We arrived in Mostar after a week camping in the open air in Bosnia-Herzegovina, between minefields and wild nature.
We needed to stop, rest, have a shower and do some laundry — but we hadn't found anyone on Couchsurfing in Mostar, and we had no intention of paying for accommodation for the first time in our trip.
Sleeping in the tent next to a petrol station
The night before we'd been in our tent as usual — pitched on the grass at a petrol station, after the final climb towards Mostar.
From there we watched the sunset painting the clouds, made use of the petrol station's free WiFi and the sockets on the ice machine, and wished the toilets had hot water…
And we went back and forth on our plan for the next day: we wanted to stay in Mostar for at least a couple of days, and we needed to find somewhere to leave our gear and sleep each night.
Getting free accommodation in Mostar
We descended into the heart of Mostar and cycled through the streets towards the old Ottoman quarter, which looked like a good bet for hostels, and started asking around.
Hello! My name's Pablo. My girlfriend and I are cycling round the world without money — I'm a photographer and web designer, and if you're interested in those services in exchange for a few nights' accommodation…
Ishbel, the girl who answered the door, called the owner — but he already had a website and photos of the hostel. She invited us to breakfast anyway. It turned out that Ishbel was also travelling by bicycle, that she'd been in Mostar for three weeks at that hostel, and that she needed a website.
All right! You can stay here and help me with my website and some photos.
First attempt: success.
Part of the family
At Hostel David we felt like one of the family. They looked after us brilliantly, feeding us traditional dishes like goulash, liver stew, soups and fried aubergine.
Our stay kept extending, through barbecues, beers and rakia. We shared smiles and experienced the day-to-day of Bosnia up close.
The lasting wounds of the war in Mostar
Bosnia is a poor country that has suffered enormously — there's no money to clear the forests of mines, or to demolish the buildings that were bombed during the war. This creates a peculiar situation: the towns are a patchwork of damaged, abandoned buildings sitting next to brand-new blocks.
One afternoon we explored one of those half-destroyed buildings — climbed over the fence and snuck into an old bank that has become a canvas for graffiti artists. A huge six-storey building right in the heart of Mostar, abandoned for lack of funds to tear it down.
Now there were three of us
It was time to keep moving, and having become firm friends with Ishbel, we invited her to continue with us towards Croatia. She didn't think twice — she was in, and joined us for a few days.
The first night, already tucked inside our tent, I heard a shout from Ishbel's tent.
Aaargh! There's something hitting my tent! It's enormous!
I had to climb out of my sleeping bag and do a full circuit of her tent with a torch.
There's nothing there, Ishbel — it was probably one of those kittens playing with the tent cords…
Cycling through a minefield
Our route towards Dubrovnik took us along quiet back roads and some tracks, and it was one of those tracks that put us in the middle of a minefield.
It became a half-metre-wide trial course with mine warning signs on either side, and rocks and craters in the middle of the path. For several kilometres we pedalled and pushed our bikes, terrified that a slip could send us off the edge and onto the mines. The sight of blast craters from detonated mines on either side of the path wasn't exactly reassuring.
Fortunately nothing exploded, and we made it through without incident — leaving Bosnia-Herzegovina in one piece.
