Sigismund of Hungary pledged it to Nikola Frankopan.
The place is located, therefore, on and around the travertine barriers through which Una foams, and behind these barriers, the Unac river flows into the Una river. The image below shows the Unac river, only ten meters before it merges with the Una river.
The Rmanj monastery is located next to the mouth of the Unac river.
The old monastery is on the left side of the image above. The tower on the right, it seems to me that it is a building of today that I have not been able to find out about it, neither when it was built, nor why, nor how, in a word nothing. Sorry!
On the already mentioned website nationalpark-una.ba, I found that in the Martin Brod place there is the Orthodox monastery Rmanj, which is an important spiritual centre of the northern Three Borders (three borders of Bosnia, Lika and Dalmatia). Folk tradition attributes the raising of the monastery to Katarina Branković (1418 -1492) - the daughter of the Serbian despot Đurđe Branković and the Byzantine princess Jerina Kantakuzin, and the wife of Count Urlih II of Celje. In older documents, the Rmanj monastery is called: Hrmanj, Ajerman, Chermlja, Szermil, Hermanya, Herman, and it was named after Katarina's son Herman III, who died young due to illness, and Katarina built a monastery in his memory. In time, the name Herman turned into the name Rmanj, and that name has remained to this day.
Not far from the monastery, a guy had a stall selling fruit and vegetables. After greeting me, I asked him how long the zigzag uphill was, which I should climb after visiting the place. I was unpleasantly surprised, even stunned when he said that I will have 8 km of the climb. My host from Kulen Vakuf told me that it is only 4. Um, who to trust now !?
This confusion with information prompted me not to overdo it with the time spent touring the place, but to go up that famous uphill while there is still morning freshness. And it won't be long because those clouds have dissipated since this morning and the sun was already warming up. Or did it seem to me after I heard that number 8 !?
Either way, let's go to the "centre" of the Martin Brod place now!
And to that "centre" I went by a surprisingly narrow, albeit paved road. And uphill, of course!
In one place, on the left side of the road in a hollow of a hollow rock, which could hardly be called a cave, someone came up with an idea, noteworthy and respectable, to place benches in it. For the rest of the occasional travellers in an exotic environment.
Not far from these benches, but this time on the right side of the road was a pedestrian bridge over the Una river.
Of course, I paused a little on it. I first turned left and filmed the Una river upstream.
Then I turned to the other side and filmed the Una river downstream
This in front of me what I see from this suspension bridge is not even close to what I heard about this place and what I expect. Yet I felt myself gradually disappearing into delight fascinated by the abundance of clear water whose smell I smelled in the air (the smell of dried laundry, brought in from outside where there is frost) and a strange, alien symbiosis of the plant world with that water. Nowhere and never before have I seen such dense vegetation, such large trees growing - out of the water. And for their harmony and peace, they need nothing more than plenty of sunshine (which turned its radiance to the maximum, especially, I guess, for me!). Even time, the only constant change, receded before all this, ashamed, I guess, of universal symbiosis and retreated somewhere to the side, somewhere farther from here, so that this scene was left without time, so timeless.
I don’t know how long I sailed merging with the scene in front of me, but I flinched and went back to my time warning me of the possibility, the danger even, that if I continued like this, I will stay in this place, this Heaven on earth, for long, long long time.
And that eight kilometres is waiting for me!
That's how little a man needs to return to the present from the ultimate delight. This time it was enough for me to remember those 8 km uphill.
So, heavy-hearted, I took the bike and pushed it uphill after the bridge. Luckily the narrow alleyway was paved.
And then I came to another Paradise on earth. There was even room for people in this!
The houses were scattered everywhere, though not too much - just enough not to bother each other. Streams with and without waterfalls murmured around some of them.
The streams are, clearly, part of the Una river. It is divided here into hundreds of smaller and larger streams, which, with thousands of smaller and larger waterfalls, flow downwards to reunite at the exit from the place into one stream of the Una river. Well, that would be a brief, cold, rational description of how the Una river passes through the place. But neither the soul nor the heart can remain indifferent to what the senses register, so they tremble with excitement created by watching the cheerful, lively play of clean, fragrant water jumping briskly over the travertine barriers. Not infrequently, next to the houses and near these waterfalls are small, or slightly larger terraces where one can rest both soul and body watching this merry play of water that began who knows when, and which will never stop. Only if someone does not destroy it, but I did not allow that thought to develop, to spread, so as not to unnecessarily destroy my sense of bliss while I was fascinated by the sight in front of me.
