Balkans trip September 2017

Hitchhike #1

Main purpose of this trip was Drill & Chill Climbing & Highlining festival in Bosnia, near Banja Luka. The festival was supposed to begin on the 7^th of September, so based on my previous hitchhiking experience I estimated it will work just fine if I set off from my hometown (Bielsko-Biała, south of Poland) on the 4^th. However, my journey seemed to have started under an unfriendly star. The evening before I had stayed up late in order to write up a chapter of a paper summarizing an astronomical internship I did in August. And then, after at least 2 hours of work, I was so sleepy that I accidentally closed the file without saving it, losing all the work. I was totally pissed, drinking some alcohol to alleviate my rage. As a result I overslept, and instead of setting off early morning as I had planned, when I started catching my first ride it was already past noon. Haven't even started, and already set back by half a day! And once on the road I didn't get a very good start either, first I was kicked out from a gas station and I had to walk through two villages to find a good hitchhiking spot, and then in two rides I got no farther than the next bigger town called Żywiec... about 20 km ahead. There I stood at the entrance to the big road for about one and half an hour without success, eventually I walked to find a better spot, where I finally got some luck and caught a ride to Slovakian border almost immediately. There was little traffic on the border, but eventually some guys stopped, and took me all the way to Banská Bystrica, big step ahead, but when they dropped me it was already dark, and raining.

Nevertheless, it was still early enough that somebody should be going somewhere farther, so I decided to give it a try and take a walk to a big gas station, and this is where fate finally faced me with a friendlier face. I got a ride from the first guy I asked, and all the way to Banská Štiavnica, a beautiful town in an old volcanic crater, which, although off the main road, was much more south. We were also lucky to see some wildlife on the way – three wild pigs crossing the road in front of us and just a moment later a stag walking the other way – reportedly an above average sight even in this woody region of Slovakia. But the miracle came when he said that he can offer me a place to sleep: he worked in a small hotel and they had a room which hasn't been cleaned up yet, so it was free for the night. Magnificent! I was able to comfortably cook myself a dinner in a kitchen, have a nice warm shower, sleep in a bed, plug in my laptop and write this cursed chapter again (from this time on paying a lot of attention to make proper backups). It was such a nice gift from this guy, it totally reminded me why is it worthwhile to hitchhike (which I kinda forgot when the beginnings where as daunting as they where), that the kindness of some people You can meet totally makes up for all the toils of travel. 

Hotel room in Banská Štiavnica totally for free! Hitchhiking is awesome!

 

The corridor in this hotel was really cool

 

I was tired after the day and at first I intended to go to bed soon, but following the suggestion of this guy, I took the advantage of the opportunity to leave all the heavy luggage in the room, and set off to explore the town. In the end I didn't walk around the streets too much, but I ended up walking uphill (wonderful view on the way, with the lights of a castle and a few churches) to the woods above the town. There I found a small artificial lake and, being totally on my own and filled with positive energy, I decided to take off all my clothes and go for a truly unique night swim. Shortly afterwards I found an abandoned house, so obviously I didn't leave it unexplored.

During the night walk, behind me the artificial lake I swam in

Interesting mosaic in the urbex I found in Banská Štiavnica

Setting off on the next day went better, I woke up quite early, and although I still had to walk a lot to go sufficiently out of Banská Štiavnica, once I did, reaching a gas station north of Budapest in three rides went fairly smooth. The plan was to head west from there, go around Balaton, and then the way straight south would lead me to Banja Luka. But nobody would take me in that direction so eventually I went with one guy to the center of Budapest. It was a really hilarious ride, because the driver was young, he spoke English badly bud just enough to make some conversation, and halfway through he gave me a beer. Unsure what to, I decided to drink it right away, the problem was that I drank it too fast and he offered me another one.

