Get off the beaten path - roadtripping through Serbia and Bosnia

As a reward for passing our physiology colloquium, a Serb, a Bosnian, an Italian, a Canadian, a Slovenian and a German (me) gathered in the middle of a friday night on Slavija to saddle the golf and motorbike to go on a day trip to Višegrad in Bosnia.
Even though most of the passengers in the car were really tired and some intoxicated and there was barely any space in the car, the time passed somehow and we saw amazing landscapes while the sun was rising above the mountains that we were crawling up and down on scary roads.

Our first destination was Mitrovac, in Tara national park. It was a small village full of school kids who, like us, had come here from Belgrade to breathe some fresh mountain air. We had breakfast and suddenly realized how horribly we had planned this trip, because everyone was really tired and we had a whole day of walking around and then the ride back to Belgrade in front of us. I can't really say that this lifted the spirits, but our next stop was a lookout point on a mountain top close to Mitrovac, and just the view we had from there was worth all the trouble. We were all a bit sceptical while we were rambling through the forest, following a sign to that lookout point.

 

After a certain amount of time spent marvelling at the view and taking pictures, due to reasons that I do not care to elaborate on any further here, I got bitten by a horned viper, the most venomous snake in Europe. At first I shook it off as unimportant and suggested to continue with our normal program. By the time we got back to Mitrovac though my arm and swollen to the size of my leg and the pain was unbearable. We managed to google the consequences of this certain bite (including necrosis and neurological damage), so I was really relieved to hear that they had the antivenom in stock in the small ambulance in Mitrovac. A nice doctor couple, the woman of which had just come out of the shower and still had her towel wrapped around her hair, greeted me with the words that this has only happened 2 times in 30 years and that they only have 2 doses of antivenom (which would be the appropriate amount for a child). They were frantically reading the instructions of the antivenom, discussing hectically which way is best to administer it. They finally injected it intramuscularly and put me on a glucose infusion. While I was watching the swelling spread up my arm into my axilla and chest, worrying about my organs, my friends were sitting outside in the car because just as I had entered the ambulance a thunderstorm with heavy rain and lightning started.
I felt guilty because the roadtrip had come to a sudden end because of me, but there was nothing I could do at that point except lieing there quietly waiting for the ambulance to come and take me to a real hospital.
It was the first time in my life to ride on an ambulance. My friend from Canada came with me as moral and interpretative support. As a result of the curvy mountain roads and the breakneck pace the driver was going in, Mirjana almost got sick just at the same moment that the driver took a hard break and the nurse flew through the ambulance hitting or head on the wall! Well, that's what happens if there are no seatbelts in an ambulance. But everyone was fine at the end of the ride and in the hospital they gave me some antibiotic, something to cool the arm and told me to go to the hospital in Belgrade as soon as we're back.
My EKG was normal, I didn't feel nauseous and was in a clear state of mind, so they concluded only my arm was affected by the bite and told me I could go.


The others were waiting for me outside and I was surprised to see that it was only 2 o'clock, so we continued with our program and drove to Drvengrad/Küstendorf ("timber town"). It's an ethno village founded by the movie producer Emir Kusturica:
"I lost my city [Sarajevo] during the war. That is why I wished to build my own village. It bears a German name : Küstendorf. I will organize seminars there, for people who want to learn how to make cinema, concerts, ceramics, painting. It is the place where I will live and where some people will be able to come from time to time. There will be of course some other inhabitants who will work. I dream of an open place with cultural diversity which sets up against globalization"

According to wikipedia it was visited by Johnny Depp in 2010, and there's supposedly a statue for him, which we didn't see. We took a ride on a historic train, which was fun because it didn't require any of us to pay attention on any road and we could just relax for some time.
When we were done with the train there was only about one hour of sunlight left, so we decided to hurry towards the Bosnian border to make it to Višegrad before sunset. Traditionally on a spontaneous roadtrip, someone always has problems with their papers, in our case the Italian girl didn't have a passport and the Canadian on the motorbike didn't have a green insurance card.
On the Serbian side the border patrol took one look at my distorted arm and immediately waved us through without even taking a look at our passports. On the Bosnian side they weren't impressed by my arm at all and checked our papers, and didn't let those two enter. They wanted to return to Drvengrad to sleep in a hotel, where we would meet them the next morning after spending the night in Višegrad. Unfortunately for them, the guard back at the Serbian border hadn't seen the Italian girl in the car, because she was sitting in the back and we drove through so fast, that they didn't believe her that she had just come out of Serbia! They probably thought she was a prostitute, because the Canadian had passed the border 10 minutes earlier on his bike alone and then returned with a girl without passport.....eventually they let them back in luckily.
We had finally made it into Bosnia, and like when I drove to Sarajevo last year via a completely different route I was shocked at how apparent the war remnants are here. In the first village after the border there were bullet wholes in the majority of houses on the main street as well as countless ruins. It didn't take long to get to Višegrad, where we were immediately stopped by the police and asked for our papers again. Unlike any policemen in Belgrade they even spoke English and agreed to assist us with finding accomodation for the night. We ended up in an appartment that had seen its best days a long time ago, with bed sheets that had been changed last in pre-war times judging by their smell. The bathtub was rusty (I hope it was rust, my first guess was blood) and the whole condition of the appartment was the first thing I had seen in Europe that could live up to (or down to) Indian hostel standards.

Višegrad is mainly famous for two things: its ottoman bridge over the Drina and the nobel-prize winning novel "Bridge over the Drina" by Ivo Andrić. Of course it was already dark when we finally started walking to the bridge, and it was obvisouly also starting to rain when we got there. So we just took a short look at that and then asked our old friends, the policemen who had found us the appartment - they were still patrolling around the small city center - where we could eat something. Eventually we ended up in an italian restaurant right next to our appartment, eating the first proper meal of the day and trying to get drunk enough in order to fall asleep in the disgusting appartment.
I guess Višegrad doesn't sound too nice in this account, but I still thought it was an interesting place because of its mixed population, the "exotic" appearance due to its mosques, and generally it seems very picturesque, at least as far as I could tell from the car when we were crossing the hill. 
We left at about 4:30 the next morning and met with the other two in Drvengrad. It was cold and foggy, so the drive was kind of dangerous. We stopped one time for breakfast and another time because we got caught speeding by the police. 

When we arrived in Belgrade, I was so happy about the weather and in my mind already started planning the next few days in the sun while I was walking to the Emergency Room, where I thought I would be given some medication before I can go home again. Instead I got admitted to the Intensive Care Unit where I had to stay for 5 days! Now, exactly 2 weeks later, my arm looks completely normal from the outside, but my hand and elbow still hurt. 

I learned a lesson about wild reptiles, but most of all again I realised how beautiful this region of Europe is. The people are so warm and friendly in all balkan countries (if you ask me) and the landscapes are spectacular anyway. I can't wait for the summer, when my final exams are over and I will have more time to travel around!