Although what I have seen so far would be enough to justify, in full, all the toil and effort I went through to get to this place, I knew, or felt, that there should be something else. That's why I turned to the woman, obviously a local woman who came across. I greeted her, to which she greeted me with a gentle, warm smile. To my supplement "You live in Paradise!", she replied that they do not complain, although it does not always look like that. I asked her about the "big" main waterfall, to which she told me that I should go back and turn right behind the suspension bridge.
I did that and found myself in an equally narrow, if not narrower alleyway, although without asphalt.
A few hundred meters away, the alleyway turned into a wider promenade with a wooden fence on the right.
And a little further to the right was a wooden footbridge. I got to the main attraction of the place.
I parked the bike that I could keep an eye on it, just in case. Even walking down that wooden bridge, I turned to see if it was in my field of vision.
And then I turned to what is, as I said, the main attraction of the place. It was announced as foreplay, an appetizer, by a modest, small waterfall.
And finally, the big waterfall in the Martin Brod place, here, especially for me. I know it doesn’t care if I, or anyone else, is there or not. It will continue to sing his song of crashing and bubbling, completely indifferent to onlookers. But I couldn't help but endure and flatter myself, feeling all the splendour of the scene in front of me. I admit that vanity worked in me, but mostly because I just could not understand that this amazing and beautiful thing in nature happens by itself, whether we, the people, are here or not and whether we are indifferent to it or enthusiastic.
Here are a few parts of the waterfall, for those for whom the total scene is not enough, so they like to peek into the details.
I will not (again) talk about how I stand here and stare in fascination, how my thoughts wandered, how my time stopped, how ... I am afraid that you will get the impression of, now a bit boring, repeated repetition of the description of my experiences. And it's a pity, because (again) it seems to me that this is in front of me is the culmination of this journey.
I was stunned to look at the clock, for it was already half-past ten. Well, who knows how many times it has been confirmed to me that time passes the fastest when I am not aware of it at all.
I hurried back along that wooden bridge, but I still paused for a moment to film a branch above the path, which, if I had continued in the original zeal, would surely hit in my head.
Reaching the bike I got on it and started riding, but I did not get so far, so I stopped. The reason for stopping was a cave that I had to film.
After I went out on the asphalt again, although narrow, I drove, believe it or not - to the hotel.
So in a place that, according to Wikipedia, in 2013 had 124 inhabitants, there is a real hotel. Impressive, I said!
Beneath those sunshades in the picture above were chairs and tables, and even people drinking their drinks calmly and relaxed. For a moment I thought I could join them because I had already spent my fluid reserves well. However, the urge due to (a too) long stays in this small, although extremely interesting place, forced me to give up drinking and continue driving.
Later, that decision will show as wrong.
The beginning of the continuation of the ride was extremely pleasant in the form of downhill in the shade. At the end of that descent, this time from afar, I filmed again the monastery around which the place was built.
A few hundred meters I drove along the road I came from the Kulen vakuf town, all the way to the intersection. The intersection was cross-shaped, though a little bent. If I go straight I would go back to Kulen Vakuf, on the right I would go to Drvar (which is my today's destination), and on the left, I could go to Croatia to the Doljani place where I would go out on the road Donji Lapac - Knin. I would go out, I said, if the border police did not cautch me. And if he catches me then I better not be there, because there is no border crossing on this road. So, so close to Croatia, and so far!
I stopped first because of the bridge.
It looked miserable to me, because the mad, insane logic of war, unfortunately, did not pass him by, so they demolished him. After the war, it needed to be re-enabled for traffic, so they made it the fastest and cheapest improvisation. So now, as it is, it has a dual role. The first is the one it had before the war, and it is to be a part of the road that connects the opposite sides of the river. But, considering that there are also the remains of the destroyed bridge, it is now a kind of bitter monument to the war nonsense. At least that's what it looks like to me.
Next to the bridge is a board intended for fishermen who would fish here in crystal clear water of the river for fish that is rare elsewhere. And it is rare to find them not because of themselves, but because such a clean watercourse is rare.
So I find out that the daily ticket for the freedom of fishing is 50 KM (25 €). Whether he caught anything or not.
I am not a fisherman, but I guess this notice is located here because the Una river, after many backwaters and waterfalls, has finally calmed down, so these fish have found a suitable place for their habitat here.
