There is an older gentleman who lives in an apartment behind
Hotel Kovaci. Every morning when we are sitting outside having our coffee he
comes down in the same clothes he wore the day before and says ‘good morning’.
Every evening when we are sitting outside drinking our wine he says ‘good
night’. He has become a fixture in the beginning of our day and the end of it.
This morning Heidi and Michelle joined him for coffee at his apartment and saw
his view, which they said is amazing. He invited to show them Ilidža, which are
a series of natural springs that come from the Bosna River. It is said to be
one of the favorite places to get out of the city. Michelle couldn’t make it
and Heidi has become a great exploration companion so I jumped at the
opportunity.
Bessim is a 57-year old retired ‘telecommunications’ man who
looks more like 85 years old. He is difficult to understand and this is not
only due to his broken (but impressive English) but also due to maybe more than
one stroke. He has lived in the same home his entire life. The house itself is
200 years old. During the war he lived in the house with his mother and they
slept in the kitchen, which was the furthest away from weapon-fire.
Bessim clearly had a crush on Heidi, albeit innocent, she was
grateful that I was there with her. Bessim contacted his good friend Mustafah,
who is a cab driver and gave us a deal on the drive to Ilidža. On the outskirts
of town we showed up in a much cooler climate surrounding by tall green trees.
You’d never guess that we were 20 minutes away from the center of Sarajevo. We
could have walked to the springs but who could pass up a carriage ride? For
about 7 minutes we were covered by an arbor of trees and the comforting
clip-clop sounds of the horses hooves. As we came closer, the sounds of the
water in the springs became clearer.
Bessim let me and Heidi do our touristy/ lots of photographs
thing and then we all sat together at a fantastic restaurant overlooking one of
the islets. The turquoise water that we saw in Mostar is incomparable to the
water here. It’s turquoise and neon green and crystal clear. It’s absolutely
amazing and you can drink straight from the springs! You cannot swim or dip
your feet, which makes it even more enticing.
After a lunch of fresh trout and cavapci (which somehow
translates to sound like cha-vap-chi-chi) we headed back, by carriage ride of
course! Bessim had told us about his brother, Jizo (Yee-zo) who owned an art
gallery in town and I was chomping at the bit to go see it. Although he couldn’t
join us, Mustafah dropped us off and we explored the small gallery, which had a
great collection of local artists. I had to buy one but I didn’t want to spend
too much or buy something that I couldn’t fit into my suitcase. After about an
hour I picked a small and colorful painting of the Goat Bridge. The Goat Bridge
in Sarajevo, built during the Ottoman Empire, has a great tale. According to
local legend the bridge was built by a shepherd boy. As the story goes, the
shepherd boy and his brother found gold treasures in a cave. They split the
treasure and the shepherd boy build the bridge and his brother built a mosque
whose name translates to goat. I think there are a number of renditions of this
story but I heard from one of our guides that a shepherd had lost one of his
goats and upon finding him on the other side of the bridge, the goat was
digging at the ground, revealing gold.
The man who framed my painting , whose name I completely
forgot (which pisses me off), told me about how he was 7 years old when the war
began. He said that it was a good thing he was so young during the war because
he was naïve to what was going on. He told me a story of one day when he was
playing in his room and a sniper shot into his window. He didn’t even know what
had happened until his family had come in after they heard the shots and they
were surrounding him and hugging him.
Heidi and I walked back to the hotel and cleaned up a bit. After ranting and raving about the klepe, Davis was anxious to try it out. Kristy came along for the walk and had herself some yummy spinach burek. Interestingly enough, Besim was having his own dinner at the same restaurant and joined us for a little while. He invited us all to come to his cousin’s teashop. Apparently it’s the only teashop ever opened in Bosnia (because they’re a kaffa country). We finished our awesome dinner and headed back towards the hotel. Kristy and I went to the teahouse and had some of the greatest tea that I’ve ever had and sat and spoke with Bessim for a bit and then hung out at the hotel for a while, had some laughs and passed out. What a fantastic day!
Graffiti depicting the memory of two boys who died during the war.
