Sarajevo for breakfast, Mostar for lunch. With loads of lakes and copious curves to consume on the way. Bosnia isn’t necessarily a place you’d associate with good roads but it has plenty and despite being a really small country it frequently treats you to big skies, open plains and only the thinest sprinkling of humanity.
Thankfully all the riders on this trip are very experienced and completely independent. Every morning they get a destination and are released into the wild like a box of homing pigeons. We might spin round a town a few times getting our bearings then we’re off. We’ll meet at pinch points or when the first rider’s caffeine level reads empty but frequently we’ll ride a distance apart and keep out of each others way. Nobody in interested in racing. Nobody is keen to have the size of their balls weighed and put on any chart. They are all such good riders that to put them to their absolute limits would be dangerous and stupid. Having said all that, I have a job keeping up with any of them a lot of the time 
We all get to Mostar and head for the bridge. I’ve been here before but I don’t recognise where I am. All the satnavs have made different decisions on the best way in but eventually we all congregate like moths to a flame and head in. Its stupid hot and the place is rammed. My arse is receiving full lubrication from the sweat running down my back and I give myself a 300m maximum before I hold my helmet in my hand and use it like a divining rod to take me to the closest target it wants adding to its ever growing possie. It steers me left, right, then up and stars spinning in my hands. Target aquired ..
And whilst I’m here .. it would be rude not to. A very smart girl this one. She’s Spanish and studying something complicated and way beyond my comprehension. She’s come for a short break to let her brain cool down. Not much chance of that in this heat.
Mostar is quite a big place but the old town is tiny and very compact. People are packed into the narrow streets below, shuffling slowly from one set of fridge magnets to the next, queueing for selfies on the bridge. I’m happy just to watch from afar over the rim of a lovely latte .. and a cake.
Take 2 steps from the table and it’s like exiting the twilight zone and going back to reality.
Ask anyone that hasn’t been to Bosnia what they think it would be like and I doubt they would think its like this. ‘Surpriiiiiiiiiise’ ..
I’ve not taken this particular route before and it’s really beautiful. My satnav embarrasses itself yet again but taking us down a single track footpath towards a ‘locals only’ border crossing but both I and the others are used to this by now so we do the pigeon thing again and find the right road. It’s a lovely evening and the mountain roads are clear and free to play on.
Another crossing, another stamp, another destination and another garage for the bikes to lay their heads
Tonight we’re just outside Dubrovnik and we pass all the floating cities moored up in the docs as we arrive. Its going to be busy..
Get a bus down and we all have to flash our gold credit cards at the gate to prove we can buy a small ice cream if we need one. The place is heaving. It’s people soup. I want to take some pictures but it’s going to be tricky tonight. For me, taking pictures is another kind of therapy, another mental distraction, a 3 dimensional game where I watch and wait, let my brain track the trajectory of 100 bodies all moving in different directions, all the while trying to predict a fraction of a second when I should fire the trigger. People come into and out of frame, speed up, slow down, stop and laugh, kiss, touch, and my brain is all the time calculating the odds, trying to move my body into the perfect position. Sometimes that means I will speed up and walk fast to intercept something, or slow down to allow people into a space ahead.. or it will get me to kneel down in the middle of a packed square or it will get me to do a very quick fly by to get a shot before anyone notices. I used to worry about this. I used to be really self conscious about it but nowadays I don’t have a fuck left to give. I will never see any of these people ever again. I might enter their consciousness for a second or two while they ask themselves ‘what the fuck is that skinny old twat doing’ but then their concentration will fall on that shiny expensive trinket in the next shop window and I’ll be gone. Forgotten. Trashed. But it’s still a game of luck. It’s like writing, or an erection. You can’t force it. And its just as disappointing when it doesn’t happen.
Fuck I do talk a load of old shite sometimes ..
Anyway .. I just go with the flow and let fate decide.
We find a restaurant up a tight alley and sit down. ‘That will be €20 please’. ‘What will?’ ‘That seat, that’s €20 for 30 minutes. ‘You what?’ Look at the menu and quickly decide that I dont really want to just turn that many Euros into shit tonight so I pop sticks and take a long walk back to the hotel in the dying evening light.
Today is a 2 border day. It’s always a lottery how long it will take. I’ve been through both borders before and they were fine but history is no guarantee of the future. Get to Montenegro and it’s a five minute job.