Anyway here’s what the Una river looks like here, before and after the bridge.
Again I stayed on the bridge longer than I intended, watching the peace over which the water flowed silently. Still, I overcame it, I was startled from further observation, sat on my bike and headed to the opposite side of the intersection. I didn’t dare to look at the clock, I know it’s a lot. I don't need that superfluous, unnecessary information now, I've already focused on what's in front of me.
And in front of me is an uphill that started right after the intersection. After walking a hundred meters, I turned around and filmed the valley from which I was leaving.
The uphill was a zigzag shape with three elbow curves. For memory, I filmed the first one.
While I was walking up that uphill, I wished for the opportunity to capture the landscape below me, but at the same time, I was afraid of the dense greenery that would prevent me from looking below me. So I used every opportunity that came my way.
I had the first opportunity after the first elbow curve which was filmed on above image.
In the lower part of the above image, you can see the road I just walked, and in the distance, on the other side of the valley, you can see the railway route, carved in the rocky ground, that is not currently running due to the previously described reasons.
In the first part of this uphill, the sun was more or less low so I had the opportunity to enjoy walking in the shade. I knew it wouldn’t be until the end of the uphill, so each time I crossed to the other side of the road that was in the shade. When I’m already walking and pushing my bike it doesn’t matter if I’m doing it on the left or right side of the road.
A little further from the image above, I came across the consequences of yesterday's rain. Two boulders separated from the ground somewhere upstairs and rolled to the other side of the road. For a moment I thought how I would have followed if they had decided to do it in front of me now as I pass this way.
As the day wore on, the sun was rising and that shade of freshness was gone. What left me was walking in the sun.
In one place before the pass, this hill took pity on my stoic endurance of suffering because of the hill and the sun, and it spread out the greenery to show me the valley below.
Down in the valley, the Una river foamed over some waterfalls, while a local road was on the other side of the river. When I rested and calmed my breath, I continued walking uphill along with my bike. Not because the scene was taken in the images above is not interesting to me, on the contrary, but because I wanted to get to a better position to shoot.
A few hundred meters before the pass I came to it. First, the valley in which most places are located. There were even cultivated fields.
I zoomed in on the monastery even more. To the left of the monastery are the pools in which trout are reared in the water of the Unac tributary before it flows into the Una river.
I raised the lens a bit to capture the canyon upstream through where the Una river is passing.
And more will be said about that canyon very soon.
Again that urge to stay here longer, if not forever, watching the fantastic masterpiece of nature, but I got up and kept pushing the bike uphill that I felt was nearing its end. And really, after a few hundred meters I was overwhelmed by a triumphant feeling as I came on the pass. The length of this zigzag hill that I walked was neither 4 nor 8 km, but exactly in the middle - 6 km. I looked gratefully at the sky, turning to Him, because He rewarded me except for additional torment on the hill with which I was reconciled and was ready to accept it (again, when I accept a less good situation ...)
After wiping away sweat, consuming cold beer from a thermos (ah, what a heavenly drink!) and calming my breath and heart, I turned around watching the pass. Nothing special in itself, just a passage between two hills. But on the right, when I climbed a slope a few meters high, I found myself under a eaves with a fence, obviously a viewpoint.
The view from it told me that it was a viewpoint.
And the view was, ah ... how to describe it !?
I am already shabby in describing the euphoric moments on this journey, especially today, which I consider and feel to be the best of all so far, and then I come across even better, even more impressive .... But looking at the environment from this, I would say, a strategic place, I put aside both excessive shabbyness and excessive euphoria, and excessive impression and ... I just couldn't help but watch all this below me. Because it was simply fantastic, unforgettable, beautiful, impressive ... !!!
Well, I confess my sin, and who confesses half is forgiven and half forgets.
First, a re-view of the Una canyon upstream from Martin Brod, along with the valley in which the place is located.
Not far behind the canyon in the image above is Croatia, more precisely the Lika region. Looking at the scene in front of me, I concluded that nature does not care too much about the boundaries that man sets. To me, the scene in the picture above looks complete, unique, without any, even the slightest hint of a border.
I zoomed in on my camera and approached the canyon.
Taking advantage of the zooming to the end, I could see the blue water of the Una river flowing through the canyon.
Now I could write how fascinated I was watching the beauty above the beauties in front of me, how I forgot, or rather pushed aside all the superfluous thoughts like "who I am", "where I'm going", "where I come from", all focused with all my soul and body, to this in front of me ... that there was no other scene that evokes similar experiences in me.