So, I ended up in the middle of Budapest, in the middle of the day, totally dizzy after two beers, and I knew that a walk to the entrance to the highway would be long, and asking drivers for a ride while not being sober – even harder. Therefore I was relieved when I accidentally walked into Budapest Keleti, the main train station, and I decided to help myself with a train to Pécs, on the south of Hungary. On the train I was able to rest, sober up, and this way I made up what I fell behind with by starting after noon the day before. From Pécs I managed to get one last ride to Szigetvár, where I slept in my hammock under a branch of a rather filthy tree that was really hard to climb with a heavy backpack (yeah, quite a step down from the night before). There I naturally woke up at dawn, and the hitchhike to Banja Luka went fairly smooth, in the evening I was already on the climbing gym in the town, where I was allowed to sleep and I met first few friends from the festival.

Cows on a field next to which I slept in Szigetvár

Already in Croatia, it's getting nice, warm and sunny

Shower time! It was hot and I couldn't catch a ride, so having a refreshing shower under a bridge was a perfect idea. Pity I accidentally left there my shower gel.

 Dubrovar. There's no such thing as bad time for tea :-)

Drill & Chill

I think it won’t be an exaggeration to say that of all the big highline festivals I’ve been to so far, I liked D&C the most. While big enough to have this special atmosphere and vibes of a proper festival, and to meet a lot of old and new friends, it was also small enough to retain all the pros of an unofficial meeting: you didn’t have to rush for the lines early in the morning, lest you won’t get to session enough - you could come whenever you felt like it, and you’d never (except maybe for the last few days when more slackliners came) have to wait too long for your turn. And you were free to come whenever you liked it, be it a night session or whatever, there were no official opening and closing hours with rigging team checking every line, instead it was an equal responsibility of every participating highliner to make sure that everything is safe, anchor points are ok, and so on. Also, it wasn’t just a highline festival, but primarily a climbing festival, so it was a great opportunity to mix these two communities together, allowing a sort of intercultural exchange, leading to a different atmosphere than at solely highlining festivals. Finally it was wonderful that the festival was fairy long, these 11 days allowed you to try a little bit of everything the site had to offer.

Thanks to all this I could really feel that Chill, never forcing myself to do anything, only going on a highline when I was in a good mood for it. So, although on the second day (the first day it was rainy and nobody started any action in the crags) I did help in rigging and had the festival’s opening session on a 40 m highline, for the next three days I didn’t focus on highlining, instead, enjoyed other activities; first I went climbing with Romanian friends, then in the evening I joined the trip to the hot springs near Banja Luka, where I came up with an idea of rigging a waterline above the river next to the springs. We did it on the next day with the Romanians. The water was pretty cold, but bearable, and the experience of going into the hottest of the springs after a swim in the cold river was a bliss (although forcing myself to go the other way was very tough). In the evening I did end up having one session on the freshly rigged 90 m highline, but it was dark, I was tired, and I had to fix taping on half the length of the line, so it wasn’t the best of my sessions. So on the next day I went climbing again, in a stunning sector of Amfiteater, offering magnificent view on the whole Tijesno Canyon even on single pitch routes. Sadly the third route I did that day was my last climb of the festival, because my climbing shoes were old and they gave up, skin tore off on the front, and so on, to keep on climbing in them would be painful.

My first opening session on the 40 m highline. OS of course. 

Standing on top of the rock in celebration of sending a very nice 6b climbing route 

Sessioning a lovely ~ 50 m waterline we rigged next to the hot springs 

So, for the next few days I focused on highlining, but again, no pressure, usually just one or two sessions per day, and in the afternoon, once I’d chilled enough in the morning. Because, as I’ve discovered already a few months ago, the point is not to have a lot of sessions – the point is to have good sessions. And good sessions I had, oh yes! On lines of 80-90 meter length I bounced and surfed stronger than ever before. I had some long exposure stands admiring the view on the valley, and for the first time I landed a realy cool trick where from exposure you move one leg so as to stand with legs crossed, and then make a step sideways with the other one to come back to normal exposure. On a 90 m of Sonic I nailed a DOUBLE FULL MAN ON SIGHT: continuous walking for about 350 m (4 lengths of the line, endings substracted), with some tricks on the third and fourth length, totally dwarfing all my previous achievements in the category of crushing lines first try. It’s quite hilarious that despite trying three times I was totally unable to send the other 90 m highline. Oh well, every line behaves differently.

