The only bus out of Sarajevo to the Croatian coastal city of Split left at 9pm and took seven hours. I figured I could sleep on the bus (I was really tired) long enough to hold me through the next day. That way I could save a little money by not needing a room for the night. The theory was good anyway.
The tram from the hostel to the bus station was crowded and with my backpack it would have been hard to make my way to the little ticket punching machine. I wasn’t going far so I wasn’t worried about the ticket check guys. Oops. Guess who was making their way through the crowd. They were very nice and very insistent that I had to pay a fine for not punching my ticket. The fine was 26.60 BAM ($18 USD) and I only had 12 BAM ($8 USD) and change. They said it was enough and took my snack money for the bus ride. So much for saving money.
The problem with the bus was that it stopped too frequently for breaks. Every two hours everyone got off to pee and smoke. And then there was the the loud thump from the engine, at which point the driver let the engine idle as we coasted down the mountain to a restaurant parking lot. I am not sure why there were three guys working on the bus, two drivers and a ticket taker, but they all pulled open the panels to the engine, in the aisle between the seats, filling the bus with noxious engine fumes, and proceeded to work on the engine. After 10 minutes they fixed whatever it was and we were on our way again. I was the last person still on the bus when we rolled into Split at 3:30am.
I walked to the tourist waterfront and waited for the sun to come up. First came lots of drunk and singing Italians that were making their way back from the bars. Then came street cleaning crews. And finally, the sun. Split has a pretty little old town that has streets that are more than a little similar to Venice. Venice is just much bigger and more maze-like. I liberated some wireless bandwidth from a local hotel and found a nearby hostel. Well actually, it was a lot of work to find it, because its tiny sign was on the door, which was standing wide open and out of view. The sign that was in view was for a hair salon. I went around and around and determined that that had to be it. The hostel was once again just a large apartment that was only barely converted. I can’t complain. He had no vacancy but found a mattress for me to sleep on, wedged in a corner. The place was overcrowded, but with free wi-fi, that was very fine.
