My favorite game to play goes as follows:
I ask you a question. You answer. Repeat.
“What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“If you were an animal, what would you be?”
I collect random facts and stories about total strangers and I catalog them in my head, where admittedly, more useful information could be stored. It’s an inconspicuous interview process that leads to fast friendship more often than not.
But sometimes the questions are thrown back at me.
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“What’s your favorite city?”
“What are you most afraid of?”
If you had asked me this just four weeks ago, I wouldn’t have known how to answer. [1]
I’d like to thank the Balkans’ bus service for making this question a tad bit easier.
So it is today, with this post, that I am, publicly acknowledging my undeniable fear of traveling by bus in the Balkans.
Wait. Allow me to rephrase that.
It’s not the traveling bit that I’m afraid of…
What I am, however, is lip-quiver, frantic laughter, masked tears level PETRIFIED of dying in a fiery crash whilst a passenger on one of these buses, which I have been far more than my liking, over the course of the past several days.
A week ago today, my project partner and I boarded a bus in a noble attempt to reach Bosnia, where we were planning to shoot a story.
Nearly 8 hours after boarding, and a few minor adjustments in schedule (unbeknown to us), we were dumped at a bus station in Montenegro at 3 a.m.
And because the next bus out wasn’t until 8 that morning, we spent the next 5 hours lingering around the bus station, spirits broken, bags of equipment in hand.
When 8 rolled around, we boarded a bus back to Prishtina with nothing to show.
This was not the first of our frustrating bus experiences in the Balkans, and it certainly wouldn’t be our last (in the following week we would take 6 more rides, totaling 48 hours in travel time).
But rather than reflect on the frustrations we experienced, I’m going to use this post to try and convey the severity of my fear, as well as it’s validity.
When you choose to board bus in the Balkans, you are choosing to put your life in jeopardy. Not only because of the condidtion of the roads – hairpin turns, on single lane roads, thousands of feet in the air – but because of the insanity of the driver’s whose hands you’ve placed your only life in.
To put it kindly, the bus drivers are assholes. Am I allowed to say that in a school post?
It’s true.
As Meredith spoke in direction of our driver during the tour we took four weeks ago, “You may not care about your life, but I care about mine”.
And as our driver was accelerating down the curviest of roads, only a meter separation from the edge of a cliff, I couldn’t help but think the same.
“Close your eyes and go to sleep. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”
My mantra of survival on repeat.
And I would close my eyes. And I would nearly fall asleep, only to be woken as we swerved so abruptly that I was sure it was the end. But it never was. And for that I am eternally grateful.
I survived the Balkan bus service. I survived it once, and then seven more times, and I’m going to conclude this blogpost with 3 pieces of advice so that if you ever find yourself about to embark on a wild ride, you might survive too.
1) If you’re going to take a bus in the Balkans, Don’t.
2) If you’re going to do it anyway, travel during the day. The views (although scary) are incredible
3) Show no fear. Once you’re on board, you’re committed to your fate. Be brave, die nobly.
Oh…. and always travel with toilet paper.
[1] Okay that’s not exactly true. I would have answered quite adamantly that I am most afraid of white glue, but considering that it’s not a well understood fear, we’ll skip over it just this once.