Finishing the fourth length on the 90 m highline with a few blind (face covered with hands) steps

But the icing on the cake was the 180 m long highline “Fisherman and friends”, which we rigged for the last four days of the festival. The line was given an extra spirit by the fact that we spent almost a whole day rigging the line, which included a lot of playing (but with astonishing efficiency) to make a connection by hand, because although there was theoretically a drone available, the guy who owned it was never there when the drone was needed. I sessioned this line three times. The first time it was totally new school tension (the line seemed tight enough, but it was on Red Tube (super stretchy nylon), and together with the stretch it proved super saggy). The second time the tension was perfect, but the wind was going crazy. Just imagine that you walk on a line above the abyss, and suddenly wind pushes you a few meters to the left. And a moment later a few meters to the right, and then left again. Or even better, up. Seriously, once I walked on the line and suddenly I was thrown about 3 meters higher, as the gust of the wind blew into the line directly from below me. Maintaining balance when the wind did such things was possible (and a fascinating experience, I have to admit), but it was super exhausting, I crossed the line in bits of about 20-30 meters, and each one felt more tiring than walking a 100 m highline in normal conditions.

Epic 180 m highline "Fisherman and friends", on it Nir from Israel who sent it FM thus also setting his new personal best

 

 And here I'm just about to go on the 180 for the third time, for the session I describe in the next paragraph

My last session went out kinda funny, that day I woke up with a nasty headache (presumably dehydration), and at first I thought I’m just gonna chill for the whole day: I worked on my laptop a bit, then just lied on the spacenet Solvenian guys rigged in a longline bowl next to the campsite. But then a few friends who were on the spacenet also started practicing on the longlines, and as my headache started to pass I began warming up, first juggling, then also walking on the lines. I felt the slacklining flow again, so I thought maybe I will go on the highline that day after all. But still no hurry, some more chilling, having a dinner, going to the spot with 180 m highline late afternoon actually hoping that there would be one or two people queued before me. There were three of them, and by the time I got on the line the Sun was already setting. Also I was wearing a warm sweater, and I knew that I will get warmed up on the line very quickly, but I decided to ignore it and didn’t take the sweater off. So, soon after I started walking I was sweating, and I was thinking like: no, these are not the conditions for sending the line, I can barely see the line as it’s slowly getting dark, I’m wearing too warm clothes, I will not even try to send, I will just see how far I can walk. Maybe this tape will be the perfect goal. But my gaze shifted from one tape to another and still I walked on, super steady, my body showing no inclination to fall off the line. Finally I ended up facing the rock and walking the very last super steep meters, until it was too steep and shaky to walk on, where I caught already in the no falling zone, less than 5 meters from the anchor: TOTALLY SENT IT!!! Upping my personal best to 150% of it’s previous value, and landing just 10 m shorter than the Polish highline record! 
 
 

Mostar

After the festival I decided to join Martyna, the Polish girl who was at Drill & Chill for the second time already, in her plan to take a bus to the famous town of Mostar and stay there for one night (she had to kill the time before her flight back, and it fit my plans to go more south as well). Some people discouraged us by saying that besides seeing the iconic bridge there is not much to do in town, but we quickly discovered this was far from true. Although the main feature of the town was the touristy center, for us an equally prominent sight were some abandoned buildings found even close to the center, which really pertained that urbexy charm.

We were particularly attracted by a building with some antic – like reliefs on the walls, and we explored it at night, we didn’t find too many interesting items (but somebody’s math notebook with a love letter stuck between the pages was pretty cute), but we explored a lot of interesting rooms, riddled by the mystery of what was the building’s actual use: the outside would suggest a library, the layout suggested a shopping mall, and the nature of findings in the basement mixed with numerous bathrooms would suggest a normal living place. Although there’s probably the most argument for the shopping mall, we really don’t know, I tried googling “Urbex in Mostar”, but I only found information about the “Snipers Den”, another abandoned building we didn’t find the time to explore. 