Turning to the left, I saw a canyon in front of me and below me, through which the Unac river flows before it merges with the Una river in the Martin Brod place.
As I look at the above images of the Unac River Canyon, it becomes clear to me why I climbed this 6 km, and why I later will descend to the Drvar town. True, the Drvar town is located on the Unac river, but there was simply no place for a road in this canyon, so the builders decided to avoid it.
However, they took care of the fans of such scenes, in which I am currently including myself, so they made a small, modest, but still viewpoint here.
Who knows how long I would have watched these two scenes in front/below me enjoying only the quiet breeze and the sun as a company if some car hadn't stopped and the four of them came out in a formation of two plus two. We said hi, even with the greeting I got a discreet, and it seems to be a warm, smile. While the women (or girls) chatted and watched the canyons, the boys took out a camper table and chairs and placed them under the eaves. When the women (or girls) went back to the trunk of the car and took food out of it, I decided it was time for me to leave.
But before continuing the ride, I still filmed two scenes of the surroundings that could be seen from that viewpoint. They were not as exotic as the mentioned canyons, but due to the complete absence of any trace of man, they seemed interesting to me.
After a few hundred meters of downhill, uphill appeared again. At first, I was almost overwhelmed with despair (oh no, uphill again) But it was quickly suppressed, extinguished and before it flared up, with the cold rational realization that this trick had already been experienced while climbing from the Bihać field. That "new" uphill lasts only a few hundred meters, something like black humour or temptation for me. That rational realization tells me that I climbed a lot and that a long downhill is more likely than a long uphill. But now, I'll wait a little longer for that long descent.
As if the effect of (unsalted) jokes had passed, the road conciliatory took a more or less horizontal stance. In fact, almost horizontal because the small but insidious uphill was still there. The ride was leaden, difficult as if something was wrong with my bike.
The four who "drove" me from the viewpoint somehow restrained me from parting with the Una river as befits Namely, I stop considering the Una river as a companion who has been it so far, from the very beginning. All the while, it was a pleasant companion to me, enduring all my "flies" with the utmost patience. And not only that, with its role as a companion, it made this journey very pleasant and certainly unforgettable.
And I didn't get to thank it for that! Shame on me!
From the Martin Brod place to the Drvar town is about 30 km. Even while planning this journey, looking at the map, I realized that there are no marked settlements on that road, even those with the smallest circle. At the end of today, it will be practically confirmed to me - there is nothing between those two places, no villages, no house, no people, nothing, nothing! Even in the planning phase, I wished for at least a few cars, just enough to comfort me that I am not completely alone in this wasteland. I have to admit that the One above answered my prayer - in those 20 or so kilometres I met as many as 5 (in words: five) vehicles.
I say about 20, because I spent these 6 km uphill looking at the valley with the Martin Brod place through more or less dense greenery, and that 3-4 km I "threw" a view of Drvar, but more about that later.
So there are no houses, no people, the road is empty. Looking at the impenetrable dense greenery left and right around the road further reinforces that feeling of isolation to me.
But if I look up above that greenery I see the surrounding mountains in all their beauty of their splendour of untouched nature (at least not by man).
In those 20 or so kilometres of isolation, the dense greenery took pity on me in only one, the only place, and it spread so that I could look at the environment I was passing by. It was on the right side so that I saw the slope towards the Unac river as well as its canyon.
It was interesting to me after the first few kilometres that the irrational fear that "something could happen" in this wasteland. Already on the first stop to wipe away the sweat and take a sip of two cold, refreshing liquids, otherwise known as beer, I realized that I had no reason to be afraid. Peace, serenity, birds chirping, but somehow they do it quietly and considerate, and also a breeze blowing. Nothing of the scary wolves, bears and all the other beasts that heard Pero the Cyclist pass by today and so everyone rushed in a frantic race to see me first and tear me apart.
Okay now, now I'm pretending to be braver than I am. Maybe two eyes of one of the mentioned beasts were watching me through the green thicket while I was giving myself an Ode to Courage, but I didn't know about them. And what I don't see or hear, doesn't exist, does it?
However, another, earthly problem arose. Not so scary, but not negligible.
My fluid reserves have dwindled dangerously.
I drank all the contents from the thermoses, and I only had half a litre of mineral water in the PET bottle which I had in my saddlebag. My original intention about it was to be able to wash, even wet my hair in case of great heat.
