Day 21 - Zagreb to Prijedor

I woke early on Monday with my guts tied up from the weekend's festivities. It seems that, at a Croat wedding, the celebration of eternal love between a man and a woman is of secondary importance to the celebration of meat. Every half hour new piles of meat on broad platters would appear before my nose and I would consume through hunger, politeness, necessity and bloody-mindedness progessively as the feast wore on. This left me less than comfortable even after two nights' sleep.

Nevertheless I left at around nine with the Probsts as they made their way for five weeks in Bali. Ignoring their patent envy at the fact that I was on my way to exotic Prijedor, I vectored my way out of the sparse city and onto the road which would take me to the border. The metropolis quickly gave way to familiar countryside and soon shiny German SUVs were replaced by tractors. The rural people were very friendly and I enjoyed their smiles and waves as I passed through villages of varying size. In the morning the route threw up a couple of substantial climbs that I did not expect but did enjoy, feeling physically fresh after the weekend's rest.

Lunch fell just before the border and with no town nearby I sat on my gloves between the road and a ploughed field for fruit and water. An old woman with the face of a hard life passed by with a barrow full of tools and firewood and laughed and kissed my hand in humble disbelief when I suggested a photograph. Some children on their way home from school waved excitedly from behind the dusty glass of their bus.

A short time after lunch I arrived in the border town of Kostajnica and saw the first of many reminders of the 1990s conflict. Several of the houses remained in ruins and those that were standing were pocked with bullet holes. I didn't know how to react. I knew I would see this sort of thing but couldn't hold back an inner, quiet disbelief. Crossing the river and the border into Republika Srpska I turned south toward Novi Grad. The south wind was as strong as any I had fought into and for an hour my frustrations grew and grew. I was relieved to turn east towards Prijedor.

After rounding a huge arc of a meander I could see the town a few miles off and gladly rolled out the straight road along the railway line. My host, a second Igor, came to meet me and we walked through the centre to his well sized suburban home. We enjoyed the last of the light outside as his father, a third Igor, served good coffee in ornate china. I was eager to hear about the conflict from a Serbian perspective and I was surprised by how easily the younger Igor was able to recall his everyday experiences of rifles in the street and trucks passing with canvas covers contoured by human hands. Obviously, this was well beyond the bounds of my experience so I struggled to keep my jaw from the floor as he quietly recalled his youth.

We met some of Igor's friends for supper in a nearby bar. I heard several wordperfect renditions of Whitesnake before retiring back to Igor's for a good night's sleep.

Distance covered 95 miles