From the European luxuries to the Balkan fields

Wednesday August 21, Tarantino’s touch (384 kms)
Our departure is early in the morning, passing once again outside the national park, towards the borders with Bosnia. Just before the borders we make a detour, trying to find Zeljava airbase.

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I had once read it at advrider.com and I had added it to my long “I want to go” list. In addition to this info, all the other information gathered from the internet was disheartening. Still mined area, in which a visit is prohibited and with a wrong move you could easily be arrested for illegal entry into Bosnia. But I had to see it…

The base has a great history, but first let me tell you our adventure that really reminds a scene from Tarantino’s movies. We leave the main road to find ourselves in an area with obvious remnants of war. Typical for areas close to the borders. I have seen pictures like this before, in my previous visits to ex Yugoslav countries. Pictures of bombed uninhabited buildings and walls with signs of bullets, multiply as we move deeper.

The first signs alerting for mines make me hit the brakes for a while. Two parallel roads lead to the same destination. I follow the most used -in my opinion- and we find ourselves in front of some abandoned war planes.

We approach slowly, until we see that on the planes there are engraved various crap. So probably there are no mines here and if they are, someone else has stepped on them first 😉

Stratos and Pelopidas are racing their motorcycles in the airway…

But this is not what we are looking for… We are looking for an underground air base. There are some roads around but the scenery is scary and we are afraid of mines. We are searching carefully but we cannot find anything and we are a bit disappointed. Thankfully, an old lady, dressed in black, appears far away at the road. She approaches slowly supported by her stick.

We don’t have a photo of her, but you can see her in this accidental photo, hanging on her balcony, inspecting the foreign intruders.

Natasa, who speaks some Czech -closely relative to the Yugoslavian- is trying to get information. She is asking about the airport and the old lady starts telling a story about her childhood. We start the pantomime and at some point, all of us, are with open arms simulating airplanes with the old lady laughing out loud…

The old lady leaves slowly towards the airway… butttt what is that… a police car! We wave our hands… they see us and it’s coming closer… We are not sure if we are legal here, so there is an option that they will bust us… or they will give us the info we need.

The crew of the police car are two young Croatian girls, which of course do not speak English. With a mix of Czech English-Greek and a little pantomime (safe solution) they understand what we’re looking for and show us the right direction. They also warn us, however, not to go after the gate because the entrance to the abandoned base is prohibited. We agree (lie) and they say goodbye to us heading back to the airway.

We start following the path that they had shown to us. The road is getting too narrow. A dog hunts us and a free horse is bothered by our presence and kicks his legs in the air. We continue in dense vegetation until suddenly we find in front of us an open field. But we are not alone…

A police car, a shiny Skoda Octavia and also an Audi A6 are parked on the runway, right in front of the entrance of the airbase. Two policemen, 5-6 men in suits and a well-dressed woman are standing beside the vehicles. What’s going on here guys?
We come closer and park our motorcycles around the cars. I noticed the signs on the police uniforms and see that they are Bosnian! But this territory belongs to Croatia! First they smile and starting to take pictures of us with their mobile phones (we didn’t have the guts to do so).
Things, however, got serious and the police officer, with the help of the well-dressed woman (which was the only one speaking English), informed us that the entrance to the base is not permitted and asked us to depart immediately. As we know that we are in Croatian territory, we mention that we just met the Croatian authorities and that they allowed us to visit the base (lie again).
They looked embarrassed, and they admitted that it is not their jurisdiction and if the Croatian authorities allowed us, we can remain. Within a few seconds, they got in their cars and disappeared on the airway towards Bosnian. Which confirms what I had read, that you can enter illegally in Bosnia, and vice versa if you follow the airway.

Unfortunately, we do not have any photo… but then again, we have the following video:

Everyone had a different opinion for what happened there. Some of us believed that we had witnessed some illegal transaction… but I have a different view. If it was an illegal transaction we wouldn’t be alive to tell the story. Most likely the well dressed men were Bosnian diplomats who accompanied by police, entered illegally to Croatia to visit the airbase. And stumbled upon some visitors from far away… A scenario only shown in Tarantino film…

Historically now, the airbase Zeljava was the largest underground base of the former Yugoslavia during the civil war and one of the largest in Europe. The construction started in 1948 and was completed 20 years later. During those two decades, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia spent approximately $6 billion on its construction, three times the combined current annual military budgets of Serbia and Croatia.