Therefore, I brought into a reduction in the consumption of that remaining fluid. Instead of a sumptuous 5-6 sips, as it was before, now only a modest sip or two at each stop.
And then what some would say coincidence happened, but so favourable for me. I had a lot of it on this journey and for me, they are not coincidences at all. I am sure that He from above with a small movement of his finger made me favourable "circumstances" for me,
because of His consideration for me.
Clouds formed from somewhere, not so dark as to threaten rain, and yet grey enough to completely cover the sun. With these clouds, the wind appeared, refreshing, but not (too) cold, and, most importantly, it was blowing in the back. Accordingly, the small but insidious uphill was lost in percentage terms, so I drove on a horizontal road for a while. Well, that's not all, because the road went down a slight, very slight descent. The bike slides slightly, I turn the pedals slightly, but the speed of riding it wasn't that slightly. I mean it was considered.
I was overwhelmed by the feeling of driving on the real Paradise Road.
It took a long, really long time.
Yet a few times I forced myself to stand enchanted by the mountains above the road. That all these shots do not look like shots from some other planet where there are no people or any of them, here is one with my bike, while the other two are with the said desolate mountains.
By the way, that greenery still jealously guarded any (more detailed) view of what and how it was located along the road.
Before I got to the sun shown in the image above, a few drops of rain tried to spoil that enjoyment of the Paradise driving atmosphere. I didn't even manage to figure out where to stop and put on my raincoat, the rain, which it wasn't indeed, stopped, and the clouds allowed the sun to shine on my road. But that wind in the back and the freshness remained so that riding pleasure was not significantly reduced. On the contrary, I gradually came across wetter and wetter asphalt while riding, ultimately completely wet, even with puddles of water on the edge. And I was still dry, that I can't be drier (at least as far as rain is concerned).
Incredibly! I had the impression that I could not have imagined better road conditions in my best dreams let alone to hope for them.
Some 2-3 kilometres before the Drvar town I should go at, connect in fact, with the main road Bosanski Petrovac - Drvar - Bosansko Grahovo. But a kilometre or so before that intersection, the dense greenery receded, so I could finally see what was and how along the road.
The landscape is nothing special, typical desolation of both people and plants. It is only tomorrow morning as I will climb from the Drvar town that I will notice a change in the environment. It is as if the soil here is less fertile and as if the amount of water here is less, so that all the vegetation looks scarcer and more sparse than there along the Una river.
And I finally came to the aforementioned main road. It was wider, much wider than the one I drove so far, it even had lines on the edges. But the traffic on it was heavy, very heavy. Well, this "very heavy" should be understood conditionally, it will be that I'm used to absence of the traffic, so now 3-4 vehicles in ten minutes looks like very heavy traffic.
To the Drvar town I had a downhill of some two and a few kilometers which descends the slope of the hill into the valley with the town.
But before that enjoyment of driving down that downhill, I stopped at an extension to film the valley. The next two shots show a kind of total, group shots of the valley. In the upper left corner of the first shot sharply eye of the attentive observer will notice a storm cloud. It was that cloud that passed in front of me and only caught me with a drop - two of the rain.
In the image above, you can see the Unac river meandering through the valley.
And now a few detailed images, taken with the help of zoom. At the top left in the first image below, the above-mentioned storm cloud can be seen again.
Now an even more detailed view of the town and its surroundings.
It can be seen that there are real mountains on the other side as well. With them, the whole valley is surrounded, so if it weren't for the canyon through which the Unac river flows to the Martin Brod place, there would be a big lake below me.
This means that I shell need to continue this journey of mine uphill tomorrow morning. That long uphill should be somewhere in the image below.
Before I continued my journey down that descent I captured another detail of the town.
I know that it takes a lot of effort and toil to get the impression from these above shots of the exceptional view from this place where I am. It remains for me to believe that a man could spend hours and hours here observing the general impression of the whole scene in front of him and the details that abound. And at the same time, he would be so preoccupied with what he sees and feel by the other senses that it would not be easy to start and leave all this in front of him.
And I was started just by a breath of wind. Just a breath I say, but cool, almost icy, sinister and threatening. I turned right to the west and saw another gloomy, darker, stormy cloud significantly larger than the one that had passed.
So it was coming hard raining, so it was time for me to move on while I was still dry.
