It turned out to be a good job that we'd made the effort to see the waterfall at Štrbački buk on Wednesday afternoon. Something must have been wrong with the pork and chips we'd had for lunch in Martin Brod, because we were both quite ill in the night. It was somewhat of a surprise to have spent two weeks in Africa without the slightest problem and then get struck by food poisoning in Bosnia!
We both spent Thursday feeling rather delicate, but we weren't missing much by staying inside. The weather looked just as wet as I'd been expecting!
We felt quite a bit better by Friday morning, which was good because today was the longest day of driving on our Bosnian road trip; we had at least five hours of driving ahead of us as we made our way south towards Mostar. It had stopped raining by this point but it still looked pretty miserable in Kulen Vakuf. As a reminder, this is what the river Una looked like when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon...
Note the beautiful shade of blue of the water. This is what the same river looked like today after all the rain.
As we looked out from the kitchen window we could see what looked like whole logs being carried down the river.
We packed up our things and drove out of Kulen Vakuf, crossing a bridge over the Una. We could see from here that the water level was a lot higher than it ought to be.
Our route was scenic, taking us through hours of mountainous countryside.
The further south we travelled the more the weather improved and soon it was looking positively sunny.
Rather than go directly to Mostar, I'd plotted a route with a slight diversion towards a town called Jablanica. It was supposed to be a really beautiful drive and it did appear to be, taking us past numerous mountain villages.
After a while the landscape became a bit rocky and Tim had to keep looking out for rocks, which appeared to have washed down onto the road.
We were within a few kilometres of Jablanica when we came to what appeared to be a traffic jam: several vehicles were parked in a line by the side of the road and no one seemed to be progressing further. Tim got out of the car to have a look. At first it looked like the road had been blocked by a landslide...
...but as he got closer he could see that the rubble had deliberately been put there to block off the road...
...because after this point the road no longer seemed to exist
Wow! Having had really poor internet in Kulen Vakuf meant that we hadn't realised that the Jablanica area had undergone some serious flooding and roads had been destroyed in all directions. There was nothing for it but to turn around and drive back the way we'd come. After a significant diversion which added a couple of hours onto our journey, we finally made it to Mostar around 5pm.
At least we made it all in one piece and the apartment we've got here is lovely. We've got a comfy bedroom...
...quite a posh bathroom...
...and a big living room...
...with a kitchen area too.
And the view out of the living room window isn't bad
The apartment cost EUR 52/night, so a bit more expensive than where we've been, but definitely really good value. We're looking forward to exploring Mostar properly tomorrow!
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