We learn that last night's high jinks was just an exuberant wedding party. If that was a wedding, what happens in an argument, we wonder.
British Summer Time ended last night, so the clocks at home have been put back an hour. Same here. We decide not to alter the tacho clocks, but do change our watches, at least, some of us do. Result - confusion over times for the rest of the trip.
After Stuart had spoken with Oliver, the Children's Aid project director, and discussed matters with us it has been decided that we will undertake a drop at just one camp, or refugee collecting centre as they are known. There are three that need help, but they are scattered around southern Bosnia and we really don't have the time to try getting to all of them. We decide on the one near Visegrad as it is the best organised and disciplined so there is less chance of things ending up on the black market. We fully expect that something like this will happen wherever we deliver. One thing does concern us: the medical equipment. Stuart can't take it into his warehouse and but he will try to arrange for it to be delivered direct to a hospital.
0815 On the road, with Stuart leading the convoy to Sarajevo where we will meet Oliver, the project director. We had not noticed last night just how badly Vitez is damaged. Things really are appalling. Sarajevo, too, is very bad. Traffic lights don't work and people are living in blocks of flats that really are uninhabitable. Whole office blocks have no glass. Wooden shacks have been erected on the streets to serve as shops. The trams are running and are more crowded than the London underground in the rush hour.
Sarajevo street scene0955 Sarajevo. Meet Oliver and Angelica, a local girl who has learnt English working with the aid organisations. Repair to a cafe for coffee, but it's shut. Stuart returns to Vitez, and Oliver leads us on to Visegrad which is at least another two hours away. What about breakfast, we ask, so he gives meat pies and baklava baked by his mother-in-law.
This had been the library in Sarajevo1030 Press on. Scenery much as before - magnificent if you can ignore the signs of war, but that is almost impossible. Here and there along the road are more wooden-shack shops standing in front of houses. We have over 40 tunnels to pass through, the first of them in Sarajevo itself. This has one half shut off and we wonder if it is about to fall down. We learn later that the city's water purification plant has been installed there as the safest place in the city. No lighting in the tunnels, so as it is a bright sunny day diving into them is a bit like diving into the black hole of Calcutta. No hope of seeing anything until eyes adjust - headlights seem like candles - so just drive and hope! Roy hit a massive pothole at least a foot deep as he left the Sarajevo tunnel. Everything in the cab fell to the floor. Was it this that shifted the load on the trailer?
Typical countryside1215 Ustipraca. Stop here for coffee where the Gorazde convoys used to collect to be escorted into the town. This village has been completely destroyed and the road junction is now guarded by a whole battalion of Portuguese troops. Tented cafes have been opened to serve them and we stop at one for coffee. Oliver explained that the road we had just travelled had been one of the most dangerous in the country. Leaving the cafe, two young men in a VW van approach us, seemingly to sell us beer. We refused to buy any, whereupon they gave us a bottle each. How weird. On through alternate sun and dark tunnels (Manda was great!), through Visegrad with its beautiful 10-arched bridge, and on still further eastwards towards the Serbian border, which is now very close.
The cafe at Ustipraca and, below, the village
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