I rushed to the city "like Saint Elijah", satisfied that I (and this time) stayed dry. The sky in the west had darkened, but it was not yet decided when it would open his tap. So I arrived at the nearest store to buy a two-litre bottle of beer, cold and dewy, and on the bench in front of the town hall to pour them into thermoses, and drink something.
The City Hall is a typical impersonal socialist-realist building. There was a sign with the name of the street on it. The name that was common in the former state, and so rare with the collapse of that state.
Ulica Titova = The street of Tito
That cold ominous wind was getting colder and more sinister, so it was necessary to find shelter from the rain because this bench in front of the town hall was in the open. I found shelter in Pekoteka.
This Pekoteka (bakery) was called "Oaza (Oasis) and was some kind of symbiosis of bakery and coffee shop, only it was quite large. Both inside and outside. I bought a can of cold beer (a canned beer in the coffee shop !?) and asked politely if I could sit outside and eat with the beer. After an equally polite, affirmative answer, I placed two chairs opposite each other under some sort of eave. I sat on one and put my lunch on the other. I started eating just as it started to rain.
It seemed to me that the rain waited for me to everything do, and to enjoy in the peace of God both the food and the smell of ozone, still dry!
The storm was not too strong, just a heavy downpour and a moderate wind. A stronger storm was in me, sifting through the thoughts full of today's impressions. Here is that coincidence again! I just came to the Drvar town and found a dry place where I sit and rest, all before the rain. I shuddered at the thought of what it would have been like if this downpour had caught me in that wasteland I had gone through today. I would have survived, of course, but I certainly would not have been so euphorically pleased, even with the feeling of special happiness and honour that He, after all, is watching over me.
I know I'm exaggerating with these "coincidences" but there were a lot of them on this journey, and there will be more. One of them will still be today.
After fifteen minutes the rain stopped, so very quickly the sun shone again.
It's been 3 PM, I have quite a few days ahead of me, but first I should find the place of my tonight's accommodation.
Since I was in the wi-fi area in this Pekoteka after informing my life partner that I was alive, happy and satisfied, I called my landlord today and agreed with him to meet in front of my tonight's accommodation in fifteen minutes. I confidently concluded that it is not a problem to find it, because according to the map, which I observe on my mobile phone, it is about a hundred meters away.
I went back about a hundred meters along the road I came from and asked the gas station where the street of my accommodation was, which must be somewhere here. Yes, he replied, the street is, but the accommodation is not. It's up behind the traffic light next to a high school.
Pushing the bike uphill was followed, which started right behind the traffic lights. After, again, a hundred meters, I came across a small alleyway, and behind it was a huge building, obviously, the mentioned high school. I was still confused because I didn't see anything in that alley that would look like what I was looking for, I asked the cleaning lady who was cleaning in front of the coffee shop next to which I stopped.. She paused in confusion when I told her what I was looking for, and she, not very sure of herself, told me "that it must be further, behind the school".
It was already starting to boil in me, because of the disappointment, because something that quickly and easily turned into slow and complex, because I have to push the bike again, and I thought that was enough for today.
However, I humbly accepted the ordeal, with the hope it will probably end.
And again, when I accept a less favourable solution… after only ten steps behind me, I hear that cleaning lady which said that someone is calling me from the other side of the road.
Somebody calling me !? Here, in this town where I am for the first time in my life!
And yet, the woman on the other side of the road, a little lower down, was just calling me. Okay, not by name, but by looks ("bike guy")
It turned out that the owner of the accommodation sent her to wait for me and let me into the house ("Some guy with a bicycle will come there, so let him go to the house").
So, what would a man say to this now !?
I didn’t have time to think about it at the moment because I was arranging the details around the accommodation.
- I'm moving on early tomorrow morning!
- Leave the key under the doormat!
- Can I pay now?
- Okay! 23 €, so 46 KM!
- Here it is!
- Thank you and have a nice stay!
Yes, after spending the night in the Kulen Vakuf town this is a lot more expensive. But what’s there is, I accepted it even while I was looking for accommodation online before travelling, because I couldn’t find a cheaper one.
As every time on this journey, when I find myself in a space that is only mine for the rest of the day and night, finding myself in today's accommodation, I felt relieved and relaxed. Now follows in a way slowly, you could even say lazy enjoyment for the rest of the day.
Let's start with the accommodation.
You can view the continuation of this travelogue here.
Post je objavljen 15.01.2022. u 12:12 sati.