Math notebook with a love letter inside - exactly the kind of stuff I'm most excited about finding in abandoned buildings.

Well, why not :P 

The next day we split because I wanted to climb up the hill above Mostar and Martyna did not: my hike was rainy, but really interesting, and the view fairly rewarding 

Hitchhike #2

My initial plan after Drill & Chill was to go for more highlining in Bulgaria with one guy who planned to come to the festival as well, but since his plans changed, and I didn’t want to head back home immediately, I decided to visit my friends at Kobraland on the south of Serbia. But for sure I didn’t expect it would take so long to get there, even from Mostar it was three days of hitchhiking, and I ended up on a roundabout route all the way through Podgorica and Pristina. But we’ll get to that.

The beginning of my hitchhike went pretty bad (again, except worse). I set off from Mostar pretty late and I had to walk out of town a long way, in two rides I reached Nevesinje (not a very big step ahead) where it was raining cats and dogs and getting dark. I ended up rigging my hammock I a pretty bad spot right next to the road, blessing again the fact that before the trip I decided to buy a makeshift tarp last minute. But something went awry and water started leaking inside my hammock, waking me up in the middle of the night. I moved to the other side of the hammock which was still dry, hoping I can survive this, and just when I lied down comfortably something proved to be wrong with the rig and the whole construction just fell down. Picking stuff up and helplessly trying to figure out a better rig, while it was freezing cold and raining all the time… At this point I was really close to giving up, just trying to find the fastest way back home, no matter the cost. But I googled my options and realized that I had almost none, every return route would be long, complicated, and expensive. So, with no other choice left, I hid under the roof of a bus station, hang my hammock on a wall to dry, and slept there until I was woken up by morning buses at 6 a.m. And then I resumed hitchhiking to Serbia. 

This is how my feet looked like after all my stuff got soggy in the nasty adventure with rain at night in Nevesinje

 

My route went fairly roundabout, I drifted down south as far as Podgorica, and it was mostly short rides and once I was picked up by a bus where I had to pay. Add to this the pain of carrying a heavy backpack all around, wet socks after the adventure from previous night, and the threat of not reaching another town before I run out of my water and food resources, and you might think it was a nightmare. But it was not! All the time I was passing through most stunning mountain valleys, facing huge rock formations with potential for amazing highline spots, the views were so gorgeous that the toil of travel didn’t feel discouraging at all! And the kindness of some people I met, take for example the guy on Montenegro border who let me stay there and asked for the ride on my behalf, getting it for me in no time <3 

On the road, surrounded by gorgeous mountains all the time. These two behind lie right at the border between Bosnia and Montenegro, and they would make for a perfect spot for ~ 1 km highline. What a line would that be, starting from one country and ending in another! 

 

In Montenegro I got some bigger rides, near a monastery in Morača I was picked up by the guys who were going to Kosovo, and all the way to Pristina. I didn’t plan on going through Kosovo, but from Pristina I would have a direct road to Niš, so it was perfect. But here’s a funny story: they were a Danish – Palestinian couple who flew to Montenegro and rent a car at the airport - on the border it turned out that the car contract has a big stamp “Forbidden border crossing”. The guard was meticulous enough that they were forced to retreat and leave me on the border. Anyways, I reached Pristina in the evening and slept in a kind of park with a national monument, where at dawn I encountered a guard, who not only allowed me to sleep on until morning, but also advised a nearby park which is not guarded and where I can sleep legally next time <3 Just another example of how extremely nice people you can meet in the Balkans, and even in Kosovo, which is stereotypically only associated with war.

I reached Donja Toponica next evening, where I spent an awesome weekend with my Serbian friends at Kobraland. How I met those people is a story for another time, for now I’ll just link a video from the trip during which it happened:

The last part of the hitchhike went very smooth: in two days I got back home, where the last ride I got from a gas station south from Budapest all the way to Poland! I came back exhausted, but also fascinated, and after one day of rest I was already missing the adventure and went out to rig a midline in my hometown. I’m looking forward to more travels like this in the future :-)

Back home thrilled to finally rig a midline in my hometown that I didn't manage to do a year ago