Between our hotel at the Bosnian coast and our next destination, we had to cover about 350 kilometers. Lars and I calculated that the drive would take us about 3 – 4 hours. However, we were faced with a couple of problems:
- For some bizarre reason, our GPS device guided us back to Croatia and then again to Bosnia. At the border, we lost about an hour.
- Not all roads towards our destination were motorways, so driving 100 – 120 kilometers an hour all the time was impossible.
- Our GPS only works in the west of Bosnia, but not in the east (which was our destination).
- We got lost in Sarajevo.
- And 50 kilometers before we reached our destination there were no more road signs.
We had chosen a place that is not touristic at all. It is really off the beaten track. And it is a place, I think, that people would like to forget. It is Srebrenica.
But it is hard to forget what happened here. During the Bosnian War (1992 – 1995), it first became a place of refuge. And then a place of death. One of the worst massacres since World War II took place here.
Lars had been here in 2007. He had come from Serbia – Srebrenica is close to the Serbian border and although it was only a short distance, he had difficulties finding it. When he finally did, he saw a place mostly in ruins, but in the middle of town there was a nightclub. He even had a drink there. How surreal…
And now it’s 6 years later, we are in the middle of nowhere, driving on dirt roads and looking for this town. At 7 pm we reached our goal.
The nightclub is still there. A couple of motels and restaurants have been built as well. But the scars of the war are still there.