Until we try and get insurance. There is a big sign on the booths telling you that you need insurance and where to get it, which turns out to be the building not 50m away. Last time I think I payed €10 and it took 5 minutes. We all follow the signs and go up to the office, which is shut. Everyone takes a patience pill and we settle down to wait. Its hot and you have to manually shut down, to tie your temper up in a safe place and really think before you speak. Someone comes back, opens the door and we form an orderly queue. The bloke just to process the first rider when someone comes out another office and heads our way. He’s 2 foot tall and pushing his balls in a wheelbarrow and he looks like trouble. He comes in and just rips the paper from the blokes machine and puts on his best Billy Big Potatoes face. I’ve seen this before. My temper instantly pulls and wriggles at its bindings but we need to keep this under control. He is absolutely adamant that we don’t require insurance and that our green cards will cover us. Any attempt to show him our insurance and the countries it covers is met by a sneer and a wave of the hands. He knows best. He is never ever ever ever wrong and he will absolutely not allow us to buy insurance. In this situation it’s just not worth the potential trouble that escalating the situation would cause. We’ll be in Montenegro for a few hours max and we’re just going to have to go commando. I accidentally give the wheelbarrow a big kick on the way out and see his balls hit the big ceiling fan accompanied by a wale of pain. Twat.
The ride through Montenegro is extremely hot, slow and painful. All the cars only seem to have 1st gear and crawl along like disabled snails even if there is nobody in front of them. Its a pretty place though, there is no denying that.
I’ve got memories of Montenegro from 10 years ago when I came through here with an old mate. An old mate that is now dead. Streams of thoughts like that always lead to roundabouts with lots of potential turns. I choose to take a positive one and find a lovely, if expensive cafe perched high above a town we stayed at before. Relive the good times. Replay the laughs and the smiles. Choose the light over the dark. There is a little isolated community in the bay and the waitress tells us Stallone has a property there. Not a bad spot at all.
I see a girl being photographed by her boyfriend upstairs. She’s not shy, but she doesn’t want me to take her picture. What she doesn’t know wont hurt her
There is a Russian thats ridden to Europe on his bike sitting next to us. He has an attractive wife that’s keen to add her name to the list.
Talking to Russians in the current climate is tricky. There are obviously an awful lot of opinions that we don’t currently share, especially amongst the more wealthy ones we meet down here. But nobody is keen to start that conversation.
Its taken us a lot longer than anticipated to get through Montenegro than we anticipated so its quite deep into the afternoon before we cross into Albania. Luckily its a quick process and we’re all queueing up outside the insurance booth/container to get our totally worthless paper comfort blankets. Another couple arrives on a new GS looking like they’ve just ridden out the showroom. They both worked in Singapore for a few years and saved up to spunk everything on a new bike and a road trip. Good to see. Except they think in their youthful innocence that the entire world runs on plastic. They don’t have any cash. At all.
Ok then. Maybe they can barter for their insurance. I’m sure they’ll be fine.
First impressions of any countries are quickly formed within the first few miles of the border. A lot of the time it’s not good. The money always seems to be concentrated in the middle of the country and not so much seems to flow to the very edges. This time its better than expected. A new business being built, ice creams and coffee, toilets with less than a week’s skidmarks on.. its all good.
Get out on the road though and its absolute lunacy. It’s just like Russia. All traffic regards motorcycles as vermin and they just pull out and overtake towards you as though you’re just not there. They have absolute total disregard for two wheels. Trucks, coaches, and worst of all, the big 4x4s. They pull out and launch themselves like missiles down the road towards you. Lights blazing, because obviously thats a safety feature that will stop them actually coming into contact with anything. It’s not just happening occasionally either. Its constant. If you’re not surrounded by cars then the lane is considered to be clear and they just go. Brian has a very very close call with one in particular. He’s put into the dust at quite high speed but thankfully keeps it together and lives to fart another day.
Riding into Tirana is a lot of fun. Thats if you like riding though molten metal, which as it happens, I do. It’s tight. It’s hot. It’s very passive aggressive and you have to ride very ‘positively’. Its testament to the riders that somehow we manage to all keep together and navigate through the melee. By the time we get to the hotels, most of the bikes are at melting points and so are the riders. Its a nice hotel with a garden and I very quickly hear the pulling of tabs and the hiss of beer against red hot tongues.
I dont usually do beer. I’m a milkaholic. So I head out in search of the white stuff.. no not that white stuff .. though its probably easier to find than milk out here. Probably cheaper too
Some people come up with really novel solutions to the traffic problems
I find an ATM and withdraw some cash. I always feel like I’ve turned into a target when I do that in places like this. Albania is famous for bad men, and I’m very keen not to meet any. I’m keeping to the main roads, keeping visible. I come to a little bloke in a cabin watching a car-park for a hotel. He directs me into the maze and away from the main roads, into the back streets. Its still daylight and my spider sense isn’t tingling so down I go. I find the market and walk in, the familiar smell of warm veg and not so clean freezers. But my quarry is there, all chilled and waiting. My habit is running between 4 and 6 pints a day at the moment.
Its Friday night and the building over the road seems to be a club. We go out for dinner and when we come back the building is almost moving with the bass, seeming to breath in and out with the beat. My kind of place but at my age that level of volume would probably just blow all my skin off. Still.. why would I want to go out when I’ve got Brian waiting in my room