The underground tunnels run a total length of 3.5 kilometers, and the bunker had four entrances protected by 100-ton pressurized doors, three of which were customized for use by fixed-wing aircrafts. Eventually, it was hoped that the base would be re-equipped with the indigenously developed Yu Supersonik aircraft.
The underground facility was lined with semicircular concrete shields, arranged every ten meters, to cushion the impact of incoming munitions. The complex included an underground water source, power generators, crew quarters, and other strategic military facilities. It also housed a mess hall that could feed 1,000 people simultaneously, along with enough food, fuel, and arms to last 30 days without resupply. Fuel was supplied by a 20-kilometer underground pipe network that ran from a military warehouse on Pokoj Hill near Bihać.

The airbase was used intensively in 1991, during the Yugoslav Wars. During its withdrawal, the Yugoslav People’s Army destroyed the runway by filling pre-built spaces (explicitly designed for the purpose) with explosives and detonating them. To prevent any possible further use of the complex by opposing forces, the Military of Serbian Krajina completed the destruction in 1992 by setting off an additional 56 tons of explosives there. The ensuing explosion was so powerful that it shook the nearby city of Bihac. Villagers claimed that smoke continued to rise from the tunnels for six months after the explosion.

End of the film and we move on to the Croatian – Bosnian borders. There is no traffic and the check is typical, so in a short time we are driving through the “lonely” Bosnian countryside. It’s cloudy and quite cold, as our route crosses the Dinaric Alps and we are mostly moving at an altitude of ~1000 meters.

Our route is enjoyable, with long open bends without traps and traffic-free. But the endless cemeteries and the dozens of disabled people that we meet in the villages catch our eye as we pass by. War signs that hardly fade…

On the road we met also stores like the above, selling CDs…

We arrive at Jajce and make a stop to admire the impressive waterfalls with the city on top of them. However, within minutes, several beggars, kids and adults approached us asking for money or a little snack…

I tried to visit a place in the base of the waterfall (for better photos) but it was impossible because of the power of the falls, it was like continuously raining.

Back on the road through a beautiful canyon before we arrive at Mostar.

Papari in Greek means dick… so this is dicks end 😉

At Mostar we check in at the Villa Monera and head out to explore the city. The signs of the civil war are still fresh on the streets. Wherever you look you can see that most of the buildings have signs from shots and also there are several buildings with their roofs bombed. Unavoidable, this creates a feeling of melancholy.

We move towards to the photographed bridge “Stari Most”, which is responsible for the city’s name. Stari Most means old bridge. Mostar is also known as the “pearl” of Bosnia.

The impressive bridge was built under the Ottoman sovereignty based on designs by Turkish architect Mimar Chairountin. Destroyed, however, during the civil war by Croats and rebuilt based on the original plans in 2004, presumably using pieces from the original bridge that had fallen into the river. Since 2005, the bridge is a World Heritage Site of Unesco.

The one tower hosts a museum of the history of the bridge (closed during our visit because it was late in the afternoon) and at the other side there is an old piece of the bridge that survived, on which it is written: “Do not forget ’93” as a reminder of all those terrible events that happened in the early 90s.

Some crazy folks (worse than us) dare for a fee from the tourists, to dive from the bridge which has a height of 20 meters. Although we have our video, we chose to show you one from the youtube which is much better:

The old town is a pedestrian zone, with dozens of quaint shops and lots-lots of tourists.

One particular element -generally in Bosnia- is the harmonious coexistence of Muslims and Christians, giving visitors amazing photographic frames.

Time passes and finding something for lunch in a touristic town is kind of difficult. All the restaurants proposed by the trip advisor were full. We manage to squeeze ourselves around a table at the Sadrvan. The food was great but kind of expensive for the country standards.

As usual, we make our last night walk for some photos and then return to the hotel to get a rest.